Science

The boys are very nearly at the end of Galore Park Science book 1. We spread this book out over two years. Most of the biology was done last year, with lots of diversions into further work, while the chemistry and physics sections were done this year. The questions can get a little dull, but all the information is clearly presented in there so the boys can read it and understand for themselves, maashAllah.
So, time to think about what to use next year. I looked at the second book from Galore Park, and will probably get that, but it is not appealing at all to find that most of the topics on the contents page look very familiar. This is the trouble with National Curriculum science, you seem to be going round and round over and over the same topics again with too much regularity. Yes, more depth is added each time, but it really would be more interesting to put two years worth of depth into one go, then give that topic a rest for a year at least! I can do that myself of course, I don't have to use a curriculum as a guideline at all. I have not kept to it exactly in any case.
With history and geography I just ignore the National Curriculum completely and we do our own thing. I don't need the guideline as I feel I know my way round those subjects sufficiently to find my own way. I recently heard a professor (whose name I forget) speaking on the radio saying that in his opinion a national curriculum for history was an "abomination". I took note, as this seems like a handy response for when asked why I'm not following NC.
So, the only reason why I feel I need a textbook "spine" for science is that without it I'd be wondering what to do and how to start. As I'm not a sciences person it doesn't appear as obvious to me as it does with humanities or languages. For many other home educators it must be the other way round. It is no co-incidence that our most structured study areas are maths and science.
But in any case looking at the on going curriculum content I can be reassured with my decision not to structure any science for under 7, and just to pick and choose the most interesting topics to enjoy after that. It is not like you can really miss anything. It will all becoming round again, like an unwanted dish on a sushi belt.

Literature studies

As we ease into summer mode, inshAllah, I thought the boys would enjoy a literature study. We've done these before and they usually find them interesting, maashAllah. This time I chose "Lord of the Flies"by William Golding and read it aloud to them, a chapter each morning. They were gripped by the story and were interested in the motivations and behaviours of the characters. The story is very violent too of course, and they were quite shocked by it. J couldn't wait for the last chapter, so he read it himself the afternoon before I read it aloud to them both.
Having finished the reading and all the discussion along the way I set aside time for them to do some essay writing . In this "end of term" mode I just cancelled a couple of other items of the shedule to give plenty of relaxed time for the writing.
I gave them the title of "Discuss the theme of authority in Lord of the Flies". In preparation I had made a series of sub-questions designed to be the content of paragraphs (eg, How is authority established on the island? How and why does authority breakdown and change? What are the symbols of authority? Discuss the differering natures of authority as shown here etc.)
We discussed the ideas for the paragraphs and then they got writing. It may seem like a lot, but because this is something they enjoy and find interesting the ideas flow, maashAllah. It is certainly a lot less stressful than a lesson on division of decimals!
I have a couple more topics up my sleeve for next week, inshAllah, "Discuss the many forms of the Beast" and "Playing with fire, fire as destruction and survival in Lord of the Flies". I think three topics altogether will be enough, although this book is so rich in themes and ideas that you could go on with it for weeks! Might take the edge off the enjoyment though! Again I've already sketched out an outline for these topics, which we will discuss and then they'll use to support their writing, inshAllah.
I asked R if he wanted to try rereading the book by himself, but he said he'd prefer to go back to it in a while, when the memory of it is not as fresh. I think if he does that then he will discover much more with a second reading.
Reading this novel as a Muslim it does strike me how the novel illustrates the need for divine authority, and how without that humans can so easily fall into oppression of each other. This is shown in both the island world and in the outer world, where a war is taking place. Critical analysis is often done through the lens of the critic's belief, be that Marxist, Feminist or whatever. This novel does lend itself to being looked at through a religious (or anti-religious)lens, but an Islamic lens in our case.

Garden pics

It is nearly the end of June already, subhanAllah. We are getting on with finishing off our work for the year, and spending time in the garden alhamdulillah.

The strawberries are starting to ripen. I think we've had three so far! Not exactly a bowlful, but we only have a few plants. Strawberries are very easy to grow, alhamdulillah, but to get a meaningful sized crop you do need space! Still, it is beneficial to even have these few, and they do taste good, alhamdulillah!

The garden is generally bloomimg, maashAllah, so time for a few pics on the blog!

Lion Lapbook

We have not done a lapbook for a while. Sometimes you can get too much of a good thing! But by last Thursday the girls were asking to do an animal lapbook and we got started on Friday. They did some over the weekend too and finished off today.

The whole of the lion lapbook was printed off from Homeschool Share. I added a story page, for some creative writing. Ia wrote her own, but U told me her story, I wrote it down and she traced over it.

Reptile encounter!

Today I took the girls to an animal encounters event being held in a community centre nearby. The girls wanted to hold the corn snake here, and they held it for quite a while. The snakes's tail went about 5cm up U's sleeve. She said it tickled!

Geography

This morning the boys were researching an African country each, using the internet. This is part of our geography study. I printed out a notebook page with the outline map of the African country chosen (today it was Egypt for R and Ethiopia for J) and they just got on with filling the page.
While they were doing this I thought that I really should mention the Trail Guide to World Geography again on this blog. Our geography study is based around the guide, and it really makes it easy for me to set independent work for them to tackle, maashAllah.
I have not bought the student notebook pages for the Trail Guide, just the main book. I use outline maps and notebook pages sourced elsewhere and put it all together in binder files. This also gives me the flexibility to get the boys to do some work as word documents.
As Ia moves into keystage 2 next year I think it will be a good time to start using the guide with her too, inshAllah. I think she'll use the project differently from theboys. I think she will be more interested in the wildlife and habitats of various countries, and we'll probably add some lapbooking elements as well. The guide is so flexible, and although it is sheduled into weeks I just ignore all that and let it flow along at a speed that works for us. After all, even if we never complete the whole world tour it won't matter. Skills will have been picked up along the way and more will be known about the world than before we started, inshAllah.

French Club

I've just finished using this French bookwith the boys. It comes as a set with a book 1 as well. I got them from the Book People. Book 1 was ok, but many of the audio pieces were songs which I did not like. Book 2 however is very good! The chapters do not teach a systematic or thorough approach, the book is not designed that way, but various bits of grammar are built on and through regular use the boys picked up lots of vocabulary, maashAllah. What I really liked about book 2 was the audio. The listening comprehension exercises are really good, varied with a varied way of recording answers. The conversations are relaxed, and go at a good speed, just enough for challenge. I found that the boys benefitted from the listening exercises, and this also improved their pronunciation.
I have been searching and searching for more such listening exercises, but the materials designed for use with children in keystage three areVERY expensive. I mean £80 plus for an audio cassette to go with a pupil book. Adult courses are cheaper, but generally just contain the sort of tourist vocab that young kids don't need to use. They are also usually set in a social context suitable for young adults, or business people, neither of which is any good either. I'd love to get Rosetta Stone, but it is just tooo expensive at the moment. All of this makes the Book Club course even more praiseworthy, as it comes at a decent price. There is a Spanish set too, (which I have not got.)

Quite some weeks ago the girls and I planted some seeds. Coriander and sunflowers. Here are the results so far, maashAllah!

Library books

I was very used to my old blog style. I don't bother to change things often. The look of something doesn't interest me too much, but because of the little arrow marks on the old template just where the date was I kept thinking there was a grubby fingerprint on my screen, when in fact it was the overlapping template. I would have probably been too lazy about it to make the change until blogger put that new design thing right in front of me!

The library books in the picture have helped keep the girls busy over the weekend, maashAllah. The Usborne Science make and do book has lots of fun activities inside. It is not really that scientific, as it doesn't explain the science behind the activities, but the activities are fun for exploring and building experiences. The girls have made shadow puppets and floating ice boats this weekend.

Since having the opportunity to handle a lizard recently Ia has become quite interested in them and picked out some lizard books from the library this weekend. She has been reading through them independently, maashAllah. She is very interested in animals at the moment, in fiction and non-fiction books, maashAllah. Last week she read about barn owls and large mammals. Having given her thoses reminders to read regularly I now findthat she has developed this into her own habit and I no longer need to remind her often, alhamdulillah.

Light and shadow

Today we've been learning about light and shadows and experimenting with the distance from the light source and size of shadow. J remembered that there is a night vision feature on one of the old mobile phone cameras, so we were able to get this picture!

As part of her games U has been writing out badges. She wrote "U r a star". I helped her spell star, she did the rest herself. Oh no, none of the others has begun writing in txt!!! She is the only one to just try writing it herself. The others always asked for the spellings! That is U being different again, maashAllah!

Basic update

We've been getting back into routine thisweek. Ia still has six weeks left on themaths curriculum. Every year the Collins maths is the last thing to get finished! The boys are making steady progress on the Conquer Maths programme. Whenever they find a lesson tricky I pause and do lots of further practice over the following days, usually from Galore Park book 1, until they are comfortable with the topic. I intend to just keep plugging along with the maths until we break for summer, inshAllah.
The boys have finished their English textbook for the year. We have used Galore Park 1. I liked this book, the texts were at the right level for us and the writing tasks were interesting without being prescriptive or over structured. However, the variety of texts was disappointing. There was no poetry or playscript in the whole ten units. I really can't understand why. I made enquiries on a home-ed forum and found that book two was not recommended, and I was advised to have a look at the WHSmith Challenge books instead. At first I had my doubts. I thought that a WHSmith book wasn't going to be up to much, but I was very surprised to find that there is a good variety of interesting tasks in there! Plus it comes with an answer key, has 20 units, and is very cheap! Of course the real test will come when I have to actually use the book from September, but I'm hopeful inshAllah. Until then I'm doing some read aloud literature with the boys, inshAllah.
Other topics and subjects are continuing slow but steady, maashAllah.

Our social week!

We have spent this week mainly meeting with friends, visiting our friends and having friends visit us! A social week! The boys have played cricket and football as well, but mainly it has been fun with the friends who usually go to school but who have been on holiday this week.