Summer break!

Summer break! I usually struggle to find things to blog about at this time of year. After all this is a home education blog andwe are on a proper break right now. Plus as I'm not needing to plan much this year I'm not even thinking much about home education at the moment! This is unusual for me! This morning I wrote out a list of resources to use with Ia next year. It took me about 10 minutes, alhamdulillah!

Instead I'm keeping busy with those odd jobsthat get put aside in the busier months, such as giving grubby skirting boards a fresh coat of paint, sewing and general sorting out. But I do find that I drift in these slower days, and I need a list of chores just to make sure something useful gets done!

The children are busy with what they enjoy, maashAllah. There is reading, hama beading and computer time, as well as getting out and about for some summery sunshine and meeting with friends. There has also been some interest in cooking as U chose three childrens cook books from the library this week.

The day to day is much the same, so not much new to blog about. And Ramadan is just around the corner now, inshAllah. I'll probably not be posting much until September, inshAllah, when we'll get back to home ed routines.

Enjoy the summer, inshAllah!

Seven Years

We have finished our structured home education for the summer. The girls are still working on the Ramadan lapbooks, a little each day and everyone is doing lots of reading and their daily Quran, alhamdulillah. The girls are enjoying the lapbookand my aim is to get it done by Ramadan, so we can take it slowly.
Usually at this time of year I get busy with planning ahead, but not so this year. I feel that I alreadyknow what my plans are, more or less we can just continue from where we are. Most of the resources I have already, and I have already decided what to fill the few remaining gaps with. In this respect home ed gets easier as time goes on I think. I've seen so many resources nowthat I have a much clearer idea about what I need and what suits my children. Even a couple of years ago it all seemed far less clearand I would keep checking and rechecking to see if something better than what I had could be found.
The end of this academic year marks another milestone, alhamdulillah! Most schools round here are officially breaking up throughout next week, although there are a few which have actually finished already. My sons would be about to leave primary school (had they been there), so I think they can now officially say that they've never been to primary school. It also means I can say that I've been home educating for seven years. Alhamdulillah! I'm so grateful that Allah has made this possible for us. I think we've learnt a lot as a family over these seven years and it has been a varied journey in style, method, situation and content!
Home education - always interesting!

Thinking ahead a little

Ramadan is only a few weeks away, inshAllah, and this year I'm thinking of doing things a little differently.
In previous Ramadans I have always kept some organised Islamic Studies work going, and before that when they boys were younger I did other subjects as well. Now things are different. One thing is that now Ramadan will fall during the summer holiday period, but the main difference is the age of the children. Younger children, I have found, need more help keeping occupied, but as they get older they get much better at keeping themselves busy, maashAllah, to the extent that sometimes they don't want to take time out from whatever they are doing even to do a fun activity such as art which I may have ready! I'm not complaining! This independance is a good thing, maashAllah.
So, for this Ramadan I'm not planning to list or organise their work in any way, instead, inshAllah, we will focus on the practical side of doing ibaadah, reading Quran, reading books and maybe listening to some lectures. This will mainly be me and the boys of course, but the girls can improve on learning their salaah inshAllah. U is now becoming keen to join in with salaah, maashAllah!
As a result of planning this way I decided to get started now with a Ramadan lapbook with the girls. Ia has not done one before because I was waiting for U to be old enough to join in properly. We began work on the lapbook yesterday. I'm afraid that I'm far too busy these days to come up with many new ideas myself, so I'm not being original with this lapbook at all, instead I'm looking at two example lapbooks made by other sisters and am putting together our own out of those two, maashAllah.
I'm using the Raising Muslims Ramadan lapbook and UmmK's lapbook which I put on Always Learning Resources last year.
I'm not sure how long we will take over the lapbook, but inshAllah we'll do a little everyday, especially as our other bookwork is now finished for the summer. I'm thinking of it as preparation for Ramadan!

Marzipan sweets

Today we made a simple marzipan paste which the girls then rolled and cut out. It was the first time we had made this. The dough was soft and did not crumble. It was just right for little ones, maashAllah. As long as the rolling surface remained dusted with icing sugar it did not stick either. This makes it a good dough to make with under 5s I think, especially if you have lots of fun shaped cutters. We just had round cutters.

This is the receipe:

50g icing sugar (sifted)

50g caster sugar

100g ground almonds

red food dye

100g sweetened condensed milk

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the condensed milk and blend to a paste. Add some food dye if you like. Wrap in food wrap and refridgerate for at least 20 minutes. Roll out and cut out on a surface dusted with icing sugar. Let them dry a little on a sheet of greaseproof paper.

History Through Literature

We don't do much history formally, as I have mentioned before. My sons are interested in history and seem to get to know plenty about it in their own ways, maashAllah. Imagine my surprise as we walked over to the park last weekend to hear them discussing together the actions of the Axis powers and Allies in World War II, the sequence of events etc! I've certainly not taught them about any of that, I don't prefer that sort of history myself!
I have always read a lot of literature set in history books to the boys. Some books give you plenty of historical information along with the story, especially the "My Story" series, while others just give you little bits of information amongst their story line, for example "Carries War" by Nina Bawden. Even E Nesbit's "Treasure Seekers" or "Railway Children" give you a little social history through their setting. Other books we've read include Ian Serraillier's "Silver Sword" and "Theres No Escape".
Currently I'm reading them Meindert Dejong's "House of Sixty Fathers" which is set in the Second Sino Japanese War of 1937-1945. Dejong has what seems to me a very individual style of writing, which is very simple and direct, but full of humour and insight. The book is about a boywho gets accidentally separated from his parents and his journey as he tries to get back and find them again.
I find that reading this type of literature with the boys gives them little windows of insight into different times and different places and sparks their interest to find out more.
As they grow older I have other books in mind for future reading inshAllah, such as "Empire of the Sun" byJG Ballard and " A Single Tear" by Wu Ningkun. There are so many more. Of course these books must always be seen as portraying one side of the story, the author's viewpoint and they are not intended to be historical accounts, but they give a flavour of their period and can lead on to further learning, inshAllah.