Monday, December 05, 2011
Electronics
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Makkah Lapbook
Our lapbooks contained mini books on the following:
How Makkah Began: A recount of the story of Hajar and Ismael (as) in the desert, Zam Zam and the building of the Ka'bah.
What is Makkah like at Hajj time?: A description based on materials in the book. We had recently watched a documentary on Hajj, which was also helpful to the girls in being able to picture the scenes.
Travelling to Hajj: This mini book listed the conditions for travelling in the past and in modern times. The two lists were side by side, so a comparison could be made.
Makkah and the Kab'ah: This was another comparison mini book, this time comparing how Makkah and the Kab'ah used to look in the past with the modern day scene. The girls did some illustrations. There are lots of pictures online to look at to help with this. This mini book also gave the opportunity to use descriptive language.
The Hajj Journey: This was a worksheet from the book, showing the actions of Hajj.
Where is Makkah?: a map
What is the Arabian desert like? We did this first, as a scene setting exercise, so that the girls could understand a little of the geographic and climatic conditions of the region.
Makkah at the time of the Prophet (saw): This mini book listed a few facts, for example that the Prophet (saw) was born in Makkah and that he later conquered the town and the inhabitants embraced Islam.
Teaching Ideas
This morning I was looking around for links to writing tasks for year 2 when I came across an activity from Teaching Ideas. They have some nice writing prompts in the non-fiction section and some templates for the writing to be done on the computer. My girls had fun writing newspaper reports about an escaped zoo animal and making lost pet posters. I printed out their work to put in their year files.
Later they used an activity from the science section linked with our current habitats topic
Later they used an activity from the science section linked with our current habitats topic
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Angels Lapbook
The Five pillars of Emaan, What are Angels like?, What do Angels do, The Character of Angels and Angel Facts.
A couple of years ago I used another of the Emaan series to do a lapbook with the boys. They are useful books for kids, maashAllah.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Book stand
We had a long summer break this year, but are back to full swing home ed now, alhamdulillah.
Today I just wanted to share my bookstand lightbulb moment!!!
We all spend much of our time in a room with a big table in it. However, that table soon becomes filled up with clutter from whatever activities we are doing. Sometimes there'll be someone on each side of the table pushing books into the other person's space, not to mention all the other bits and pieces that end up on there.
Finally I thought of getting a book stand, and what a difference it makes - it immediately seems to expand the table and makes the books easier to see. I'm seriously thinking of getting a couple more!
Friday, June 10, 2011
Looking for resources
Over the last couple of days I've been looking into English resources to use with the boys next academic year, inshAllah. This year we used a WHSmith book called Challenge English. It did the job, so I decided to look for the next book in their series. It is currently out of stock on their website, which is not a good sign, as if the publisher of a book is out of stock of it then it may be about to become unavailable. Anyway, maybe its a good thing, as I started to look around at alternatives. The boys like something fresh to restart a new year with and probably the Challenge book would have been very similar to what they worked through last year.
Finding resources for this age is quite confusing. Using the Amazon look inside facility I previewed pages from various types of books being sold for use with secondary English. I didn't just look at books for the boys' own year group, but also at those for slightly older, so I could get a sense of comparison and direction.
The levels are very diverse, and it makes it clear that by this stage age is definately not the best guideline for suitability of resources, you must match up your child with the book, not your child's age. For example, I looked at GCSE course books which seemed easier in content than the Year 7 book we completed this year. I also looked at GCSE books that were much harder. I found a Year 9 (pre GCSE) book from Galore Park, which is also much more challenging than pretty much any of the GCSE course books I looked at. What about books for earlier in the 11-14 age range? Well, these seemed harder to find, unless I was interested in workbook style materials that don't seem that different to materials made for the end of primary school. Galore Park has its series, but I'm not sure if I just want more of the same from there.
Hmmm.
So, I thought, what sort of skills should we be covering for English? What are our gap areas? This year we've done lots of reading comprehension and writing tasks. We've also done some whole book studies and started working on essay writing skills. I feel that I can continue with whole book studies independently. I realised that I need to focus more on writing for different purposes. I can see why the boys have not developed those skills as much yet, as I think they find this the more boring side of writing. I know I always did. Writing to be persuasive, or to present an argument within the context of English study always seemed a bit empty to me. I think it can be more interesting to develop these skills within the context of another subject which you enjoy, rather than on random topics which may feel irrelevant.
So, bearing that in mind I think I will prefer to use other subjects as a vehicle for most of those skills, however I think we should do a little in English too. The other area I certainly need materials for is poetry. I always quite enjoyed poetry myself, but I think it is much more subjective and a matter of personal taste than prose. The boys really don't want to discuss poems in the same way that they are ready to discuss our whole book studies. I think they don't want to examine the details like that, they prefer wider themes and characterization gained from whole books. So, it would help to have a book to summarize key poetry points for them, so they get the picture without labouring over the thing too long.
Lastly I thought that maybe there are bits of grammar and usage they should tighten up on. Some terminology they do need to be able to use, which perhaps they have not bothered to retain up until now, as it isn't really necessary for reading comprehension or basic writing styles, which can both be gained through general wider reading.
So, those were the criteria with which I returned to the Amazon listings. Searching through I think I've found what I want. As I'm just looking for general skills and not working towards any particular syllabus I was able to go for a GCSE textbook which is out-of-date as far as the specifications are concerned, and so is very cheap. That book focuses on developing writing for different purposes. It also does reading skills. Although it is GCSE the sample pages show that it is no harder than the book we used last year, just laid out more colourfully!
Secondly I found an "essentials" type book, which was very cheap, so although I couldn't check inside I think is worth the risk. Hopefully this will cover the grammar and usage type bits for the 11-14 age group and will be quick about it.
Lastly I found a book just on poetry analysis. There are lots of poems in it and no doubt some will be harder than others, so I'll pick and choose between the materials as I try to introduce this topic. I have not ordered that yet.
So, the plan is to be more pick and mix with English next year, to focus on certain skills that need work, while developing other skills in the more enjoyable ways that we started using this year. There is nothing worse than dreary English. Who can be bothered to write about meaningless topics?
But this does feel like a very "in-between" stage. I know the boys are not ready to properly work towards an English GCSE, and there is no need for that at all, however they do need something a bit fresher and different from the style of work done at primary age. Maybe its just me, but it all feels a bit like I have to build the direction myself. I don't remember it being that way at primary level. It all seemed clearer then!
Edited to add: Still not all neatly resolved yet! On further examination the poetry book was not what I had hoped for, so I'm leaving that. I looked further at Galore Park books, but I don't like their choice of extracts at all. If the Challenge book becomes available I will get it inshAllah, as it is not necessary to work through all of it, and it will have its good points.
Finding resources for this age is quite confusing. Using the Amazon look inside facility I previewed pages from various types of books being sold for use with secondary English. I didn't just look at books for the boys' own year group, but also at those for slightly older, so I could get a sense of comparison and direction.
The levels are very diverse, and it makes it clear that by this stage age is definately not the best guideline for suitability of resources, you must match up your child with the book, not your child's age. For example, I looked at GCSE course books which seemed easier in content than the Year 7 book we completed this year. I also looked at GCSE books that were much harder. I found a Year 9 (pre GCSE) book from Galore Park, which is also much more challenging than pretty much any of the GCSE course books I looked at. What about books for earlier in the 11-14 age range? Well, these seemed harder to find, unless I was interested in workbook style materials that don't seem that different to materials made for the end of primary school. Galore Park has its series, but I'm not sure if I just want more of the same from there.
Hmmm.
So, I thought, what sort of skills should we be covering for English? What are our gap areas? This year we've done lots of reading comprehension and writing tasks. We've also done some whole book studies and started working on essay writing skills. I feel that I can continue with whole book studies independently. I realised that I need to focus more on writing for different purposes. I can see why the boys have not developed those skills as much yet, as I think they find this the more boring side of writing. I know I always did. Writing to be persuasive, or to present an argument within the context of English study always seemed a bit empty to me. I think it can be more interesting to develop these skills within the context of another subject which you enjoy, rather than on random topics which may feel irrelevant.
So, bearing that in mind I think I will prefer to use other subjects as a vehicle for most of those skills, however I think we should do a little in English too. The other area I certainly need materials for is poetry. I always quite enjoyed poetry myself, but I think it is much more subjective and a matter of personal taste than prose. The boys really don't want to discuss poems in the same way that they are ready to discuss our whole book studies. I think they don't want to examine the details like that, they prefer wider themes and characterization gained from whole books. So, it would help to have a book to summarize key poetry points for them, so they get the picture without labouring over the thing too long.
Lastly I thought that maybe there are bits of grammar and usage they should tighten up on. Some terminology they do need to be able to use, which perhaps they have not bothered to retain up until now, as it isn't really necessary for reading comprehension or basic writing styles, which can both be gained through general wider reading.
So, those were the criteria with which I returned to the Amazon listings. Searching through I think I've found what I want. As I'm just looking for general skills and not working towards any particular syllabus I was able to go for a GCSE textbook which is out-of-date as far as the specifications are concerned, and so is very cheap. That book focuses on developing writing for different purposes. It also does reading skills. Although it is GCSE the sample pages show that it is no harder than the book we used last year, just laid out more colourfully!
Secondly I found an "essentials" type book, which was very cheap, so although I couldn't check inside I think is worth the risk. Hopefully this will cover the grammar and usage type bits for the 11-14 age group and will be quick about it.
Lastly I found a book just on poetry analysis. There are lots of poems in it and no doubt some will be harder than others, so I'll pick and choose between the materials as I try to introduce this topic. I have not ordered that yet.
So, the plan is to be more pick and mix with English next year, to focus on certain skills that need work, while developing other skills in the more enjoyable ways that we started using this year. There is nothing worse than dreary English. Who can be bothered to write about meaningless topics?
But this does feel like a very "in-between" stage. I know the boys are not ready to properly work towards an English GCSE, and there is no need for that at all, however they do need something a bit fresher and different from the style of work done at primary age. Maybe its just me, but it all feels a bit like I have to build the direction myself. I don't remember it being that way at primary level. It all seemed clearer then!
Edited to add: Still not all neatly resolved yet! On further examination the poetry book was not what I had hoped for, so I'm leaving that. I looked further at Galore Park books, but I don't like their choice of extracts at all. If the Challenge book becomes available I will get it inshAllah, as it is not necessary to work through all of it, and it will have its good points.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Kimba Lapbook
These are the different booklets she made:
1. Characters book. In this she wrote a short description of each of the main characters.
2. "What will happen next?" This was a piece of creative writing continuing the story from the end of the book.
3. Adjective and verb flowers. Ia made a list of the adjectives which could be used to describe the lead character, Kimba, and a list of verbs to show what Kimba did.
4. Ia wrote a book review of her opinions on the story.
5. Rewriting an incident. For this piece of writing I found an incident in the story in which Kimba encounters men for the first time. The whole book is written in the third person, so Kimba's actions are described from the outside. In the incident where he encounters men Kimba's experience and reaction is very richly described, so I asked Ia to rewrite this extract of the book in the first person. I explained to her she would write as if she were Kimba, using "I". She needed to stick to the version of events as described in the book, but just tell it in "Kimba's own words".
Overall Ia enjoyed this variation to her English studies, alhamdulillah and I intend to do more of them in the coming academic year, inshAllah. I started book studies with the boys when they were year 4 (age 8-9).
Sometimes I do find that the writing suggestions in English textbooks are too detached and irrelevant. Book studies are one way of finding something more interesting to write about, inshAllah.
Friday, May 20, 2011
River Project
Over the past couple of months the boys have been working on a river project based on the river near us. They completed the final piece yesterday. I didn't plan this whole project out in advance, it started with an idea and evolved from there. Neither is it a project that is filed all in one place, it comprises some written work and some powerpoints, so it is not something that can be photographed or displayed. I've done some blog posts connected with this before, but now its time to sum up.
This is a summary of the different tasks that have gone to make up the project:
1.We walked along the areas of the river near us, photographed it at different locations and noted different features. This was done over several days, each day visiting different stretches of the river. At home the boys assembled the photos into a powerpoint presentation to describe the area of the river we had visited. This focussed on describing the features, looking at erosion etc.
2. I borrowed a book about the river from the local studies section of the library. We read about the background and history of the river and its role both in our local area and other areas it flows through. The boys made some notes on this.
3. Using the textbook "Geography fieldwork Projects" by Jennifer Frew we read about how fieldwork can be carried out on rivers. We carried out a fieldwork project on measuring the river's flow, and the boys wrote up their results for their geography files.
4. Some time later we carried out a second fieldwork exercise on investigating the river's load, which also got written up for the files.
5. Using several internet sources the boys found examples of different ways the river is currently used by people (eg leisure, wildlife sanctuaries), and some examples of historical uses (eg water mills, transportation). From this they put together powerpoint presentations to explain different uses of the river, (along its whole length,) and compare past uses with current ones.
6. Again using the textbook mentioned above we read about assessing water quality in rivers. We then searched online for information about the water quality of our local river. We found several sources of information on this. From those sources the boys put together a report looking at how water quality is assessed, problems of pollution and efforts being made to improve water quality in the river we have been studying.
I'm sure there must be many more things we could have done to extend this project further, but it seems to have run its course with us and now seems the right time to draw this particular study to a close.
However, during this long look at one particular river we have come to know it quite well, and I feel that this won't be forgotten in a hurry. Bringing something local into geography study has been really beneficial, maashAllah. Also I've come to know of some locations along the river, a little further away from us, which I'd like to visit inshAllah, so looking forward to being able to do that too.
This is a summary of the different tasks that have gone to make up the project:
1.We walked along the areas of the river near us, photographed it at different locations and noted different features. This was done over several days, each day visiting different stretches of the river. At home the boys assembled the photos into a powerpoint presentation to describe the area of the river we had visited. This focussed on describing the features, looking at erosion etc.
2. I borrowed a book about the river from the local studies section of the library. We read about the background and history of the river and its role both in our local area and other areas it flows through. The boys made some notes on this.
3. Using the textbook "Geography fieldwork Projects" by Jennifer Frew we read about how fieldwork can be carried out on rivers. We carried out a fieldwork project on measuring the river's flow, and the boys wrote up their results for their geography files.
4. Some time later we carried out a second fieldwork exercise on investigating the river's load, which also got written up for the files.
5. Using several internet sources the boys found examples of different ways the river is currently used by people (eg leisure, wildlife sanctuaries), and some examples of historical uses (eg water mills, transportation). From this they put together powerpoint presentations to explain different uses of the river, (along its whole length,) and compare past uses with current ones.
6. Again using the textbook mentioned above we read about assessing water quality in rivers. We then searched online for information about the water quality of our local river. We found several sources of information on this. From those sources the boys put together a report looking at how water quality is assessed, problems of pollution and efforts being made to improve water quality in the river we have been studying.
I'm sure there must be many more things we could have done to extend this project further, but it seems to have run its course with us and now seems the right time to draw this particular study to a close.
However, during this long look at one particular river we have come to know it quite well, and I feel that this won't be forgotten in a hurry. Bringing something local into geography study has been really beneficial, maashAllah. Also I've come to know of some locations along the river, a little further away from us, which I'd like to visit inshAllah, so looking forward to being able to do that too.
Friday, May 06, 2011
Beads and lions
This week Ia has been working on a literature lapbook. I read "Kimba" by Geoffrey Malone to the girls a few weeks ago. It is a realistic wildlife story about a lion. I thought they could both do a lapbook on it as part of their English study, but U wasn't keen. Today Ia made petal books, one of verbs and the other on adjectives. She made a list of adjectives which could be used to describe Kimba, and a list of verbs to show what Kimba does (roar, snarl, pounce, sleep etc). InshAllah I'll post this when its done. I'm determined that we should get it done within the next couple of weeks, inshAllah!
Meanwhile the girls continued their interest in big cats by watching a BBC four documentary about tigers, called Spy in the Jungle. It featured new cubs - so inevitably a hit!!!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A castle please
After a quick search I found this Usborne cut out model book, which arrived today. It took Ia and I about an hour to make this small portion of the castle! It is fiddly work, but she is enjoying this project, maashAllah. Let's see how long it takes us to put it all together!!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Home ed highlight #2
Monday, April 25, 2011
Little Highlights
Even when we are not home educating in a structured way, we are home educating. You can't get away from it really. Even when the parent takes a break the child continues the education in one way or another. Its just living.
It feels like summer - even though its April - and after this break I feel like it should be the summer holidays! It feels strange to think of getting back into the swing of structured days. I think the children feel the same!
I don't update this blog as often as I feel I should. Somehow I find I'm running out of things I can say here, that I haven't said before, but maybe I should be on the look out for those little home ed highlights, the things that tell me its all ticking along, alhamdulillah
Today I did some sewing. I made a khimar and a rough and ready laundry peg bag, using some left over cotton and a small clothes hanger (the kind that comes with small size kids clothes). Seeing me sewing made the girls think of making little clothes for their soft toys, so they got out the scrap bag and cut out bits of fabric to make non-sewn coats, scarves etc. Different fabrics cut in different ways. Some slip about, some easily tear, depending on the direction you make the cut. Today's little highlight: learning about cutting fabrics.
It feels like summer - even though its April - and after this break I feel like it should be the summer holidays! It feels strange to think of getting back into the swing of structured days. I think the children feel the same!
I don't update this blog as often as I feel I should. Somehow I find I'm running out of things I can say here, that I haven't said before, but maybe I should be on the look out for those little home ed highlights, the things that tell me its all ticking along, alhamdulillah
Today I did some sewing. I made a khimar and a rough and ready laundry peg bag, using some left over cotton and a small clothes hanger (the kind that comes with small size kids clothes). Seeing me sewing made the girls think of making little clothes for their soft toys, so they got out the scrap bag and cut out bits of fabric to make non-sewn coats, scarves etc. Different fabrics cut in different ways. Some slip about, some easily tear, depending on the direction you make the cut. Today's little highlight: learning about cutting fabrics.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Spring pace
From today we are taking a couple of weeks off, to coincide with the school holidays. As most of my kids' friends go to school they like to treat those weeks differently too.
As another sister recently remarked as children get older you just get busier! Although when busy with little ones and their constant demands you can feel very tied down you do still get to set the timetable. As they get older I'm finding myself busy with accomodating their various activities and having to work myself around the timetable that brings to me. Its a different sort of busy! Plus, I suppose when they are younger you do get periods of the day when everyone else is asleep, either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Now of course that is no longer the case either, as pretty much everyone goes to bed at the same time, and only U tends to sleep a little longer in the mornings.
So, although the weeks have gone by and I have blogged very little here, home education and life in general has been continuing apace, alhamdulillah. In fact, if anything things just seem to get faster and faster, as I try to squeeze more and more in!
Recent good weather saw us taking time in the garden and bringing the books out there too whenever possible. The boys have been doing lots of their usual outdoor sports practice and also cycling, alhamdulillah. The garden is really too small now for them to play "football" in, as their kicks will always send the ball staright into the hedge, and they can only run a few paces before reaching the hedges themselves! However, it is still good for cricket shots, so they can go outside for hours just bowling at eachother, maashAllah! They are getting better at controlling their shots now too, so fewer balls go over the hedge.
Last week I put U on a free trial at Reading Eggs.co.uk, which I heard about via a sister on the IHSAN forum. Clearly this has come along too late for us, as U has really grown out of this stage of reading, maashAllah. She has been enjoying playing the games, as there is plenty of novelty value to the site, however I don't think she has really learnt anything new, as the word level she was placed at is pretty easy. So, I won't be enrolling her after the trial expires. However I think that if I had found this site a year or so earlier I would have been really tempted to sign up. It looks really good for a child of around four to get started with.
Sunny days also saw me return to Ia's science topic on light and shadow. One day last week she spent the day recording the different lengths of the shadow cast by a brick standing on end in the garden. It goes to show what a grey winter we had that I didn't feel we could do a whole day experiment like that until now! Of course the book she was working with told her that the shadow should be shortest at noon, but as we are in British Summer Time, of course it was shortest at around 1pm, by the clock. So, this led to a discussion about the changing of the clocks.
So, we are still here and still immersed in our life of home ed, maashAllah. Now in these weeks of break I have the delights of spring cleaning (!), next term planning and maybe a little sewing to look forward to!
As another sister recently remarked as children get older you just get busier! Although when busy with little ones and their constant demands you can feel very tied down you do still get to set the timetable. As they get older I'm finding myself busy with accomodating their various activities and having to work myself around the timetable that brings to me. Its a different sort of busy! Plus, I suppose when they are younger you do get periods of the day when everyone else is asleep, either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. Now of course that is no longer the case either, as pretty much everyone goes to bed at the same time, and only U tends to sleep a little longer in the mornings.
So, although the weeks have gone by and I have blogged very little here, home education and life in general has been continuing apace, alhamdulillah. In fact, if anything things just seem to get faster and faster, as I try to squeeze more and more in!
Recent good weather saw us taking time in the garden and bringing the books out there too whenever possible. The boys have been doing lots of their usual outdoor sports practice and also cycling, alhamdulillah. The garden is really too small now for them to play "football" in, as their kicks will always send the ball staright into the hedge, and they can only run a few paces before reaching the hedges themselves! However, it is still good for cricket shots, so they can go outside for hours just bowling at eachother, maashAllah! They are getting better at controlling their shots now too, so fewer balls go over the hedge.
Last week I put U on a free trial at Reading Eggs.co.uk, which I heard about via a sister on the IHSAN forum. Clearly this has come along too late for us, as U has really grown out of this stage of reading, maashAllah. She has been enjoying playing the games, as there is plenty of novelty value to the site, however I don't think she has really learnt anything new, as the word level she was placed at is pretty easy. So, I won't be enrolling her after the trial expires. However I think that if I had found this site a year or so earlier I would have been really tempted to sign up. It looks really good for a child of around four to get started with.
Sunny days also saw me return to Ia's science topic on light and shadow. One day last week she spent the day recording the different lengths of the shadow cast by a brick standing on end in the garden. It goes to show what a grey winter we had that I didn't feel we could do a whole day experiment like that until now! Of course the book she was working with told her that the shadow should be shortest at noon, but as we are in British Summer Time, of course it was shortest at around 1pm, by the clock. So, this led to a discussion about the changing of the clocks.
So, we are still here and still immersed in our life of home ed, maashAllah. Now in these weeks of break I have the delights of spring cleaning (!), next term planning and maybe a little sewing to look forward to!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Reading (again)
Anyone who reads along here from time to time may notice that I have an ongoing theme with sourcing reading materials, especially for the boys. It just gets harder and harder. The library selection of books for the "young teen" age range is very poor. If horror or fantasy is your style, then maybe you are happy with what's on offer. If you are a girl whose interests are gossiping, backbiting and general rudeness then you are probably satisfied too. If you don't like either of those types of books then the library has hidden away the reading stock you'd like in the "reserve store".
You have to be pretty determined to unearth items from the reserve store. To start with you have to know the authors or titles you want to read. This means you need someone who read them to recommend them. If you are a kid then this is quite hard. Your friends can't recommend books they've never seen either. I asked around on a home educator forum full of clever home educators and someone suggested the author Geoffrey Trease.
Since getting this name I've ordered lots of Geoffrey Trease books from the reserve stock and the boys are really enjoying them. Most of these books have not seen the light of day for as long as ten years. They have the price in shillings on the cover. They are historical, adventure stories. The main character is always a teenage boy. I liken it to grown up Famous Five in an historical context. The boys are always "decent", the girls are always no-nonsense with a touch of tom-boy. The history in there is often based closely on real events, but is so wrapped up with the adventure story that it is effortlessly absorbed. It's ideal for my sons at the moment. So good not to be hearing "What shall I read now?" every few days!
Geoffrey Trease wrote loads of books, but the library stock is dwindling. Only the survivors remain in the store. Enjoy it while it lasts.
You have to be pretty determined to unearth items from the reserve store. To start with you have to know the authors or titles you want to read. This means you need someone who read them to recommend them. If you are a kid then this is quite hard. Your friends can't recommend books they've never seen either. I asked around on a home educator forum full of clever home educators and someone suggested the author Geoffrey Trease.
Since getting this name I've ordered lots of Geoffrey Trease books from the reserve stock and the boys are really enjoying them. Most of these books have not seen the light of day for as long as ten years. They have the price in shillings on the cover. They are historical, adventure stories. The main character is always a teenage boy. I liken it to grown up Famous Five in an historical context. The boys are always "decent", the girls are always no-nonsense with a touch of tom-boy. The history in there is often based closely on real events, but is so wrapped up with the adventure story that it is effortlessly absorbed. It's ideal for my sons at the moment. So good not to be hearing "What shall I read now?" every few days!
Geoffrey Trease wrote loads of books, but the library stock is dwindling. Only the survivors remain in the store. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Geography fieldwork
Today we took advantage of some sunny spring weather to do a little more on our rivers project. Today we did fieldwork on measuring the rate of flow. We found a shallow, but quite fast flowing area to investigate. We placed markers using string attached to either side of the bank, to mark the start and finish lines. On one side we tied the string to plants, on the other we found a piece of wood lying about, which we made into a post. We placed the two lines 10 metres apart.Next the boys took measurements using a measuring tape. They measured the depth of the channel by either bank, and in the middle, then they measured the width of the channel. They did this at both lines.
Next it was time to measure the flow. We used clementine peel as a float. R put it in the water at the start line and started the stopwatch. J caught it at the other end and called out to stop the timing. I recorded the results. We measured from the left, right and middle three times each.
After that everyone had a paddle in the water (except me), then we came home. InshAllah we'll be putting the results together later this week.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Home ed still going on!
Home education is still going on. In fact, everything seems to get busier and busier, alhamdulillah.
We've been working on a rivers project amongst our other usual activities.
I've discovered that U gets much more motivated when she is given something new to work on. Always a new book, preferably one that can be got through fairly quickly. If working through it takes too long she will lose interest. I'm not talking about working in one day here, but using a book over a period of weeks.
Today I tried her with an Emaan series workbook. I bought some of the reading series years ago, just at the time when it temporarily became harder to get hold of. I just picked up the copies that remained in the shop, these included a level three workbook. For whatever reason I never used the workbook before, but decided to try it with U today, as something different. She read the story " A Home for Fuzzy" then did the few pages on it from the book. It worked out well, alhamdulillah.
These days the reading books are available again. You can find them here.
We've been working on a rivers project amongst our other usual activities.
I've discovered that U gets much more motivated when she is given something new to work on. Always a new book, preferably one that can be got through fairly quickly. If working through it takes too long she will lose interest. I'm not talking about working in one day here, but using a book over a period of weeks.
Today I tried her with an Emaan series workbook. I bought some of the reading series years ago, just at the time when it temporarily became harder to get hold of. I just picked up the copies that remained in the shop, these included a level three workbook. For whatever reason I never used the workbook before, but decided to try it with U today, as something different. She read the story " A Home for Fuzzy" then did the few pages on it from the book. It worked out well, alhamdulillah.
These days the reading books are available again. You can find them here.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
History, libraries
This week the news talk is all about protests against library closures. Some pompous individuals have been voicing their opinions that libraries are no longer needed as everything is on the internet now, and anyway books are so cheap people can just buy them.
I use the internet a lot, but if I do a search on a topic to find out information to help us with a project I mainly find two categories of sites. If I just put in the topic I get long academic style results, which are too detailed and written in language that is too complex for my children to use. If I enter the same search topic with "for kids" added, I get something bite-sized and superficial, which may do fine as an introduction but which doesn't offer more than that. (And Wikipedia, which is OK for certain quick fact finds but not good for everything.)Maybe its just me being inefficient at searching, but I don't seem to easily turn up material pitched correctly for our purpose.
As I'm currently reading " A Tale of Two Cities" to the boys I thought we'd do some history study on the French Revolution" at the same time. I also thought that I could use a little history study to start developing some new study skills with the boys, as history is a subject area they enjoy.
Of course, the first thing I need is a good supply of information that is accessible to their reading level. I could spend ages trawling the internet trying to find something, or I could just ask the librarian to order in everything in the county's junior non-fiction section on the French Revolution. The librarian finds 5 books. One is a Danger Zone book, which is a bit of fun, they read then we return. I'm left with four good, informative books. Plenty of text, but clearly explained.
Next step, I read to them the introductory sections and we talk about it. I make reference to the way Dickens illustrated some of this information in his novel. Dickens has painted some personalities for us, the boys can imagine the situation better, can imagine the nobility and the poor. It may not be 100% accurate, but it helps them get a feel for the period, which makes it easier to understand.
Next I ask them to write short paragraphs to describe each of the three estates, and another to summarise the nature of society in pre-revoluntionary France. I give them three of the 4 books to do this from. (The fourth book was the easiest one, which they read through the week before last as an overview and timeline). They need to look through the relevant bits of the three books to find where the information they need is best presented and take their notes from there. I could just tell them to look on page 6 of one particular book, but that wouldn't be the same thing at all. The point is to develop a basic level of research skills. So, I need more than one book.
If I didn't have the library I wouldn't be able to afford to buy more than one book on the topic, (even then it would be hard to know from just looking at Amazon which book would be most suitable) and as I said before my internet searches do not yield just what I'm after.
So, the library is invaluable to the way I home educate, and for so many more reasons than those I've used as examples above.
I use the internet a lot, but if I do a search on a topic to find out information to help us with a project I mainly find two categories of sites. If I just put in the topic I get long academic style results, which are too detailed and written in language that is too complex for my children to use. If I enter the same search topic with "for kids" added, I get something bite-sized and superficial, which may do fine as an introduction but which doesn't offer more than that. (And Wikipedia, which is OK for certain quick fact finds but not good for everything.)Maybe its just me being inefficient at searching, but I don't seem to easily turn up material pitched correctly for our purpose.
As I'm currently reading " A Tale of Two Cities" to the boys I thought we'd do some history study on the French Revolution" at the same time. I also thought that I could use a little history study to start developing some new study skills with the boys, as history is a subject area they enjoy.
Of course, the first thing I need is a good supply of information that is accessible to their reading level. I could spend ages trawling the internet trying to find something, or I could just ask the librarian to order in everything in the county's junior non-fiction section on the French Revolution. The librarian finds 5 books. One is a Danger Zone book, which is a bit of fun, they read then we return. I'm left with four good, informative books. Plenty of text, but clearly explained.
Next step, I read to them the introductory sections and we talk about it. I make reference to the way Dickens illustrated some of this information in his novel. Dickens has painted some personalities for us, the boys can imagine the situation better, can imagine the nobility and the poor. It may not be 100% accurate, but it helps them get a feel for the period, which makes it easier to understand.
Next I ask them to write short paragraphs to describe each of the three estates, and another to summarise the nature of society in pre-revoluntionary France. I give them three of the 4 books to do this from. (The fourth book was the easiest one, which they read through the week before last as an overview and timeline). They need to look through the relevant bits of the three books to find where the information they need is best presented and take their notes from there. I could just tell them to look on page 6 of one particular book, but that wouldn't be the same thing at all. The point is to develop a basic level of research skills. So, I need more than one book.
If I didn't have the library I wouldn't be able to afford to buy more than one book on the topic, (even then it would be hard to know from just looking at Amazon which book would be most suitable) and as I said before my internet searches do not yield just what I'm after.
So, the library is invaluable to the way I home educate, and for so many more reasons than those I've used as examples above.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Learning to read
I had a couple of brief conversations today which made me think about the way in which my children have learnt and are learning to read. Often the question comes up about either phonics or look say methods. I can't say my children have been keen on phonics, they usually find it quite dull, and they don't like the silly, often meaningless stories that come in phonic readers. I continue to use the extra old Peter and Jane books, the same edition which can be viewed in a museum case. It works for us!
However this doesn't mean no phonics at all. I do the initial sounds and basic blends, through workbooks generally. But, maybe the main way I involve the phonic aspect is through the way I hear the child read the old Peter and Jane. I don't expect them just to memorise the word, I do expect them to have a go at sounding out the new words as they come up. When a word does not conform to the phonic rules, I just tell them that and they learn it as an exception. If the new word was "shop" and the child hesitated I would not just say shop to them, but rather I would make a "sh" sound and wait a moment, then I'd say "sh" "o", and so on. Often the child then gets it and finishes the word off. This is how I prompt them on words which they forget, so while we use the look say book, I try to show them the methods of working out new words, but I do this as the words occur, rather than teaching the sounds separately.
For us this works because it means that the children get to read books with actual characters and some kind of story, while learning how to use the various tactics needed to get round all the inconsistencies of English!
I also like the fact that the Peter and Jane books quickly have a full page of words to read, rather than just a brief sentence or two per page. I think this gets the child used to having plenty to read, so they don't get put off by lots of text on a page later on. Lots of text, but its easy to read, so nothing to be afraid of there then! Alhamdulillah.
However this doesn't mean no phonics at all. I do the initial sounds and basic blends, through workbooks generally. But, maybe the main way I involve the phonic aspect is through the way I hear the child read the old Peter and Jane. I don't expect them just to memorise the word, I do expect them to have a go at sounding out the new words as they come up. When a word does not conform to the phonic rules, I just tell them that and they learn it as an exception. If the new word was "shop" and the child hesitated I would not just say shop to them, but rather I would make a "sh" sound and wait a moment, then I'd say "sh" "o", and so on. Often the child then gets it and finishes the word off. This is how I prompt them on words which they forget, so while we use the look say book, I try to show them the methods of working out new words, but I do this as the words occur, rather than teaching the sounds separately.
For us this works because it means that the children get to read books with actual characters and some kind of story, while learning how to use the various tactics needed to get round all the inconsistencies of English!
I also like the fact that the Peter and Jane books quickly have a full page of words to read, rather than just a brief sentence or two per page. I think this gets the child used to having plenty to read, so they don't get put off by lots of text on a page later on. Lots of text, but its easy to read, so nothing to be afraid of there then! Alhamdulillah.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Maps
As part of geography this year with Ia I'm using the book Mapstart 1. Mapstart 1 begins with the different ways we can look at objects and then a room. There are questions on every page and I'm just working through these with Ia orally, as the point is to learn about maps and plans, not to write comprehension answers! Most of the questions at the beginning of the book are very easy anyway, asking the child to find things in the picture and using the language of direction (next to, on the right of etc).On Friday we reached the page showing the model Lego town and then the plan of the model. To follow from that I asked Ia to make a model of part of a town, which is shown in the picture above. After that she drew out a plan of the model, with labels.
I remember that when I did this with the boys we did a really big model, covering our table. It was a good model, maashAllah, but they tired a bit of drawing out such a big plan, so I scaled things down for Ia!
This is a fun activity, whether or not you are using Mapstart!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Reading this week
I'm trying to integrate some whole book studies into the boy's shedule. I'd like to assign them some reading through which they can learn something about history or society etc. The idea is that they will read the book one week, then do some written work on it the following week, probably in the form of several short essays.
I'm going to have to put some effort into sourcing material for them, but at least for this week I have assigned "Lost Riders" by Elizabeth Laird.
The book is about child exploitation, with poor boys from Pakistan traffiked to Dubai to work in camel racing. In the preface it is mentioned that the UAE has passed laws to prevent this now.
The story is shocking, but written in an easy style. I think the boys found it quite compelling reading as they each finished it in a day, maashAllah.
(By the way I'm not planning to only post here on Wednesdays now, it just seems to have turned out that way recently!)
I'm going to have to put some effort into sourcing material for them, but at least for this week I have assigned "Lost Riders" by Elizabeth Laird.
The book is about child exploitation, with poor boys from Pakistan traffiked to Dubai to work in camel racing. In the preface it is mentioned that the UAE has passed laws to prevent this now.
The story is shocking, but written in an easy style. I think the boys found it quite compelling reading as they each finished it in a day, maashAllah.
(By the way I'm not planning to only post here on Wednesdays now, it just seems to have turned out that way recently!)
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Couple of links
Today we watched one of this year's Royal Institution science lectures on iplayer. (Tomorrow, Thursday, is the last day these are available). For the first time we did not watch an iplayer programme gathered around the PC screen because the boys now know how to watch the iplayer on a normal tv, via the Wii console.
As kids get older they are a real help with technological matters, maashAllah!
I thought I'd post a couple of links to other online stuff they've discovered and experimented with recently:
Sumo Paint This is free and you don't need to download it. It works in a similar way to the old Paint, found on most PCs, but with more features. The boys have been trying out designs on there.
CamStudio This one allows you to video what you are doing on your screen, like the print screen button, but in video. You might not think there is much use for that, but the boys sought this tool out for a specific task they had in mind, and it seemed to work out for them, maashAllah.
Sometimes I have tried showing them things online that I've found links to on home ed lists or on blogs, but usually they don't take those up. They need real tasks, which they devise for themselves, to get themselves searching for and using tools like these. I suppose that is more like "real life" anyway!
As kids get older they are a real help with technological matters, maashAllah!
I thought I'd post a couple of links to other online stuff they've discovered and experimented with recently:
Sumo Paint This is free and you don't need to download it. It works in a similar way to the old Paint, found on most PCs, but with more features. The boys have been trying out designs on there.
CamStudio This one allows you to video what you are doing on your screen, like the print screen button, but in video. You might not think there is much use for that, but the boys sought this tool out for a specific task they had in mind, and it seemed to work out for them, maashAllah.
Sometimes I have tried showing them things online that I've found links to on home ed lists or on blogs, but usually they don't take those up. They need real tasks, which they devise for themselves, to get themselves searching for and using tools like these. I suppose that is more like "real life" anyway!
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