Wildlife, chat and history

Ia has been enjoying watching video clips of wild animals on the Arkive site. This followed on from yesterday’s mountains study, when we looked into animals living in mountain habitats. We followed the links from the Woodlands site, (homework help section) watching the video clips, then we looked at the Rocky mountains site. The boys selected that site to choose a couple of animals to take notes on. They also enjoyed the quiz on what to do on encountering bears and other bear knowledge.
Ia and U glued some coloured paper shapes. Interestingly U sorted the shapes by sticking all the blues and greens on one side of the paper and the reds and pinks on the other.

Today did not go to plan! H was unexpectedly home, so could take the boys to Jummah. This meant that I could take the girls to a little ones learn and play session. I thought the girls might enjoy the different company, but I think they would have rather stayed home! U tried to have a very animated conversation with a sister there. She can pull very odd faces when trying to make a point. I heard her saying “When it gets dark outside we can switch the light on”. The sister humoured her for a while, lack of feedback did not put U off . U is very chatty, maashAllah, and assumes any child who does not talk as much is younger than her. She said of her “peer group”, “These babies want to eat all our breadsticks!”
I suppose it is about expectations. Ia expects her friends to not just chat, but to advise and make comments. She told me that her good friend B advised her that her hair looks best when her plait or ponytail is worn over her shoulder, under her chin. Ia complained that this might be nice, but it tickles too much.


Otherwise, we have come across more fascinating history in the book on Salah-ed-Din.
I like this stuff so much I do feel the need to share it! It’s the detail you see, the bringing close of long ago lives.
We are currently reading about the siege of Acre, by the Franks. The people inside the city are holding out against continuous bombardment from the stone hurling mangonels . The city walls are weakening, and the harbour is blocked, leading to famine. The army of Salah-Ed –Din is outside the city, supporting the people inside and continuously engaging with the Frank army. This goes on and on. Both sides receive reinforcements. To try to help the starving citizens a Muslim ship sets off from Beirut, disguised as a Frankish ship.
The Muslims shaved their beards and dressed in the clothes of the Franks. They placed pigs on the deck of the ship and then stocked the hold with food. When they got to Acre they pretended to have come from far away, with food for the Franks. When they were challenged they said they assumed the Franks had captured Acre, but if not then they’d go to the Frank army with their supplies. Then they said that another ship was approaching, so the Franks who had approached them should go out and warn that ship too. While this advice was being followed they took their ship into port, much to the joy of the hungry inhabitants of Acre.
Another insight concerned the way in which messages were passed between the city and the army outside. Messengers would tie money and papers into a belt, and then would swim to the city at night. To confirm arrival the messenger would send a bird back. To protect letters from the water they would be tied in oiled silk.

Something Colourful

to brighten up these dark, dank November days. Wrapping paper collage.

Lots of hedgehog work going on in science. Hedgehog "property particulars", hedgehog menus, hedgehog diaries with descriptions of determined hedgehogs "shuffling on", finding tasty insect treats in the farmer's garden.

We're making lots of use of the Explore mountains site (learn about mountains, in sidebar), and the Woodlands section on moutains. Reading the information, watching the animation links, and noting down some main points. Primary resources also has some powerpoint files on mountains, which are good for further leads. All these sites divide the topic into useful chunks, which we can look at one at a time.

Mountains and maps

More puzzle maps here. Good for mountains topic.

Mountains

This week we started compiling a project on mountains. After having a quick whizz round some mountains facts and photos we looked at some of the references to mountains made in the Quran. Another sister kindly gave me her list of mountains references to use, and the boys have been putting them onto Powerpoint slides.
There are a lot of references, subhanallah, they could not copy them all, so we categorised into sections. For example there are many references to the mountains being firm, fixed, steadying or rooted, such as "Have We not made the Earth as a bed, And the mountains as pegs?" 78:6-7.
Also, "....and has set on the Earth firm mountains lest it should shake with you..." 31:10.
There are also several examples of the mountains in obedience to Allah in worship, such as in Surah Al-Hajj:18, where the mountains are described, along with other of the creation, as prostrating to Allah.
We also looked at the historical mentions of mountains, such as the mountain which crumbled after Musa (as) requested to see Allah, the Prophet Muhammed's (saw) receiving of the first revelation whilst in the cave on Mount Hira, and so on.
Then, today it was time to go to the map to locate the major mountain ranges. I really liked the downloadable World Features Puzzle map I found here. It took a while, and the help of an atlas to correctly place all the features, especially the rivers and lakes! (Later they did the online Europe puzzle map too). I hope we will return to that map in about a week's time, to see what we can remember, inshAllah.
I'm going to try alternating between history and geography projects, from week to week, so that we can have flow throughout the week on one topic, but then have a change so it doesn't get boring. This week was geography, next week its back to Mesopotamia, inshAllah. I'll see how it goes.