Science link

I was looking around for some activities on forces and friction today when I found Engineering Interact. It seems good, plenty of information, but clear, with reasonably challenging questions. The boys complained the unit the worked through was too long, but then science isn't really their favourite anyway. They did finish it, of course!
For our history topic at the moment we are studying Yusuf (as).Having read through the Goodward "Tell Me About" book by themselves I decided that next I would read the Ibn Kathir Tafsir to them, so we will take that a little at a time, inshAllah, with simplification where necessary. I think I'm working towards some kind of review project at the end of the reading!
Ia has been looking at area today. Very simple of course. We used the palm of her hand as a unit of area, made a cut out of it, then found items with a smaller, similar and larger surface area than her hand. I made a table up for her, as I did last week with the lengths, and she recorded what she found with drawings.
Overall it has been a busy day, alhamdulillah. Giving the boys a bigger breakfast has helped with routine, in fact I use the longer time it takes them to eat it as the opportunity to read to them. Then, while the boys go upstairs to get dressed Ia and U can listen to Quran, until the boys are back for their recitation time. And after that... where does the day go?

New Links

Sometimes I end the home educating day feeling a little disappointed at not having achieved what I set out to that day. At these times it can help to look back at what the children achieved, regardless of my role in it.
U: Today U achieved her ambition to just dig in soil. Usually there are so many little plants around that I don't let her wield a trowel randomly, but in the newly dug, empty bit of ground she can dig all she likes. As she dug she sang a little song "I diggin, I diggin", much as Winnie The Pooh might have sung had he done any digging, except he would have probably had more verses.
Ia: Spent a large part of the day on the computer. With the help of the excellent iboard she added up the values on coins, and found totals less than 10. Her brothers have often teased her with "You don't know what one plus one is", but now she does.
Boys: Listened to a brief history of Zaid ibn Thabit, the great scholar, scribe and translator for the Prophet Muhammed (saw), and compiler of the Quran. They also enjoyed the last two chapters of the "Treasure Seekers", (I have the sequal), did other bits of maths, English, Quran, baked a chocolate cake, played in the garden, did science stuff online.

Actually, when I look at it like that it doesn't seem so bad after all!
I was looking for more stuff about our current science topic and found some new useful links. I've put them in the sidebar. The Institute for Physics does not seem like a place for primary education, but if you look in the activities section you can find some ideas suitable for primary level. The other sites have a range of resources to explore.