Contd

J has been learning how to help out. He has washed up, helped bake the bread and flapjacks and unloaded the washing machine. The two of them had a go at remaking the double bed, with the mattress protector ending up upside down and the sheet on back to front with its corners tucked in very oddly. But it’s never looked like that before has it?
U did not want to have her nappy changed this morning, blaming the bad smell on the cat!
Ia’s best friend has just come out in chicken pox. I told Ia that she would not be seeing B at nursery next week, and that she might get chicken pox too. U, not wanting to be left out of something B has and Ia might get said “Me, me, I ticken box!” Similarly this morning she said “I diving lessin”, as I was about to go out for mine. She gets so cross about being sidelined!
In the afternoon the boys did a spelling sheet and capacity work in between computer games and a DVD. Ia followed up capacity by experimenting with various containers and then putting most of the dinosaurs into a sink of water.
I have been sorting out some of the photos, U insists that pictures of Ia at 18 months or below are really of her, in fact she gets quite angry with Ia for it, “No, dat ME!”

Saturday

Saturday began with Ia wanting to make butterflies.
I did have a timetable in mind for other activities, but everyone else had different ideas. The boys had received an email, and found out how to download attached photos into the correct file. Then they sent email, attaching photos which they had taken.They also did some spelling work today, had a Quran lesson, went to town with H, played computer games, read and did some practical work on capacity, followed by the workbook.
Ia and U made more mess, went to the park to play on the swings and played internet games.

Not quite worked out photos

Touching flour. " I need to play this", said U.

Ia's best colouring

U's essential selection

1/05/07
I’m now into my second week of feeling ill, alhamdulillah. Last week it was earache and a sore throat, now it is a draining cold. I decided not to try to get Ia to nursery today as I didn’t feel up to it. I called the nursery and the sister there was making me feel guilty, saying that next week would be a short week anyway with the bank holiday, basically I was causing my child to miss out. And she did feel that she had missed out too. Even the boys were fed up by the end of the day as I was too exhausted to do anything with them. H took them out to the park for cricket practice.
We did spend some pleasant time in the garden reading, until the girls got grumpy with that too.
U loves to scribble in old (already used by someone else) workbooks. A few evenings ago she was scribbling away when she closed the book and said loudly in her just talking, two year old voice “I finished my lesson!”
04/05/07
Since then….I felt better, alhamdulillah and we started our study of rocks, with the recently arrived rock set. Everyone enjoyed handling the rocks, then the boys chose to study obsidian in more detail. So we looked it up in the rock book and they noted some points down.
In the afternoon we took Ia to nursery (where she made another yoghurt pot shaker, and learnt more about minibeasts). The rest of us browsed the bookshop and went to the park.
Ia wants to touch the leaves on the trees in the park. U likes touching them too but she still seems scared! Ia brought a leaf home and left it on the floor in the corridor, U refused to walk past it and shouted “leaf, leaf”
Yesterday Ia asked me whether Roo (Winnie the Pooh) used to have a dad but he died!!!

Photos are here, but not in the right place.

Still here (again)

Where should I start? The days have been mostly sunny and warm, we’ve spent time in the park with friends, the boys have been playing cricket. Friends have visited. We’ve kept up the usual routines of nursery and school groups, etc, etc.
We did the celery in ink experiment, to show how the stems take up water. This worked really well, with the leaves turning very obviously blue.
There must have been more to it, but when I get out of the habit of blogging……
Must try harder.

Catching Up

Yesterday Ia was looking at a dinosaur book where she saw a cross section picture showing the internal organs. She asked me “Is that all the food?” I thought it was very cute, maashallah.
Ia has been making good progress again. She is doing nursery number work with ease and has been making an effort to learn her letters, so she certainly knows more than she did last week. She now does her number books while the boys are doing their maths, which works well.
U is saying a lot more. Yesterday she was looking through a picture book naming lots of things I didn’t know she could say, such as dinosaur. Maashallah. She still does her long, incoherent explanations, accompanied by much arm waving. But much more of it is making sense now.
This week we have had a break from the school group routines. The weather has been warm and sunny, so we have been spending time in the park. We also went to the nature reserve for a walk again. On Saturday we went to the library, where the boys chose eight books. These have been keeping them busy and providing some quiet times. They have nearly finished them now, so another trip will be needed. Sometimes you can find some interesting books in the library, but on other visits we come away with almost nothing. So many of the books are about magic or about children behaving badly at school.As part of my clearing out effort I let them use some of the dried grasses I’ve had up in a vase for years to print with. They made some interesting patterns, although the different shapes of the grasses did not translate well in the printing. Maybe the paint was too thick

Summery feel

Tuesday we were home, and had a productive if rather stressful day. Boys calmly got on with their fiqh and maths lessons in the morning but in the afternoon they decided to make swords from cardboard, using an idea from an art and craft book. Their overexcitement about this along with U’s whingeing with her illness caused a somewhat fraught atmosphere.
Ia spent Wednesday at a friend’s house and had her group lesson. This evening she wanted to start learning to read, so I read to her from a first reading book. Need to work on her letter sounds. Yesterday I received my Book People order with some more phonics readers from Oxford. The set is called Songbirds. Ia likes the look of them, and I think the books will encourage her with the letter sounds, as at the moment, given the choice she usually goes for maths type workbooks. Yesterday she wrote some of the numbers out freehand, which I was really pleased with, maashAllah.
With L here yesterday we started the plants topic in science. Found that our pansy seedlings are about 3cm tall, while the bulb shoots outside are about 0.5cm tall, and only 7 of the 10 have come up at all. (At this point the organised blogger would insert photos).
They drew a diagram and labelled parts of a plant, answered questions on the functions of different parts of the plant and made a table of the different roots, leaves, stems and flowers we eat.
After that they did the maths assessment during which R had an enormous tantrum over one particular question he couldn’t answer. This put him in a bad temper for the whole thing and meant I couldn’t divert any attention to the girls, which seemed very unfair. Alhamdulillah in the end R and J got exactly the same percentage mark, which restored peace, until I had to explain to J one of his mistakes (which was rather silly), he didn’t want to tell R about it, but he told L, who took an oath never to tell, so imagine the uproar after that.
It was a lovely warm day so I took them to the park after that, however the boys complained of having nothing to do there (it was rather crowded), I think R and J are getting fed up of playground equipment (unless it is a new playground).
In the evening they have been reading Enid Blyton books again. As we have now finished with “The Conquest of Syria” I have started reading a big, thick book of seerah to them.
This afternoon the weather was lovely, maashAllah, sunny and warm, but not too hot. We had a picnic arranged in the park, lots of mums and kids. The boys played cricket with their friends and Ia played with the girls and went on the play equipment. This was the first day of the year for the kids to wear short sleeves.

Book Shopping (again)

Yesterday was sunny and breezy. In the afternoon we walked to town to spend the kids’ book tokens. We really are out of shelf space. The boys chose a Secret seven book, a Michael Morpurgo book and two sets of Top Trumps cards. Ia chose a Dora story book and four Topsy and Tim stories. U was happy with this as she loves “Dipsy Dim”. Later U got a fever, which has gone on today. She feels worse as she won’t take any medicine without vomiting . J had a raised temperature last night too, although, alhamdulillah, he was better by the morning.
Today saw another addition to the group. This time a returnee, he fitted right back in as if he had always been there. Today we concluded our study of Hud (as), continued learning Arabic vocabulary and wrote an adventure story in teams. One chapter per each member of each team. Ia was very patient occupying herself with looking at books, drawing and doing a little of her workbook. For some reason everyone got up very early this morning, so Ia has now gone to sleep without her dinner, and literally half way through eating a carrot.