And next.....

Last week we came to the end of the biography of Salah-Ed-Deen. Shortly before he died he made peace with the Franks and the English and shared the territories between them. His troops had come to a point where they were choosing to disobey orders rather than fight, so he felt that he had no choice but to make peace. This surely was disappointing for him as he had determined not to give up until the invaders had been expelled. He apparently commented that the treaty would result in loss for the Muslims, meaning that the enemy would strengthen themselves within their newly agreed territories, then they would come out to fight again in years to come. This was indeed what happened.
From this week we are reading from “Torchbearers of Islam" by Noura Durkee, published by Iqra. This book is part of a series we have read from before, telling stories from the lives of the sahabah.
Today has been a day of mixed moods. Ia has been very industrious, maashAllah. This morning she wanted to play pet shops with real money, so lots of coin recognition practice. This afternoon she has joined in with the day's French activity (drawing and cutting out clothes shapes, making a poster and labelling, sort of rehash/revision of last week's activity), spent ages cutting up little pieces of paper, sticking them together and wrapping them as gifts and threaded a bead necklace.
The boys got all their normal stuff done and made three powerpoint slides on the Himalayas, part of a round up on this topic. The coming weeks need to be a time for starting new topics, inshAllah, as we've exhausted a few subject areas. I also need to find INTERESTING ways of consolidating vocabulary learning in Arabic, that would need several interesting ideas a week, so any contributions most welcome!

First Flowers

Look carefully and you can see little, yellow flowers, the size of peas. Here there is a group of them, there are other individual ones in other parts of the garden. I don't know what they are called, but even if they are common weeds they are a cheery sight, the first flowers of the year. MaashAllah.

Eggs and Chips

Doing the eggs and chips activity is a marker point for me with early maths. I read about this activity in a book, whilst I was in my HE researching period, when the boys were three and Ia was no more than a pregnancy in progress. Today I did egg and chips with Ia, as I have done with all the children I have been involved with at that age. The way in which the child responds to egg and chips can tell you a lot.
To play egg and chips you need lots of cut out egg and chip pictures and 5 plates. The object is to set up different combinations of eggs and chips on each plate so that each plate holds a different combination and so that there are 6 items on each plate. The child has to do this themselves with only an absolute minimum of input from the adult. You can’t show them how to do it. Then, when they’ve arranged the items you ask them how they could record this onto paper, and again let them record it anyway they prefer.
I found that Ia got off to a good start but later needed to be reminded a few times of the total allowed on each plate. She was good at self correction, although she was clearly tempted to take the activity beyond a maths puzzle and into a story about a family meal (this plate is for the dad…).
Her choice of recording was to draw the plates, each within its own box, so a clear layout choice! I asked her if it would be possible to record it with numbers too, and she was able to write the combinations. MaashAllah. Eggs and chips is always so interesting.
Sorry the photo is not so good, but I really didn't expect to be able to post it!

Writing Poems Together

Sandcastle

A tall sandcastle
The sea gushes around it
Like a moat

Giggles

Peals of happiness
Such funny laughing non-stop
Infectious

A haiku has just three lines. The first line has 5 syllables, the second has 7 or 8 and the last line 3, 4 or 5. Why not have a go!

What is…a blanket?
A blanket is a huge bed covered with dreams
A blanket is a soft wonder world
A blanket is a warm radiator
A blanket is a secret hiding place

What is frost?

Frost is frozen fingertips of coldness
Trampled frost is sherbet crackling
Frost is a breath from a freezer
Frost is icing sugar dusted

Busy Monday

Everyday I put a message in a bottle and
Put it in the sea
I hope someone will reply
And send one back to me.

®

It’s a nutchase
I need to bury my nut quick for the winter
I need to hide my nuts in my nest
A jay, he stole my nuts, then went up a tree, I go too, ouch, splinter!
I ran like a cheetah up that tree
The squirrel is gaining, what to do, I’ll go to my nest.
He’s gone, he stole my nut, I tried my best
He, the squirrel, is gone, I am like a cheetah to outrun that squirrel!
(J)

Yesterday was generally productive, alhamdulillah. In the history of Salah-Ed-Din we are nearing the end of his life. Clearly he was suffering problems of low morale in his army. The army is described as not trying, having no will to continue. At one point they surround a small encampment containing the English king Richard I, but lack the will to act against it, despite the Sultan visiting the squadrons to give them morale booster speeches. Richard I is reported to have paraded in front of Salah-Ed-Din’s troops, with no one moving to challenge him. Salah-Ed-Din was so angry he actually had to leave the area for a time, to calm down.
Now that we’ve spent a few months introducing French I thought it is time to use and remember some of the vocabulary a little more methodically. Yesterday we revised some colour and clothing words with the DVD, then we made “catalogues”, by cutting up old clothing catalogues, sticking pictures of clothes into folded paper books and labelling them in simple vocab, “un pantalon gris” and so on. InshAllah, I won’t make mistakes with this!
With Arabic letters for Ia I tried using pipe cleaners (from a craft set) to form letter shapes. This seems to work well as you can keep manipulating the pipe cleaner until you get it right, and then it stays like that! We made some and stuck them onto paper. I used tiny bits of pipe cleaner for the dots, this is not as good, but using a different material would be disjointed.
Ia also did an activity on ways of making six. This is now very easy for her, alhamdulillah. I drew three sets of two circles and asked her to stick six stickers into each set, so that each set was different. She made 2/4, 3/3 and 1/5. Then she wrote the numbers underneath.
They are all still into this phase of playing complex imaginary games. Even U got to be included in some of them yesterday.
I am still mostly unable to post photos. When I click "done" a message comes up from windows, and after that it is impossible to get the image onto the post. I allow 5 attempts per picture. Occasionally it could let it through.

Time flies (again)

Allah is the best of planners. No sooner did I decide to get properly back into routine than I came down with a bug. Still, everyone kept busy. The bigger three spent almost the whole of Friday in the living room, door shut, the floor laid out with toys, in a complex game which had "levels". U and I spent the day together, mostly reading books. I got the boys out briefly to listen to Beha-ed-Din's gripping account of the seige of Jaffa (full of twists and turns, last minute "as the Sultan was pen in hand, about to sign the treaty, I whispered in his ear..." drama.); and to do a bit of maths.
What else. So much new growth to be seen in the garden, alhamdulillah. There are loads of bulbs peeping through the earth, some are actually getting tall now. There are also clumps of other things I cannot name, and the garlic is starting to show through too.
So, back to the routines tomorrow? InshAllah.

How time flies!

Its almost a week since I posted here. How fast the time passes. Its a sign of the Hour, subhanAllah, time passing faster. Its like those cartoon calenders, where the dates on the pages fly off faster and faster.
One day we visited a traditional flour mill, saw the machinery turning, bought the lovely wholemeal flour in sturdy brown paper bags. Another day Ia enjoyed a visit from her favourite cousin, and was ready to go back and live with her at the end of the day. Won't you miss us? No, then thinking it might hurt my feelings, yes, but its not so bad!
Another day, at a friend's home, who also has a daughter called U, (actually she's where I heard and took the name from).My friend calls her daughter to help her pick up the crying newborn. My little U, filled with self importance at auntie's request, rushes to be in charge of the baby, and is devastated to find that a much bigger girl has got there first.
Yesterday we were studying this:
"As for those who are glad, they will be in the Garden, remaining in it timelessly, for ever, as long as the heavens and earth endure, except as your Lord wills : an uninterrupted gift" (11:108)
It is hard to imagine timelessness. In this world everything ends, we are so used to that. And we want things to end, even when we enjoy them. We don't want to eat ice cream non-stop, play the same game on and on. We copied the verse into paper circles, because circles have no end, and just as we are happy with the circle as we know it, we will be happy with the timelessness of Jannah, if we make it there, inshAllah.
That was part of an ongoing, occasional project on descriptions of Jannah. I'll describe it better when it is concluded, inshAllah.
And when the children eventually get up this morning, (I can hear one coming now), its really time to get back into routines again, or make new ones, we'll see!