Why is home education like gardening?

Witnessing the unfurling of beauty, (even during stormy conditions).
May Allah (swt) give us the strength, health, and imaan for this home educating journey, and give us the best in this world and the next.

A chinchilla

Yesterday, whilst in the garden, U made an interesting observation. She said that milk makes people smaller, and water makes people bigger. She came to this conclusion after observing that children usually drink milk, (and the smaller they are the more milk they tend to drink) whilst adults usually drink water. Tell that to the home education doubters.


The highlight of Ia's day today was having a chinchilla on her head. She loved it, and R loved having the chinchilla in his hat too. We attended a local event today, in addition to the chinchilla there were various reptiles. The boys steered clear of having a snake round their necks, but were up to touching a large tortoise.
They also did some pond dipping. There was much excitement when another boy caught a frog, but our nets caught weeds, gravel and some tiny, tiny creatures, but mostly weeds.

I've noticed that Education City is quite a popular learning website, so I've registered the bigger three for a free ten day trial. Well, if it is free, why not?

Allah is Ar Raheem

We find this kind of maths fiddly and frustrating. Folding and cutting paper to form symmetrical shapes. It took ages to do. I found it a strain on the brain too. Words are much easier to deal with!

Displaying Ia and U's recent productions.

Allah is Ar Raheem. If you are patient with an issue, something will come up. I do worry about my children's learning of Quran. I know a child who has memorised so much, maashAllah, and he's the same age as Ia. May Allah make him hafiz by the age of 10. So much credit should go to his mother, may Allah reward her, for getting him to that madrassah come what may. And its not like she doesn't have a busy life, she absolutely does! Some people are extraordinary, maashAllah.

Anyway, a couple of evenings ago I received a call from another sister, and in the course of the conversation we mentioned this topic and she explained how her son is quite similar to mine in these matters, and then she described her strategy for dealing with Quran study at home. Somehow this was just what I needed, alhamdulillah. Although I've seen how various families manage this over the years I couldn't really match their families to mine, although basically the method is the same. Read the surah, listen to a recitation of it, work as a group, all of you together, have a target that is manageable to you, review what is known as a group or individually with an mp3 (or similar). Little and often. Obvious isn't it? And I knew that before, but I think that it was the fact that I know her son, and I know that if he can do it like that then my sons can too. The sister and I don't speak that often on the phone, but at a time when these thoughts were uppermost in my mind she called and spoke about it. Everything occurs only by the will of Allah (swt).

Tag response

Yesterday was busy, busy again. We began with Quran again, then reading about Salman al-Farisi.
Another of Ia's friends came over and I got them to do counting activities, including finding different shapes that can be made by shading 13 squares. After that they cut up flower catalogues and stuck the pictures down, then wrote "Allah made all the flowers".
By about 4 o'clock I was feeling really stuffy and we seemed to have been stuck in one room for hours and hours, plus the girls had been bickering a bit. So we went into the garden and felt much better, alhamdulillah. The girls helped me weed by digging bits of ground which only has unwanted grass. The boys played with a ball. What a difference it made!

Now to answer that popular tag.....
Book selection, bit of a cheat really. First book I selected had only a few words on page 123 as it was the end of a chapter. So I'll turn to the book of Sahabah biographies I'm reading in the mornings, "Hearts Have Changed" adapted by Noura Durkee.
The third sentence on page 123 reads, "Yet somehow he had come out the door and walked past them without one of them seeing him"
Any guesses? Which part of the seerah are we talking about here?
Let's continue:
"How? All night, they had guarded the figure wrapped in a cloak who slept within the home of Rasulullah (saw) (You've got it now- right?) In the beginning of the night, this figure had indeed been that of Rasulullah (saw). But at dawn, they had seen the figure rise from his bed and come to the door. It was Ali (ra), not Muhammad (saw)"

Yes, these sentences refer to the night that the Prophet (saw) set off on the Hijrah, avoiding, by the will of Allah, the assassins waiting for him outside.

As for tagging others, I just can't stick to the rules, feel free to take it or leave it as you wish.

Happily Busy

Today I tweaked a bit with routine. I had some writing to do on the computer first thing, then once the children woke up I made pancakes. That done the three older ones did their Quran work for the day. Next I read the boys a short biography of Nu’man ibn Muqarrin al-Muzani. Meanwhile Ia had done some colouring of an Arabic letter and U had done some colouring too. Next a short break (I get washing machine on, wash some dishes, read to U). Break over the boys write a traditional style story and Ia does some handwriting practice and then uses the French CDrom on the computer.
I’ve recently decided to do a review in science, to make sure that all the vocabulary is soaking in. The boys do not find science hard, but I feel that they may be a little careless with remembering the details, so I bought workbooks for them to revise over units they covered last year and so far this year. As I made lunch they got on with the next unit.
After I’d cleared up from lunch a surprise visitor arrived for an English lesson. Just a misunderstanding over the days, probably my fault for not being clear. Anyway, alhamdulillah, I took a quick look in the diary of lessons kept from the boy’s time in Reception/Year one and got something ready. This allowed the boys a rather long break! They played on the computer, but then got on with their maths lesson in their room.
Meanwhile Ia and her friend drew a picture of a bedroom and labelled it using words taken from the book “Carlo Loves Reading”. It is one of those books with illustrations labelled with nouns. After that I wrote out words from the book on flashcards and asked them to find the word and read it using the pictures in the book to help. U kept auntie busy with chat, chat, chat.
Later, before going swimming, the boys did some geography work, studying a dairy farm, and answering some questions on it. Before bed they want me to read some more “Wouldbe goods”. Its been a busy home educating day. The way it should be, Alhamdulillah.
Today’s failings? Ia has done no maths today. The floor of the room where we do our work is covered with Hama beads as U thought it would impress her friend if she scattered them, and Ia thought it would impress her more if she rolled in them. No one wants to impress me by picking them up. But we can’t have everything can we!

About Time

In the mornings I want to do so much of everything in the day. Give everyone a rounded set of educational activities, improve on the garden, housework, feed the kids with healthy home made food, check out what is online, prepare lessons, do some studying myself, keep in touch with friends. I'm so over ambitious about what can be done in a day.
Anyway today began with Ia keen to use the CDrom "Jump Ahead French", which we got yesterday. She's been playing on it lots today, the boys had their turns too. It seems very useful for learning vocabulary and simple listening comprehension skills. Its only downfall is the irritating background music.
We are using the garden most days at the moment, alhamdulillah, giving me plenty of chances to observe the huge amount of work that needs doing out there. Today U wanted to dig for worms. Fluffy worms. But she was gonna put those worms back after.
And now it is gone 10pm, and I must resolve again to get more done tomorrow, inshAllah. In the morning the day seems to stretch ahead with time for everything, and by bedtime you wonder what did I do with my day???

All Praise and Thanks is due to Allah

Friendship is important. For the children and the adults. Sometimes when home educating finding friendships takes more effort and more patience. You learn to treasure it more.
On Friday Allah made it possible for me to meet a fellow home educating blogger. What a happy meeting! Its great to share and support each other.
Then today a visit from old friends. Always a treat.
Dear reader, Allah can make anything happen if He wills. Make dua, be patient and persevere. I thank Allah for the friendships Allah has made possible for me. AllahuAkbar.