Another day

Another day of sunshine and heavy showers. It's good spring weather for the plants, plenty of water and plenty of sunshine. Not so good for humans in the garden though, so I just look at it and wait....
Until we moved here I home educated cooperatively with friends. Since they were four years old the boys got used to meeting up and working with other children. This means that now they are used to the idea of me coming up with things for them to do. I give them flexibility of when they do things, and I don't force them to do stuff they hate (they accept maths like its a necessary burden). But in the end they look to me for the structure.
I wonder if Ia will be different. We make a separation between the weekend and weekdays. They know there is a routine to weekdays, and they will be doing learning stuff. I noticed today how Ia uses her own time differently on weekdays. Today she wanted to cut out more spring bird and flower pictures, stick them in her scrapbook, then label them (with my help). Later she wanted to use some educational software. Maybe her different experiences will make her more of a self directed learner from an earlier age. It's nice to be able to observe this, alhamdulillah.
Bit of a slow day today really. The boys did another section of Engineering Interact, their normal maths, English and Quran and began planning for a lapbook on Yusuf (as). I gave them the book on Prophet Yusuf (as), and also showed them the page of the Lapbook Handbook which describes the different folds. Their task was to decide what information to present and the types of folds they could use. They went about this by sketching out a layout for their projects, with title notes. Between them they had a good variety of ideas for us to get started with in days to come, maashAllah.
I've not been very good at keeping to a regular timetable recently. There are so many projects to do and as usual I want to do them all at once. But this is not possible. The geography is on hold just now, while we concentrate on learning about the lapbooks, but I will get back to it over time inshAllah. If anything the topic of food and farming is even more relevant at the moment, what with the food crisis in many countries. So much to do...so much to learn....

Rhymes

Looking through my old file of notes from about four or five years ago I found some silly rhymes to practice rhyme with Ia.
I started by reading some rhyme poems to her, and talking about the rhymes. Then we filled in the missing rhymes in this:
Little Boy Blue has lost his .......
Little Boy Red, he went to.......
Little Boy Yellow is a cheeky.......
Little Boy Green has eaten a .....

Then we finished
Imagine a bee as big as a ......
Imagine a lark as green as a ......
Imagine a cat as fast as a........

Lastly,
Little Boy Blue
Lost his........
At the ......
What should he.....?
Has such a funny thing ever happened to ......?

Today has been good for cycling, gardening and blowing bubbles for the cat to chase after.

Spring Themes

Ia makes patterns, finding out about shapes which tessellate.

Patch of tulips.

Scrap of aubretia.

First attemp at a lap book. Yes, it is not as handsome as those usually seen online, but remember it is the first one. We need to improve on neatness and general presentation skills.

For this spring project we did sections on birds, butterflies, flowers and insects to spot in spring. Also sections on the life cycles of ladybirds, frogs and butterflies, list of spring months, and two names of Allah, (meanings, The Creator, and The One Who Gives Life).

The children were all quite pleased with themselves.

Look closely to see the little specks of sunflower seedlings.

Lupins.

Thoughts and day

A few days ago I was listening to a radio program which was discussing a poetry anthology which came out in the late 1960s. It was described as really engaging the teenage school goers who read it, to the extent that students would fail to return their copies at the end of the year. (I know, they're assuming love of the books here, not that the kids burnt or lost them, well we shouldn't be cynical, even if the programme maker was looking back to his/her youth with rosy tints). The poems were meant to involve, stir, connect with pupils. The poet Michael Rosen spoke on the programme, he compared the style of teaching then to now. He said that nowadays students spend 30 minutes in a classroom to achieve a learning outcome (his words as close as I remember). Then, they were expected to develop a feel for the poetry (those are my words, giving you the gist).
So, is he right? Has school education become hemmed in and outcome driven? Is the National Curriculum a prison of wrong and right answers? Are results of the tick the box type?
I'm not giving a verdict on it, I just found that Rosen's statement opened up questions for me. If the National Curriculum is really like that, then the materials produced for it's delivery must be moulded that way too. Is that why the science we've been doing recently is dull, and the English comprehension texts too shallow? Because science is not dull, and texts should be brimming with meaning.
I do not want our English comprehension lessons to take about ten minutes, because the answers are obvious and the text gives us little to ponder on. I do use lots of extra materials for science, but I need a base, to organise topics. I can think up geography topics, but not science ones, for that I need a guideline. Maybe I need to look elsewhere.

Today began with the boys having eggy toast (three slices each), followed by a pear. While they ate I read a short Islamic story (We've finished the book about Belief in the Angels), and then a chapter from "The Wheel on the School".
Next up was Quran. Ia and U did some colouring and workbook, then they sat together to do their Quran, as U has joined in too, of her own accord, she likes the Quran songs, as she calls them, and she has picked up quite a bit too, maashAllah.
Next the boys did English comprehension, and spelling. My mother gave me an old book of spelling lists, belonging to my sister. It has lists of words printed out for each age group. When I tell them that this book says that children aged nine should know this list of 544 words, they jump at the chance to prove themselves. If I say I'll give them 10 words to learn, they are bored, bored, bored, if I challenge them with the idea that boys of 9 should spell 544 words, they love it. Strange. Competitive. Would have put me right off.
Next I made lunch (only two hours after breakfast, but they were complaining of hunger), the boys read "The Bubblegum Tree" and "The Joke Machine", both by Alexander McCall Smith. Then they moved on to rereads of Enid Blyton Five Findouters.
I also sat with Ia to do some phonics on Education City in the morning.
In the afternoon the boys did maths, a little French on Education City, I read to the girls, U did puzzles.
After a break we started a dummy run on the lapbook thing. I thought I should do some try outs on a general, easy topic, rather than starting with Yusuf (as). So, we started with spring. We have some sheets with pictures of spring stuff, so we made the little booklets, each taking a group of pictures, (birds, butterflies, insects and flowers). This went well, alhamdulillah. Need to continue that.
Ia is really into it. This evening she has made two booklets using cut out pictures of animals. I have labelled the pictures lightly in pencil and she has gone over that with felt tip. She thought of most of what to say. We'll stick them in her scrapbook. I could do pictures, but have been lazy about the camera in the last few days.
Final note, R and J's sunflower seeds have begun to germinate.

Fast Forward

So today we whizzed through our sheduled day's work and finished by 3pm. This is very unusual! Have to say that I did take it rather easy. The maths and English pages we were up to turned out to be of the quick and easy sort, I finished reading the tafsir of Surah Yusuf, and even science was done on the computer and then reading through a few pages of textbook, with discussion. The questions were so pointlessly easy, even the boys can't understand why they are there. I do like the convenience of using a textbook base to organise topics, but I really don't like these wishy washy chapters. I could just skip the lot, but I will at least pay lip service to the vocabulary and smattering of facts. Maybe they'll come in useful when the topic of friction and forces gets addressed more thoroughly one day. I guess I could search for more interesting work on it right now, but I think the boys have been put off by the dreary repetition already. So, delay that for another time.
With this amazing slot of free time between 3 and 4 today I tried out the fold ideas in the lapbook book with Ia and U. I knew they'd like that sort of thing, and would be uncritical of any mess ups on my part. They both have scrapbooks to stick their work into. Even now Ia is happily colouring in more Arabic letters to decorate the scrapbook.

Something New (to me)

This morning I received a lapbook handbook, (The Ultimate Lapbook Handbook, by Duby and Regeling) I had ordered from Stimulus Learning. Its been a few years since I heard about lapbooks. I always like to look at new ideas, but I have to say that at that time I was put off by the words "fold" and manipulatives" with which the lapbooks were always described. A few years ago the idea of asking my boys to do anything remotely fiddly involving tearable materials gave me thoughts of tantrums, ripping up of work and so on. But now they are much more able with these things, and also Ia loves to make things from paper, so I thought it was time to investigate the lapbook further.
I have to say the book is very practical. The instructions are no way as alarming as an origami diagram. Thinking of assembling something called a "fold" is much simpler than the word suggests. Any one seasoned in lapbooks may be laughing at this, but seriously, to me the idea of a "folded manipulative" sounds about as appealing as instructions for flatpack furniture. It's a question of words and presentation!!!
I looked through the book, and the ideas were jumping at me! I want to try all sorts of books now! I love their idea of studying literature through project work, and I think this would work well for tafsir too, picking out the key points as notes from extended reading. I can also see the value for remembering key vocabulary and concepts in science, something that I'd been thinking about a lot earlier in the year. So, lets see what happens with this. The first subject should be the history of Prophet Yusuf (as). InshAllah we will finish reading the tafsir sometime next week, then we should go back, review and work on this lapbook thing!
Its been another good day for gardening today, alhamdulillah. Just weeding and starting to clear an overgrown, out of control area. The boys had a go with the spade, but returned to their scooters, garden hockey and football after a while.
Ia has completed all the reception level maths activities on Education City. I only subscribed for her, as I feel she would benefit most. Maths is her strong point at the moment, and she remembers science stuff too. Recently we were walking around the streets when she told me that she had just seen a nice plant which was all covered over by something else, "I don't think it can get enough water or sunlight," she said, "so I think it might die." It wasn't that she understood the idea that surprised me but that she expressed it in those terms.

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?