Much as I would like to be bringing you something zingy and new today, the reality is that outside it is very cold and we are at home, getting on with things.
Actually, today has been very calm, alhamdulillah. Yesterday evening I cleared away some of the clutter from the top of the filing cabinets, and cleared the floor in the room in which we work. (Technically it is called the dining room, but this is not an accurate description of how it is actually used.)
I am generally quite good at clutter, as in not having it. Yes, there are toys about, but clutter to me means useless things, so toys don't necessarily count. But it is hard to draw the line at what is no longer needed when it comes to old work. And by now we have a lot of old work. Lots of old work is kept in a pile of box files on one of the filing cabinets. Some of it is definately useful, like old workbooks that can be rubbed out and rewritten in. Other items can revive ideas that I may otherwise forget about. It is also useful to look back at what the boys were doing age 5, and compare that to what I'm doing with Ia. But I can't keep everything, and reducing the amount is a good exercise to go through from time to time. A long work in progress.
Over on
Always Learning Resources I have posted a picture of a great table manners poster, made by a friend and her family. A really nice activity to do with younger children.
(I should make an effort to take a picture which does not feature Ia's hand holding a pen.)
Ia has been progressing with her stitching project, maashAllah, she is getting the hang of it now and the needle comes unthreaded far less often (!).
I've been making a habit of studying the life of Musa (as) on Thursdays with the boys. As I mentioned some posts back I decided to do this very long project in a notebook style. Printing out the pages is not the most economical way of working. An ordinary exercise book, or ordinary A4 lined paper would do the job just as well. But, somehow, the printed pages, and the fancy ex-tourist board book to put them in brings out a far better standard of handwriting and presentation in the writers. (free pages from Notebooking Pages)
Ia finished this off today. Once again I used some ready mades, from Enchanted Learning and Primary resources. This started off as a science project, but it became a piece of language work too, when I decided to make pockets of words for each of the senses. Those are the red pockets, inside are yellow cards with sound words (quiet, loud...), taste words (sour, sweet...) and so on.
I tried to give the project an Islamic side too, by including ways in which we use our senses aspart of Islam. This was easy for hearing, (azaan, salaam, Quran), and for sight, (reading Quran, Islamic books), but kind of tricky for smell...I only came up with attar! But at least it got us thinking about it!
Yesterday evening Ia decided to get these things out and copy patterns. She continued this morning.
R has a bad cold today, so I let them take it easier. I read to the boys, they watched a documentary from Teacher's tv, did one sheet of maths and Quran. They also finished reading a book about the heart, and did their own reading too.
Much as I would like to be bringing you something zingy and new today, the reality is that outside it is very cold and we are at home, getting on with things.
U has said that she would like to be a "libraryer"when she is bigger. She has mentioned that it will be hard to find a library to live in, and that stamping the books will be the best part. Ia and U decided to play at having a library, but as I disapproved the idea of them stamping marks all over the real books, they decided to make books for the game.
