Monday

After a weekend full of friends coming over, today seemed quiet.
The girls were ready to play, play, play, but by afternoon Ia was ready for a few daily tasks. Today she worked on an accordian mini-book. It is part of the bears and pandas project she's now nearly completed. When I initially got the materials for the project they seemed like they could be a little difficult for Ia, in terms of the language element, but alhamdulillah she's progressed, so now the work seems a little easy! The aim of the project was mainly to work on language skills, rather than learning all the bear information. Language through information, rather than information through language.
I've gone on to the Year 2 materials for Ia's maths, as she has used up everything for Year 1, maashAllah. She will now be using the curriculum that has lessons for every school day of the year, inshAllah, and as I know that we always get behind I thought I'd cover a few lessons now, before having a break.
Not that I'm quite sure when that break will occur as yet. I don't see the point in dropping everything if there is nothing else planned for any particular day. If we haven't other plans, and if the children themselves haven't thought of anything else they'd much rather be doing I see no harm in continuing with a certain amount of routine. But, inshAllah, there will be lots of different things to keep us occupied,and I don't intend to return to the full, regular timetable until after Ramadan, inshAllah.
Oh yes, we did set up the third triop kit yesterday. Unfortunately I'd lost the instructions for that particular set, so I made do with a combination of the instructions for the other set and something I found online. They are the same creatures of course, but the eggs came in a different format. InshAllah something will come alive in there. We are experiencing very warm weather for this partof the world, so the temperature conditions couldn't get much better.
Wait and see.

Winding down

We are still in wind down mode, subhanAllah!
The boys finished off a workbook project on animal classification today, did their daily Quran, used BBC French and listened to me read. Currently we are reading another of the My Story history stories, and a book on Tawheed.
The girls did bits of work on the computer, and Ia continued with a phonics workbook I want her to finish off before the summer, inshAllah. She also did a little more on her bears and pandas project. For her reading we are currently working our way through some DK readers. Alhamdulillah we have quite a lot of reading material for her current level, so she just chooses a book to read aloud to me each day.
So, having assessed the boys in maths I've decided to skip the rest of the book that we've been using for this year. The rest of the pages were either more monotonous practice of things they are already proficient in, or new visual topics, which the book did not present clearly, in my opinion. Visual maths is the hardest type for the boys to grasp, so they really need animated illustrations, such as you can get online. I thought it pointless to persue those topics in the book, as a book cannot adequately illustrate translation or rotation of shapes. This type of visual maths is difficult for me too, so I really feel an online flash presentation makes the best job of it!!!
Alhamdulillah the internet is so useful for home educating.
Anyway, I've ordered a different book for next year's work, inshAllah.
Finally, it seems that the triops have died. One, smaller, kit remains. Should we try it again this year, or wait until next?

Busy Days!

Collecting museum trail stamps at the London Transport Museum.
It has been a hectic few days! We had overnight guests, then we were off to London to meet up with old friends and make a first visit to the Transport Museum. We all had a great, but exhausting day, alhamdulillah.
Had a bit of a wind down today. Ia has finished off this year's maths, and the boys have been doing some maths assessments (diagnostic purposes only!)

Caterpillars and sewing

My camera is actually a mobile phone, so it doesn't really do close up! Can you spot the caterpillars munching the plant?

Ia has been working on this cloth dolly. I did need to help her, but she did lots herself too!

The idea came from this needlecraft book, which we bought recently. I would recommend the book, as it has really simple instructions and appealing projects.

News flash

The triops are alive and swimming. InshAllah they are also growing!

Spotting the signs of home education

At times like these who knows what could be classified as irregular behaviour, the tell tale signs of home education, the signal that something subversive must be going on.
Could it be that the family that appears to be trying to check out a million library books all at one time (when most children in the library appear to be checking out one or two); and are trying to squeeze those books into a couple of bags which are already half full of pine cones, (causing some to spill temporarily onto the floor), are standing out a bit too much?

Tuesday

This morning I read aloud to the boys, and also to Ia who is now listening in on the reading aloud. U sits with us and makes up her own story, which she "reads" aloud from another book, at the same time. Not ideal, but inshAllah she'll grow out of it! Then they decorated the cakes in the picture, which I had made around breakfast time.

Also today we got out the glass paints a friend had kindly given us. I think we need to start eating more jam!

U's painting style!

They all spent time playing in the garden today too.

Oh yes, and there was also some place value for Ia and reflective symmetry for the boys.

U got out the educational CDroms.