Library Finds/ History

For me history is just a part of everyday life. It is just THERE. A few books I found on our last library trip are helping me share my sense of the presence of history in read aloud time with the boys.
Victorian social history is especially relevant to us, as so many aspects of what we consider to be part of normal life got started in that era, (libraries, museums, rail transport, seaside holidays, reading material for the masses and, of course, compulsory education!!!).
Not only that, people living in British cities and large towns are surrounded by Victorian buildings, and this is what these books point out so well. I think it is wonderful to read a book that shows you a tiled front path and Victorian front door that looks just like the home of a friend; that shows you pictures of buildings such as the old board schools, that are so much a familiar part of our daily landscape. History from buildings.
In the same way that I'd like my children to recognise an oak or a beech tree when in the woods, or to know the names of the birds I'd like them to be able to recognise the features of their built environment, and be able to name and explain them. Just as there is bird spotting, there is Victorian architecture spotting.
The book on the top of the pile is a real little gem. History through poetry. What a brilliant concept! The contents page reads like a treasure trove, society, sport, education, science, housing and more all addressed through a poem from the time, with contextual explanation.
Victorian social history is not a closed chapter, it reaches deep into the here and now around us. Fascinating.

Ummmm....

I hardly seem to know where the last couple of days have gone!
It has been busy, but the kind of busy that seems to leave my memory blank!
The boys have done this Islamic studies activity.
Ia has produced a couple of short pieces of writing. She seems to be inhibited by not knowing how to spell everything she wants to write. I'm trying to encourage her not to worry about the spelling right now, but to think about the sentences she wants to write down.
A friend was here today and she commented on U's letters. She noticed that U can form some letters correctly and asked if we've been working on that. (Sigh of relief), it is good to know that the scatty bits and pieces of writing U has been doing are amounting to something noticeable. U is gradually doing a little more regularly, although she is not yet doing both maths and English activities everyday with me. And whatever I do with her is kept short. However, when you consider her computer use, her reading habits, games, crafts and so on she is developing her skills all the time, maashAllah. I think of this year as a crossover year, a transition from the total free play of younger years, to the more organised learning style we use. The transition is for me and for her!

A little art

I resolved to do more art with the girls, because they enjoy it. I don't have ideas for it myself, so I do my usual copying. This evening we did these Matisse-inspired collages I learnt about at TeachkidsArt.
Yes, I did one too! I think the girls much prefer it when I join in with these kinds of activities. As you can see, I'm not very good, so they find the sight of mine encouraging, when compared with their own!
We don't usually do activities in the evening but we are moving at the pace of life, subhanAllah. A couple of the children have been ill this week, so we've needed to adapt! Having said that, it actually seemed a nice time for some fun art work!

Games

Today I made a big, long numberline for U to learn with. I have some of that old computer printer paper, the one with strips of punched holes down the side and joined with perforations. I took 10 sheets and wrote the numbers 1 to 10. I put it on the floor and U responded to questions such as "What number comes between 5 and 7?" by jumping onto the number.
Of course Ia wanted to join in, so I gave her simple additions and subtractions. A number line to twenty would have been better for her.
After that I played a couple of maths games with them, ones which mainly involve counting on and back. To avoid using dice we select from numbercards. This usually means that the games end sooner than the designers intended, but that is a good thing I think. Later still we played phonic lotto. U is still at the stage of getting cross when she doesn't win, but phonic lotto seemed to generate less tension, maashAllah! I remember using the phonic lotto set with Ia at the same age and what a struggle she had with initial sounds. It is a good reminder when I see how easy it is for her now that she is a reader, Alhamdulillah! Sometimes I may feel that learning is not going well, or going too slowly, but it is good to be reminded that we get there in the end! Alhamdulillah.

It's working....

Ia's geography studies must be sinking in, maashAllah. It hasn't been much, just shading and labelling some continent maps. I don't get her to label everywhere, just key countries she has already heard of. For Africa, for example, this includes Algeria, Egypt, Somalia and South Africa because she knows people who have either visited or lived there or come from there.

Anyway, this evening she decided to draw her own map, refering to the map in the book for feature ideas. While she drew she talked with U, using lots of geographical terms as she did so, showing that she has understood and remembered them, maashAllah. She was also able to point places out on the map and talk about their climate. U also drew a map of her own.

Alhamdulillah, it is so heart warming when things like this happen!

Drawing

The boys found out that drawing is harder than it looks, so they opted for tracing. Perseverance and practice, inshAllah.

Some of today

The geography studies are going well, maashAllah. Using the Trail Guide is really working for us. It is not one of those resources which looks great on the outside but which turns out to be very fiddly and preparation intensive when you start it. I don't like resources which tell me exactly what I "have to" do, I like those that offer space to explore and the Guide does that. We are still at the beginning, of course, studying the composition of the earth, continents, oceans etc. Today the boys went onto Wikipedia to look up the Pacific Ring of Fire, then they went to BBC news to read about the current earthquakes in Sumatra. From that they wrote up a paragraph on this latest earthquake.
Ia has also been writing today. This morning both girls wrote a letter to their grandmother. U's letter was mostly a showcase of letters she can form.
Later in the day we did an Islamic studies writing activity, based on an activity a friend had done with the boys years earlier.
We started by revising the meaning of the following Names of Allah:
As-Sami, The All Hearing,
Al-Basir, The All Seeing,
Al-Alim, The All Knowing.
Next I read to them the story that J had written in 2005. It was about a boy who was about to do several bad deeds but who stopped himself when he realised that Allah could see and hear him and know what he was doing or about to do. In the original lesson the children had listened to a story like this and then had been asked to write their own similar story including each of the Names of Allah somewhere in their story. (Actually the original activity included two more names as well, but I simplified it to three.)
So, this time Ia listened to J's story, then wrote her own version.
U did not want to be left out so she traced over the Names of Allah written out for her in a book. Then she made up a story (not at all related to the activity) by drawing a series of pictures and explaining the story at great length. Of course it did involve thunderbolts and Tana-roar-u-ses (spelt as said).