Plans, and adjusting plans

Although I do make plans before the beginning of a school year, listing topics to cover and textbooks or resources to use, these plans are never fixed. I'm always finding reasons to adjust my plans. Maybe the child has developed and moved on in their learning quicker than I expected, maybe their interests have changed, and anyway, I'm always finding something new!
Due to U's enthusiasm for lapbooks we are now going to have a running lapbook project for both girls to enjoy. it can be on any toipc, whatever they like. U enjoys this work but she just likes to do a little at a time. Ia would gladly do more, but she is kept at U's pace for this session.
So, Ia will also have a topic running at the same time, aimed just at her level (currently it is the "Where I live" geography project). This means Ia may do a little on two projects in a day. This will allow me to introduce topics in science and Islamic studies which would be too much for U at the moment. But this is not what I planned, I thought that U would tag along with bits of Ia's projects, as she did last year, but instead she needs something specific to her as well.
Other things crop up too. A dear friend recently used my Education City tell a friend code when she subscribed for her children. I was surprised to find that this reactivated my son's account, which hadn't been used for several years, alhamdulillah! I had not bothered to subscribe to Education City for the boys as they do not enjoy the style of it too much (the girls like it though), but now we have it for free we may as well make use of bits of it!
Things like this happen constantly. Just because I have made a plan it does not mean that I sit back and stop investigating other options, and neither does it mean that I believe in following that plan to the letter. Change and growth, that's what it's all about!

At last a lapbook!

Ia finished working on the frontcover for this quick-dash lapbook yesterday. Having made all the fuss about doing a lapbook U, of course, has not yet got round to her cover! Some of the bits inside are free from www.homeschoolshare.com and the other bits we did ourselves. It is very basic, just the names of months, days and seasons and the number of each. The photos are of Ia's work. U decided she wanted to include pictures of an octopus and a jellyfish in hers. I know it is off-theme, but I didn't stop her.

I took this photo on Friday, as they stuck it together. Lapbooks are very enjoyable for them, alhamdulillah. Ia wanted to get started on another one at 9pm last night, but it was bedtime, so I had to make her wait.

No plan today

Home education is much more a state of mind than a stated timetable. I am just as happy to observe informal learning as the more organised stuff.
Today the boys have been out playing football. They had a match and some training with H. A friend of theirs has come over and in between all that they listened to a radio play version of "Emil and the Detectives" on Radio 4.
I had thought of taking the girls out somewhere, but the weather was grey and suddenly colder than of late, and so in the end we didn't go. Instead, the Blue Planet DVDs I had ordered arrived and we watched a couple of episodes. I bought these mainly for U. Although I realise that most of the commentary will go over her head she will love just watching the fish and other creatures. I don't quite understand why she is so fascinated with ocean life, but I know that it all began from "Finding Nemo", which goes to show that there can be a hidden value in watching a Disney cartoon. (Not that I'd recommend wasting time on other Disney titles!!) And, no, she is not disappointed that the real fish in Blue Planet don't talk.
Ia has been doing some private writing, working on her lapbook cover and tracing a map.
All informal, unplanned and happy!

Currently reading...

I thought I'd mention a few books my sons have been enjoying this week. First I must state that I've NOT read the books myself, so I cannot guarantee anything about their contents.

My sons generally like funny books and they've enjoyed reading "The Amazing Adventures of Charlie Small" these are quick, easy, fun reads.

R found "Cosmic" by Frank Cotrell Boyce hilarious. Basically it is about a very tall boy who can fool people into thinking he is an adult, and who somehow ends up in space. It is written in a very informal, conversational style.

"Toby Alone" is a totally different book, but it seems to have an interesting, complex plot centering around motives for conflicts, as far as I can gather.

They also read Allan Ahlberg's "The Boyhood of Burglar Bill" which is about boys getting together a football team, in a tough area in the 1950s. This is not their usual type of read.

I'm trying to encourage the boys to read books outside of their usual "comfort zone", of silly hilarity, or boys adventure detectives. I put it to them that unless they read books that step outside of their favourite genres they won't be able to develop skills of criticism. How can they expect to make judgements concerning what makes a good plot, strong characters etc, if they haven't experienced a wider range? I read to them outside of these limits, of course, but they need to be able to do this themselves too. (Why do they "need" to do this? Well, they like reading anyway, and if they don't broaden their range they'll just have to reread books all the time.)

As for Ia, she is currently reading the Little Animal Ark seies by Lucy Daniels, a simpler version of the popular Animal Ark series. She is also reading the Thomas the Tank Engine My Story Library series.

Midweek busy

Another busy day, alhamdulillah! It is that time again when the days seem to flash by in a blur.

What did we do?

We had a late start as H's colleague came over for breakfast before they travelled off for some out of town business. The boys were doing some word problems, and then they went onto the Mathletics site they are now subscribed to. This site really is useful, alhamdulillah. Regular readers may recall that my sons are not keen on maths, but they are happily going onto this site everyday, alhamdullilah, which means that the time we spend on maths has increased, without complaint! The site is cleverly designed with a system of earning credits which can be used for buying accessories for your character image. It also allows you to compete in mental arithmetic races with other children online. My sons like this competitive element. The online races are the bit they like best.
As well as maths today they have read Quran, done a reading comprehension, found out about how birds navigate during migration, spent time on BrainPop , and practised their Pashto. They also followed up some internet links from a library book called "How did your locality change in Victorian times?", which led them to the BBC History trails, which offer an interesting interactive approach to a few history topics.
For the girls I hastily downloaded a months of the year lapbook from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ and they started work on it. They seem happy with the subject matter - right now any lapbook will do! Ia also made an autumn vegetables collage using the textured papers painted at the weekend. I copied the idea from this excellent art lesson blog I've recently come across.
Ia also had a Quran lesson today.
And there was more..... but I think that's enough for one post and the washing up, laundry, ironing, kids to bed routine awaits.

Lapbooks?

We haven't done lapbooks for a while, except for the one on the Prophet Isa (as) the boys did in Ramadan.
We had a break for the summer, then from Ramadan and until now Ia's work has had a focus on practical Islam and getting her properly started on learning to read Quran. Also last year many of Ia's lapbooks were done in sessions with a friend of hers. For this year those sessions are taking an independent writing approach, to encourage the girls to develop their skills at putting their own words into writing, inshAllah. Ia and her friend associate lapbooking with brief writing of words or phrases, so we are doing this year's work in exercise books for now. There is no reason why lapbooks can't contain paragraphs of writing, but for now they seem happier writing paragraphs in an exercise book!!!
I'm missing lapbooking though! There is something very satisfying about turning out a lapbook! And I'm not the only one feeling this way. Today, out of the blue, U demanded to do a lapbook. She didn't specify a subject, just that a lapbook should be done right away. It was not a good time for me, I was finishing off the morning work, and getting lunch ready as we were having guests this afternoon. Seeing that I was not providing anything U resorted to making her own lapbook. She took some papers and folded them in to a book shape. Then she drew some pictures, cut them out and stuck them into her booklet. The theme? Well, it has to be dinosaurs or fish with U, today it was fish. Specifically sharks.
I really need to get back to lapbooking, inshAllah.

Apples and Art

Apple day craft activities. I'm not sure how much the girls learnt about the many varieties of English apple, but they certainly enjoyed themselves. I wouldn't let them print with apples at home as I'm not sure about using food in that way. The twigs were already on the page, they printed on the colour. I like the effect.

The coloured pieces are being stuck onto clear sticky film, the type used to cover books. Clever idea! To finish it off another piece of film was used to cover the other side, sandwiching the outline and coloured papers between the sheets of film.

But art at home is also good! These textured papers are for use later, inshAllah. We also did some experiments with colour mixing.

And lastly! One of the many uses for Cusinaire rods.

Just because.