Quick Review

Well, there is just so much to think about, isn't there?
We completed our first tentative week back into routine. Friday didn't count, as the boys had a sports activity day, so I just let the girls play and use some educational websites.
It has been OK, but I'm not really satisfied. I need to tidy up my thoughts and make a plan that will actually work, inshAllah. There are just so many things to consider!!! It is like being faced with a very messy house, you hardly know where to start! So many ideas crowding their way to grab my attention.
Mentioning the house - H was given another couple of second hand pieces of furniture, so I've been sanding and varnishing and moving things around to accomodate these new items. A couple of our old things got given away in the process, but no waste as they went to homes where they were wanted! Alhamdulillah, I'm grateful for this risq, but I'd prefer the rest of Ramadan to be a little less taken up with house stuff, inshAllah.
Today I've been focussing on plans for Islamic studies, for all the children. The boys do not like to feel that they are repeating things they "know", however the question is do they really KNOW it, or do they just remember having come across topics before. Especially with Islamic knowledge it is essential to review and make sure that whatever is learnt is acted upon, not just filed in a distant memory. So, I need to look at presentation styles.
And, what do you think about this? It seems to me that it is quite difficult to get Islamic materials aimed at intermediate level. There is lots for the younger learner, and older teens should be able to study from adult materials, but how about those in between?
Any recommendations please?

Alphabet and Ramadan

Ramadan means late morning starts for us. Alhamdulillah I'm glad I don't need to get up early to rush out somewhere during this month. We can fix our timetable to suit our need to get up early for suhoor and stay up late for prayers. Usually I don't like getting up late though, so after Ramadan it will be all change in the going to bed and getting up times, inshAllah!

Meanwhile I'm doing some more alphabet work with U. I keep changing the activity with her, to try to make up for the tedious subject matter of learning the alphabet! At the moment she is recycling a very well used toddler picture book, looking for pictures of things that begin with a given letter, cutting them out and sticking them on a page. I'm not working through the alphabet in order, as that is so dull! She can recite the alphabet in order anyway, so the current task in hand is to get her to recognise the letter forms and associate them with the sounds they make.

Practical ICT

Today R and I learnt how to convert a document into an image file by using the print screen button. This was necessary so that we could post up the Homeschooling Kidz Magazine, that R was editing this month. So, that was practical ICT learning for both of us. When I come upon something like this I usually look for a tutorial on Utube, by searching for the task I want to perform. So far this has worked. I fixed Ia's DS game console in a similar way, when the touch screen became unresponsive.I learnt from Utube that I should try cleaning the screen with a toothbrush. It worked.

Welcome Ramadan!

Ramadan is here again, alhamdulillah, and with it comes the time for us to ease back into routines. For me it is a good time to start working again. Ramadan brings with it a sort of calm that helps me to reconnect and try to remember where I was up to with everything??? I made a lot of lists way back at the beginning of summer, so I'm returning to those now, otherwise I wouldn't have a clue!
It is a good time for the kids to start back to routines too, as having organisation to the day helps pass the time usefully. The time in Ramadan is precious, and without some forward thinking it would be all too easy to fritter it away. Establishing a general air of "study" (although I don't like phrasing it like that) encourages them to focus on Quran and doing some Islamic learning in this month.
A Ramadan lapbook would seem the obvious project to work on with the girls, and there are some excellent examples around the net, but I think I'll delay this until next year, inshAllah, when it would be more beneficial to U.
The thing with the girls is that they do everything together, and I do hope to be able to home ed them as a pair, much as I do with the boys, inshAllah. Of course Ia is two years older, so they will be doing different types of maths and English, but if I make other projects mostly topic based I can bring them together despite their different levels. I've been doing this for a while to a certain extent with lapbooks, and I intend to increase this as U gets older, inshAllah. My children seem to enjoy things more when they do things together, maashAllah.
So, for this Ramadan for the girls I've decided to focus more on practical learning, about wudu, salaah, and on Quran. I also have a set of colouring sheets with a Ramadan theme which I could get them to form into a notebook. Reading aloud will also be a feature, inshAllah, as we have quite a number of children's Islamic story books.
I'm not going to do specific Ramadan work with the boys either, apart from finishing reading the book we have on Ramadan. Instead they will be doing other Islamic studies and spending a little more time than usual on Quran, inshAllah. In past years they have done workbooks on Ramadan, and I think we've exhausted what there is on offer there. The best way for them to study Ramadan now is to revise the fiqh and then to LIVE it!

Still enjoying the outdoors!

Today the boys had an outing with H and the girls had an outing with me. This is partly because the boys are no longer interested at all in the kinds of colouring crafts laid on at family event days. The girls loved it, alhamdulillah. Above you can see tigers lurking in a forest, (Oh, do at least try!). They made three other items besides this!
Plus we went for an explore around the gardens and displays. Such beautiful flowers, maashAllah!

And this evening the boys and H are out again, taking their last chance at outdoor evening sports before Ramadan is with us, inshAllah.

Sunny Wednesday

Out today meeting some lovely new home edding friends, maashallah, and collecting some items of interest along the way! Unripe conkers, beech nut cases and pieces of natural chalk rock that can be drawn with.

This afternoon the girls are busy making their Ramadan calendars. I just use a piece of black paper, put the word "Ramadan"at the top in coloured paper, a crescent moon shape, a grid with the numbers 1 to 30 and lots of colour and glitter. They just cross off the days as they go by, inshAllah.

Ending the summer

It feels like the last week of summer to me. By next week it will already be Ramadan, inshAllah, and we'll be getting back into education routines.
For now we are squeezing the last out of our summer break. I've been busily trying to give the garden another overhaul, doing things like trimming the conifer hedge, sowing grass seed over the bare earth patches, clearing the tangle that was the right side border and fixing up the tumbled over rosemary bush.
Yesterday we spent the day visiting friends, spending hours and hours of the afternoon out in a park. I feel satisfied when I see the children playing for hours outside with their friends. That is what a summer break is for, along with bike riding, football, cricket and walks.
We returned home late in the evening, which must have confused the electricity meter cupboard spider, as it had decided to venture out into the quietness of the house. It was a particularly huge spider, which I had noticed often sneaking behind the phone directories in the meter cupboard. In any case, it was a risky adventure to come out, as it is now safely inside the Dyson.
In the mornings I'm reading aloud from a book about Ramadan, to remind ourselves of the details about the coming month and to get us into the right frame of mind for it, inshAllah.