15th Ramadan

It is already Saturday evening, subhanAllah, and already the middle of Ramadan!!!!
Time passes so differently in Ramadan it seems to me. We sleep after Fajr, and by the time I'm really awake again and ready to think straight the morning seems very short!
I've been keeping the learning activities short, so it has been easy to complete the list each day. Usually I'll get the boys to work in the morning, and scatter the girls' activities throughout the day. The boys are working on a project on Prophet Isa (as), as well as doing Ramadan related Islamic studies. Ia has been doing some practical learning about making wudu, and how to pray. She is not seven yet, but it won't be long, inshAllah, especially in terms of the Islamic calendar. Ramadan seems a good time to get started.
The girls have also been doing some Ramadan colouring sheets, although really it is Ia who prefers this. U does not really like to colour. When you have a young child who does not like to colour you really notice how many resources for the young age group are based around colouring. Last week U asked to do a maths workbook. She has two books in use at the moment, on the next pages she had the choice of a shape colouring activity, or a "draw one less" activity. She decided not to do maths, unfortunately. U is the kind of person who expects her drawings to come out looking exactly right, so if she can't get the flower right ,she's not doing it. The boys did not like colouring either, but a quick scribble would seem good enough to them!
Next week, inshAllah, all the after school activities begin again with the new school term. I hardly feel ready for all that rushing about! Seems like I've become lazy over the holidays, although I did manage to do some garden tidying and bulb planting today.

More Islamic Studies and Baking

For today's Islamic studies with the boys I made use of a link from TalibiddeenJr blog to an article about mistakes made in Ramadan. This was a read through and discussion type task, as the sister suggested in her post, maashAllah.
Then, this afternoon, I did some baking with the girls. Really I find that I can't do baking with both of them at once. They compete for the space and for who is going to stir first and so on. I don't feel that they really learn much about the baking that way, they are too busy thinking about whose turn it is to concern themselves with the process of what they are making. Ia should be learning more about using the scales and so on at her age, so it is better to bake with them one at a time.
U went first,helping to make chocolate cupcakes. She mainly helps me mix, and spoons it into the cake cases. Ia was able to do much more this time, maashAllah. She could weigh out ingredients, whisk egg, pour the liquid ingredients on to the dry ones. (This was a melt method plain cake - which she later iced).
Not a Ramadan craft, but making something for her fasting family to enjoy at iftaar time, inshAllah.

Islamic Studies in Ramadan

Since my self critique session over Islamic studies at the weekend I have sourced out some more interesting approaches for the boys. Alhamdulillah, may Allah reward those people who take the time and effort to post their work and ideas online, and from whom I learn so much.
I also spent some concentration time working out a post- Ramadan shedule, so now I'm no longer wondering how I'm going to fit everything in. For now though we continue with a scaled down approach.
SubhanAllah, one third of Ramadan has already passed! Today for Islamic Studies the boys read an article on advice for a beneficial Ramadan. I set them a task consisting of copying out a hadith; a few comprehension style questions, to ensure they understood the text, and then I asked them to take points from the article and compile a list of 10 things they could do now to improve their observance of Ramadan, inshAllah. I try to scale the Islamic Studies down to a level at which they can realistically hope to implement what they are learning. So, although the article recommended performing Umrah in Ramadan, for example, I would not want them to include this on their list as it is not something they can actually do at the moment. They can however observe prayers on time, read Quran, try to avoid losing their tempers etc. I think this is important, as Islamic knowledge needs to be implemented and lived, not carried around as information only. For this reason I try to extract the aspects of Islamic learning most relevant to them, at their stage of life. This is not always easy, and that was part of the cause of my weekend confusion!

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!