Beautiful Springtime

MaashAllah!

What U did today

This is a summary of what five year old U did today;
- copied out the word "the" three times
- drew a picture and asked me to write three words about it for her to copy onto the picture
- Used www.starfall.com
- Read "Sam's Pot", a Songbirds phonics reader.
- Wrote a letter (she told me what to put, I wrote it and she copied it out.) This was her own idea, maashAllah.
- colouring
-looked through story books
-played with toys
-played in the garden
- listened to a story
- tried doing some washing up (Her idea again! I don't like finding all that water inside the gloves afterwards.)
- went swimming

It would have been nice to get something maths related in there today, but I think she did well, alhamdulillah.

Written Answers

I'm working on formulating written answers with the boys. Over the last couple of days we have used the questions at the end of Unit 2 lesson 2 of "A History of Muslim Civilization". The first question asks about the aspects of Muhammad (saw)'s character which prepared members of his clan and tribe to accept his claim of prophethood. The second question was to describe Muhammad (saw)'s social position in Makkah before prophethood.
The information for these answers is contained in the three text pages of the unit, and it is fairly straightforward to pick out the points, but putting them together properly is another skill altogether, and this is part of the transition from primary to secondary education I suppose. The boys first response is to write out the information, in sentences, but in a way which forms little more than a list. This is fine at primary level, it shows you have the facts to answer the question with. But what we are needing to work on is:
a. constantly relating the information to precisely answering the question
b. writing a concluding sentence wrapping up the information into an answer

It is not so much about supplying the information to answer the question, but manipulating the information into a specific answer.
The only way to deal with this, as far as I can see, is to practice and to go through all answers to work out how improvements could be made and keep drumming it in:
How does this answer the question?
And, Where is your conclusion?

Any suggestions? Is there something I'm missing?

History

I have always covered history informally with the boys. I have not followed topics in any particular order, but I think they have a reasonable general knowledge of the kind of history topics children of their age may have heard about. Maybe the exception to this is Roman Britain.
Recently for history study they have been doing a little regular reading of Usborne's History of Britain. I think this is a very good book to have as a reference. Its chronological arrangement, covering all the periods up to the present makes it easy for a primary aged child to get an overview of the whole picture before looking in more detail at the periods which interest them most. The material is also published in a series of smaller books covering different periods, andwe've had these from the library in the past.
Anyway, since getting the Muslim history book I blogged about previously I thought we'd take a break from the Usborne and make use of the early chapters of the Muslim history book on the pre-Islamic period and on the nature and meaning of history itself. I'm doing this through reading aloud and discussion. Today we read about what makes a civilization, the rise and fall of civilizations, the pre-historic (pre-written records) era and then the early civilizations which grew up near major rivers. I really like the broad approach here, and I really liked the discussion of how early peoples organized themselves. The writer really relates the behaviours of early people to the behaviours of people of all times (arguing over small matters, needing a leader to get anything done). It makes for interesting discussion, maashAllah!

Akimbo

This is what I'm reading to the girls in the evenings at the moment. Under the flash glare the author's name is Alexander McCall Smith. The girls both enjoy watching their Big Cat Week DVD, and to help them imagine the scene in this book I just asked them to think about the landscape in Big Cat Week. This helps them feel closer to the story. Although this book (about a park ranger trying to trap a lion which has taken to eating cattle, then adopting a lion cub) is very good for a 7 year old, it is less so for a 5 year old, but U is enjoying it anyway. There are others in the series, "Akimbo and the Elephants" and "Akimbo and the Crocodile", which I hope to read to them later, inshAllah.

The girls have done some drawing again today. Here U was copying a castle picture. Later the page became very full of action!

Wednesday

This is a home education blog, isn't it?

So, we are easing back slowly into our normal routines. The girls spent time on Education City today, we all watched Monday's Bang Goes the Theory and the boys did some reading and read aloud. The boys have been working on their Roblox games.

Still here!

Just popping in to say that I have not given up blogging!!! Just been having a hectic few days. InshAllah normal blogging will resume shortly!