What has happened to this blog?

In case there is anyone wondering I am still here, still home educating. No one has gone into school, we are continuing as usual, alhamdulillah.
I stopped updating this blog because I felt that as my kids grow older it becomes harder to blog authentically without somehow compromising their privacy. To write publicly about young children is something I felt comfortable with, but as little children mature into teens it doesn't seem quite right any more and I don't want to write a "half blog" only about my still primary age girls.
I'm not going to remove the blog, and maybe one day I'll return to it, but for now, thanks for dropping by to read this, and if you are a home educator, enjoy these moments with your children. They really do grow up so fast!

Electronics

 This year the boys are doing physics topics in science. I bought them an electronics set which arrived this morning. I'm really pleased with it, it is easy to use with very clear, sensible instructions and there are lots of experiments to do!  They spent a couple of hours on it this morning. Here is the link : Secondary 2

Makkah Lapbook

 Last week the girls completed lapbooks on Makkah. We based this project on the first chapter of  "Muslim Cities Then and Now" by Susan Douglas, from the Islamic School book series. The textbook chapter is called Makkah During the Hajj. The book contains helpful teachers notes and I used these and the workbook pages as part of the project. I just added my own ideas to make lapbook mini books to go alongside.
Our lapbooks contained mini books on the following:
How Makkah Began: A recount of the story of Hajar and Ismael (as) in the desert, Zam Zam and the building of the Ka'bah.
What is Makkah like at Hajj time?: A description based on materials in the book. We had recently watched a documentary on Hajj, which was also helpful to the girls in being able to picture the scenes.
Travelling to Hajj: This mini book listed the conditions for travelling in the past and in modern times. The two lists were side by side, so a comparison could be made.
Makkah and the Kab'ah: This was another comparison mini book, this time comparing how Makkah and the Kab'ah used to look in the past with the modern day scene. The girls did some illustrations. There are lots of pictures online to look at to help with this. This mini book also gave the opportunity to use descriptive language.
The Hajj Journey: This was a worksheet from the book, showing the actions of Hajj.
Where is Makkah?: a map
What is the Arabian desert like? We did this first, as a scene setting exercise, so that the girls could understand a little of the geographic and climatic conditions of the region.
Makkah at the time of the Prophet (saw): This mini book listed a few facts, for example that the Prophet (saw) was born in Makkah and that he later conquered the town and the inhabitants embraced Islam.

The blue lapbook is Ia's and the yellow is U's.

Teaching Ideas

This morning I was looking around for links to writing tasks for year 2 when I came across an activity from Teaching Ideas. They have some nice writing prompts in the non-fiction section and some templates for the writing to be done on the computer. My girls had fun writing newspaper reports about an escaped zoo animal and making lost pet posters. I printed out their work to put in their year files.
Later they used an activity from the science section linked with our current habitats topic

Angels Lapbook

My daughters have completed a lap book on Angels. I based the lapbook around the contents of Muhammad al-Jibaly's book "Knowing the Angels", part of the Eeman Made Easy series. This lapbook has taken a while in coming, I started it in Ramadan, but we had a couple of weeks off here and there so it was a slow progress. I just did a little on the project every day we worked on it. One one day I'd read to them from the book and on the next day we'd make a mini-book on that information so I could see what they had remembered. The book is written for older kids than my daughters so I did abridge it as I went along.

Altogether we summarized the key information into five mini-books.
The Five pillars of Emaan, What are Angels like?, What do Angels do, The Character of Angels and Angel Facts.

 The mini-book above summarizes things about the character of angels.

 This one summarizes things they do.

This one illustrates the pillars of Emaan. That was included to explain the importance of studying this topic.
A couple of years ago I used another of the Emaan series to do a lapbook with the boys. They are useful books for kids, maashAllah.

Book stand

Yes we are still here, still home educating. Not so much I feel like blogging here these days. As children get older I feel that their lives deserve more privacy, but I expect I'll pop back from time to time with something home ed related.
We had a long summer break this year, but are back to full swing home ed now, alhamdulillah.
Today I just wanted to share my bookstand lightbulb moment!!!
We all spend much of our time in a room with a big table in it. However, that table soon becomes filled up with clutter from whatever activities we are doing. Sometimes there'll be someone on each side of the table pushing books into the other person's space, not to mention all the other bits and pieces that end up on there.
Finally I thought of getting a book stand, and what a difference it makes - it immediately seems to expand the table and makes the books easier to see. I'm seriously thinking of getting a couple more!

Looking for resources

Over the last couple of days I've been looking into English resources to use with the boys next academic year, inshAllah. This year we used a WHSmith book called Challenge English. It did the job, so I decided to look for the next book in their series. It is currently out of stock on their website, which is not a good sign, as if the publisher of a book is out of stock of it then it may be about to become unavailable. Anyway, maybe its a good thing, as I started to look around at alternatives. The boys like something fresh to restart a new year with and probably the Challenge book would have been very similar to what they worked through last year.
Finding resources for this age is quite confusing. Using the Amazon look inside facility I previewed pages from various types of books being sold for use with secondary English. I didn't just look at books for the boys' own year group, but also at those for slightly older, so I could get a sense of comparison and direction.
The levels are very diverse, and it makes it clear that by this stage age is definately not the best guideline for suitability of resources, you must match up your child with the book, not your child's age. For example, I looked at GCSE course books which seemed easier in content than the Year 7 book we completed this year. I also looked at GCSE books that were much harder. I found a Year 9 (pre GCSE) book from Galore Park, which is also much more challenging than pretty much any of the GCSE course books I looked at. What about books for earlier in the 11-14 age range? Well, these seemed harder to find, unless I was interested in workbook style materials that don't seem that different to materials made for the end of primary school. Galore Park has its series, but I'm not sure if I just want more of the same from there.
Hmmm.
So, I thought, what sort of skills should we be covering for English?  What are our gap areas? This year we've done lots of reading comprehension and writing tasks. We've also done some whole book studies and started working on essay writing skills. I feel that I can continue with whole book studies independently. I realised that I need to focus more on writing for different purposes. I can see why the boys have not developed those skills as much yet, as I think they find this the more boring side of writing. I know I always did. Writing to be persuasive, or to present an argument within the context of English study always seemed a bit empty to me. I think it can be more interesting to develop these skills within the context of another subject which you enjoy, rather than on random topics which may feel irrelevant.
So, bearing that in mind I think I will prefer to use other subjects as a vehicle for most of those skills, however I think we should do a little in English too. The other area I certainly need materials for is poetry. I always quite enjoyed poetry myself, but I think it is much more subjective and a matter of personal taste than prose. The boys really don't want to discuss poems in the same way that they are ready to discuss our whole book studies. I think they don't want to examine the details like that, they prefer wider themes and characterization gained from whole books. So, it would help to have a book to summarize key poetry points for them, so they get the picture without labouring over the thing too long.
Lastly I thought that maybe there are bits of grammar and usage they should tighten up on. Some terminology they do need to be able to use, which perhaps they have not bothered to retain up until now, as it isn't really necessary for reading comprehension or basic writing styles, which can both be gained through general wider reading.
So, those were the criteria with which I returned to the Amazon listings. Searching through I think I've found what I want. As I'm just looking for general skills and not working towards any particular syllabus I was able to go for a  GCSE textbook which is out-of-date as far as the specifications are concerned, and so is very cheap. That book focuses on developing writing for different purposes. It also does reading skills. Although it is GCSE the sample pages show that it is no harder than the book we used last year, just laid out more colourfully!
Secondly I found an "essentials" type book, which was very cheap, so although I couldn't check inside I think is worth the risk. Hopefully this will cover the grammar and usage type bits for the 11-14 age group and will be quick about it.
Lastly I found a book just on poetry analysis. There are lots of poems in it and no doubt some will be harder than others, so I'll pick and choose between the materials as I try to introduce this topic. I have not ordered that yet.
So, the plan is to be more pick and mix with English next year, to focus on certain skills that need work, while developing other skills in the more enjoyable ways that we started using this year. There is nothing worse than dreary English. Who can be bothered to write about meaningless topics?
But this does feel like a very "in-between" stage. I know the boys are not ready to properly work towards an English GCSE, and there is no need for that at all, however they do need something a bit fresher and different from the style of work done at primary age. Maybe its just me, but it all feels a bit like I have to build the direction myself. I don't remember it being that way at primary level. It all seemed clearer then!
Edited to add: Still not all neatly resolved yet! On further examination the poetry book was not what I had hoped for, so I'm leaving that. I looked further at Galore Park books, but I don't like their choice of extracts at all. If the Challenge book becomes available I will get it inshAllah, as it is not necessary to work through all of it, and it will have its good points.