My Unschooling/Structured HE Experiment…

In light of recent discussions on the IHSAN Forum,  I set myself an experiment. I wanted to see what would be different about a structured HE day and an unstructured day. Monday, I set up the workbox system for the first time and R used that system for her HE. Today, we had an unschooling day! Yup, thats right we had an unschooling day.

So, lets compare the two different days:

WORKBOX MONDAY

Preparation: I set up R’s schedule strip on the Sunday night, and filled her boxes according to her schedule which can be found at the top of this blog. What went in the boxes?

Box 1: Word level worksheets (independent work)

Box 2: Handwriting book – 2 pages (independent work)

Box 3: A book read to me (work with Mum) and Making sentences activity

Box 4: 3 pages of surahs she has memorised (work with Mum)

Box 5: 2 pages of Qaidah practice (independent and work with Mum)

Box 6: Maths – 2 lessons from the MEP program (work with Mum and independent work)

Box 7: Arabic – writing practice on her wipe board, 2 pages from Madinah Arabic for kids (independent work)

Box 8: Read a recycling book to R (work with Mum)

Box 9: We began to recycle scrap paper to make homemade paper

Swimming lesson

When she awoke, she followed her morning routine and took her schedule strip at 8.30am. She worked through her schedule strip from 8.30am to 1.30pm (this included any breaks, free time, lunch that I had scheduled in into the schedule strip but not including her swimming lesson).

Here are some pics:

This was R's schedule strip. The numbers refer to the box number and the pictures are breaks etc.

R making some sentences which she later copied out and illustrated.

The recycling book we read. Since we moved, we have really got into recycling. So, we read this and discussed it at length. We have a green recycling box and orange bags from the council and are actively recycling.

Scrap paper that R ripped up and placed into a bowl of water to soak overnight. This was to show how something old can be used to make something new.

UNSCHOOLING TUESDAY

Preparation: She woke up and I told her that she could do whatever she wanted to do today as long as she at least read to me and did her Quran practice. She agreed.

What did she do today? She started around 9.30am and finished around 4.30ish, again that was with meals, breaks etc. Although now, she is reading to her brother. So, I guess an unschooling day doesn’t really end. Mmmm….

Finished making her homemade paper recycling project (it is still drying as we speak).

Dressed up and played

Did her 3 pages of Quran revision with me and 2 pages of Qaidah practice

Painted two pictures

Made a picture using stamp printing.

Made salt dough pieces (they are currently drying)

Read 3 books to herself

Made a geography puzzle

Here are some pics:

We drained the paper. Then placed the soaked paper into a food blender and blended it. R then added food colouring and glitter and mashed it even more.

I used an empty frame and the netting of an old niqab and stretched it over the frame and tied the back.

R spooned the recycled mixture onto the netting and squashed it into the open space of the frame. It is currently in the boiler cupboard drying.

Made a salt dough mix for R (so easy to make - got the recipe from TMEG's Ramadan pack. She then modelled it into what she wanted. They went in the oven and are currently cooling ready to paint tomorrow inshaAllah.

 

So, I asked R which day she preferred. Drum roll please………………………

She said she preferred UNSCHOOLING TUESDAY because it was fun! I really don’t know what to say. Yes, she had more fun today because she did more arts and crafts. But then on WORKBOX MONDAY, she completed more work in different subjects.

My dearest readers,  your comments and advice are much welcomed – structure vs. unschooling…where do we go from here? I did this experiment to see what works/how it works. Yes, they were only two days – so can’t really say much but what do you think? Right now, I don’t know what to think. lol

 

Just to add to my workboxes post…

Salaam,

I would just like to add to the post below that I didn’t buy the system from the website. I just did it myself. So, it only cost me £12 for the boxes. I already had card and printed the stuff off and I already had the laminating stuff.

You don’t need to buy the package from the website.Just do it yourself at home. Also, you don’t need a separate homeschooling room. We don’t have one. Our HE takes place on the table we eat our meals on. The boxes we have are placed on a bookshelf.

Hope this helps inshaAllah.

New House – New HE System

Alhamdulillah, we moved into our new home just over a week ago. It is always a little strange being in a new place. It doesn’t feel like home yet, but I’m sure it will come inshaAllah.

Anyway, I’m not the type of person who can sit and live with boxes for months on end. Whenever we move, we literally work day and night until everything is unpacked. Alhamdulillah, everything has been done – just a little painting to do here and there. The kids love their new home. I hope we have many happy memories here inshaAllah.

I have been working on how our HE will be set up in our new house. Made a reading corner for R. It includes a large ‘puff puff’ (cushion/chair); it is near her books, and I printed this from sparklebox.co.uk, laminated it and stuck it up on the wall. Now, when she reads she doesn’t need to ask me how to read certain words. She looks at the letters and sounds chart and attempts it herself. I cannot tell you how much this has helped her with her reading.

She spent most of all day working on this. I was quite surprised that she made it all on her own. She followed the instructions in the booklet, made it, then her baby brother got hold of it….there were loads of tears and I begged my husband to put it back together. She was so happy when she woke up the following morning.

And finally, I am so excited about this!!! This will be our new way of organising our HE days! It is a system devised by Sue Patrick and it is called the Work Box System. More can be read here.

Firstly, let me show you a picture of the workboxes I made a couple of days ago:

So, here is what I did:

Sue Patrick advises that you buy transparent boxes but at £2.99/£3.99 each and you need to buy 12, I just thought ‘forget that’ and instead bought them for 99p each at the 99p store.

I then came home and printed out the numbers and signs which you can find here.

Cut them all up, laminated them all and cut them all up again. A bit tedious, but worth it.

Then velcroed the back of each piece and put the other side of the velcro on the boxes in two places. The number was placed in the middle of the side of the box. And another velcro was placed on the bottom right hand corner for a ‘Work with Mum sign’ (see the above links).

So, how does it work? You can read more about it here:

But to briefly explain, this is what happens.

1. Depending on your curriculum, requirements of each child, you would prepare the boxes the night before the ’school day’. What is great about this new method is that the child doesn’t just do ‘written work’ but you can use all the fun stuff you at home which are normally left in cupboards etc. What is also great about this, is when preparing the workboxes, you can take into consideration what the child liked/didn’t like, found difficult/found easy and fill your boxes accordingly.

For children that don’t like maths, maths could go into box 4 and then they could see a really fun activity in box 6, so it will make them motivated to complete box 4.

2. When the child wakes up, they go to their schedule strip. The schedule strip includes the order each box should be completed in as well as break cards, library card visits, lunch break, exercise etc. They then begin their day and take the first box.

I made our own schedule strip with the laminator, velcro patches etc but my phone isn’t working for me to take a picture of it. Example of a schedule strip which can be found here.

3. A great thing about these workboxes is that it encourages independent work. When you prepare the workboxes, you decide which boxes will have a ‘work with mum’ card on them. When the child takes a box, if it doesn’t have a ‘work with mum’ card, then they have to work on it independently. It it does, then the child works with you. Again, it is your decision.

4. The child feels a sense of satisfaction upon completing all the workboxes and has fun doing so.

I have personally found that our HE recently has not involved as much ‘fun’ activities. This way, I can include these in some of the workboxes and allow to basically ‘get on with it’.

What I really love about this system, is that it will allow me to spend time with her brother inshaAllah. I have been feeling very guilty about the way in which I have neglected her brother. When R was his age, we did so much together and I just don’t have the time for him. So, this way, whilst she is working on her boxes without the ‘work with mum’ card, I can read and play with her brother inshaAllah. I only have four months left til the next baby is born, so I want to use this to spend as much time with him as possible. He is still my baby even though he is now 19 months old mashaAllah.

So, that is it. Anyone has any questions, I will try my best to answer them for you. A special jzk to Umm T for reviving the thread on the forum. I had completely forgot about it and this system seems to suit us just right! Alhamdulillah.

 

What a week!

So, where do I even begin?!

Our life is in boxes and it has been a little difficult with the kids as they want their things. We were due to move into our new place on Sat 17th and then I received a phone call saying that the landlord has withdrawn! I broke down crying out of pure frustration (and tiredness). We had booked the van, cancelled bills etc and even put a deposit down. When my hormones settled, I realised that Allah (Swt) had definitely saved us from something. Both DH and I had prayed istikhara, so without a doubt Allah knew that this place was not good for us. The only thing was, the flat we are currently in had already been taking by new tenants and we were due to move out on 17th Oct which is only a few days away!

So, the hunt was on. We needed to find a new place and fast. Really  – Allah is indeed the Best of Planners. And last night we found a place which is much better in all ways than the one that we lost. Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. So, we will be moving out as planned in a few days inshaAllah.

As all of our stuff is in boxes, I am trying to be out as much as possible with the kids. So we have spent some lovely sunny days here. I love this place and am happy that we are not moving far from it:

Do you know what I love about HE? The relationship between siblings is strengthened. Alhamdulillah.

The time was spot on on the sun dial and we discussed how 'telling the time' has evolved throughout history.

R was thrilled that the olives on this olive tree were growing. I'm not sure if you can make them out, but this olive tree was FULL!

After this lovely day, R collected some leaves and did some leaf printing at home.

What was especially nice this week was attending the shahaadah of a lady I’ve been in touch with. MashaAllah she decided to take her shahaadah and along with another sister, we were honoured to witness her enter into Islam . It was especially nice as R was there to witness it. She was very happy and asked me a sweet question “Ummi, did she become Muslim because of the dua I make every night for all the non-muslims to become Muslim?” And you know what, who knows… Sometimes we do not know whether the dua of one of our sisters/brothers changes our situation or indeed those of others. When I was hunting for a new place, a sister texted me and said “Making dua you find a place near the masjid.” And that is what we found, alhamdulillah.

This week has made me think about sincerity. My level (and lack of) sincerity, my weaknesses as a Muslimah, and how important it is not just to teach my kids to read or write or even memorise the Quran but subhanaAllah, to try and build a beautiful Islamic character by the will of Allah. And it starts by me changing myself so that I can be a good example inshaAllah. Here are some pictures of ourselves in Regents Park, the day that the sister entered Islam:

R was intrigued by this bird. The subject of animals is not my thing, so only know what a pigeon and swan is. Alhamdulillah, the sister to be knew that it was heron. So we both learnt something today!

And to leave on a deep note, please read the following entry from my dear sister and friend’’s blog. Her words struck a very deep chord…

http://muslimmotherhood.blogspot.com/2009/10/reflections-of-transient-nature-of-life.html

MEP

I’m a little stressed – my next university year starts at the end of this week. And we’re moving next week inshaAllah. And I haven’t started packing yet.

But I’m trying to continue with HE as normal. We have been keeping to our timetable but have not done anything with Arabic or topic work. Everything else, Quran, Islamic Studies, Literacy and Numeracy has been going well. I don’t really want to start any topic work until we are settled in our new home inshaAllah.

Numeracy is going to change because I came across a new Hungarian Numeracy programme being used in UK schools as a pilot.

A few sisters on the IHSAN Forum are using it and so I called them up and asked my many questions. The friendly guy explained that it has been used in quite a few schools and that the marks achieved by these students in comparison to the marks achieved by students following the numeracy strategy was amazing. He also explained that the difference between this MEP programme and the Numeracy National Curriculum Strategy is that the MEP is mathematical whilst the Numeracy strategy is numerical. This was like Japanese to me and so a kind sister on the forum explained the difference as:

Mathematical means the science of maths as opposed to learning just about numbers (numeracy) and I’ve been searching for something like this for ages! The science of maths is like learning what the difference between a square and a rhombus is. I grew up thinking they’re totally different because a rhombus is like a parallelogram when actually a square is a rhombus, just a more complex one because it has equal angles.

What is great is that all the materials are free on the above website. However, I ordered the books as they are very very cheap. Haven’t received the order yet due to postal strikes but I have decided that this is the way we are going to go with Maths inshaAllah. The guy also mentioned that it is more vigorous and pushes the child more.

A Hungarian sister who is also on the forum said that she was so happy it has been translated into English and is being used here as she was quite disappointed at seeing what the NC uses here. Check it out!

Aside from that, I just can’t wait to get the move over with and get on with our normal routine. Did I say I hate moving…

‘So its going to be a long day?!’

said my daughter excitedly as we sat in the car 8.30 am this morning! i had just informed her of the day’s plans.

We missed our Thursday Home Ed group last week and she has been counting down the days to today. I really don’t think our Home Ed would be the same without our trips to our Thursday Home Ed group. She loves, I love it and I think so do all the other Muslim home educated kids (and their Mums!)

Today was just lovely. All the kids entered the gates and they were given a sheet of paper and had to complete a treasure hunt trail (all children aged 3 to 13 did one) and they were given a prize once they completed it. They had to find all the pictures of girls/boys (see pic below) look at their names on the sheet, write down the age of the child next to the name on the sheet and if they were old enough – they had to add all the ages at the end. There were about 10 pictures to find in quite a large outdoor space. They were so happy when they completed it.

By the way, that isn't me holding up one of the treasure hunt pages! lol!

After that, a sister who is a fitness instructor and home edder got them to do some sports games. The kids loved it. I really don’t know where this sister gets her energy from mashaAllah (must be her diet and strict fitness regime mashaAllah).

Then, we laid out the tables full of food and treats and everyone took a plate and helped themselves.

If that wasn’t enough, today was the first day of the cycling club for sisters. There were 4 of us and whilst we cycled around a very large park, the kids did a cycling session with a sister’s husband who is a cycling coach. Sisters have asked me how on earth do you cycle with jilbaab and believe me it is possible. One of the sisters that cycled today wears niqab and we all felt wonderful riding on our bikes, alhamdulillah.

And then as we were walking back from the cycling session to the car, the kids were doing this and I just thought what a classic Home Ed picture and just had to take it (!) :

Whilst everyone is at school stuck to tables and chairs, here is what R and a sister's kids are doing...I love HE!

I was going to end this post with the above picture but then had to share what happened as we sat down for dinner today. Hubby was on his way back from work, and we were all eating Tagine Zaytun. The following conversation unfolded:

R: Ummi, when animals die, do we put them in a box and then into the ground

Me: Well, as Muslims – we cover a dead body in white material and then put them into the ground. But we don’t put the box into the ground.

R: Oh… (Thinking)

Me: (Carried on eating and feeding baby Z)

R: So is it haram to put it in the box?

Me: We follow Allah and His Messenger and every believer is buried covered in white cloth, not in a box.

R: Will I be buried like that?

Me: Yes inshaAllah.

R: Who will bury me?

Me: Abi, inshaAllah.

R: Who will bury baby Z?

Me: Abi, inshaAllah.

R: Who will bury you?

Me: Abi, inshaAllah.

R: And who will bury Abi?

Me: Some of your amoo (uncles)

R: But if Abi dies and he is buried, that means I won’t see him ever again.

Me: (Oh dear, what do I say?!)

Me: Well…if Abi dies, then inshaAllah we will see him again in jannah inshaAllah.

R: But that won’t be for a very long time.  (Her eyes reddened and became enlarged. She tried to hold back the tears and then….the bank burst!)

She cried and cried and cried. And it wasn’t a moany childish cry. It was a cry out of pain and the fear of loss.

I obviously took her into my arms and held her.

R: I don’t want Abi to die. I want to see him every day.

Me: Yes, but we don’t know what Allah will bring us. Right now he is on his way home, so don’t worry inshaAllah. But if Allah does make Abi die, then that means that Allah loves us a lot inshaAllah because the pain we will feel will wipe away our sins.

She carried on crying.

Did I explain it in the correct way? I’m not sure. I hope so.

I then realised that my daughter had just understood what it means to die. And all of a sudden the reality of the importance of her upbringing, of this Home Ed journey dawned on me.

SubhanAllah, what a day…

Enjoying the sunshine

A very brief post. We were out both days of the weekend that has just passed. On Saturday we attended the Eid Festival which takes place in Dunstable Downs (near Luton). This was our first time. It was like any other bazaar: bouncy castles, face painting, henna painting, rock climbing. But my favourite part of the whole day was just the beauty of Dunstable Downs. The views are simply breathtaking. We stayed until sunset and it was just beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t catch the beauty of the place – but if you can go there -GO THERE!

We met up with some sisters whom we know who also home educate and all our kids had a wonderful time. It made me feel quite emotional seeing how free they were, collecting chalk, running into the bushes, playing and rolling in the fields. Isn’t this what HE is about. I want to live in the country – I want my kids to be surrounded by nature. I think we will definitely be going back inshaAllah.

On the Sunday, we thought we would be having a relaxing day, but we were invited at the last minute to visit the seaside not far from Margate. The weather was splendid  – again, all the families stayed until the sun went down. And it was just lovely seeing the kids playing in the sea and making things with the sand. Oh, how I love the sea! I could build my own hut and live there!

Anyway, here are some pics:

Kids from a local school acting out the scenes from Surah Al Feel.

Beautiful Dunstable Downs (pic does not do it justice!)

On another note, we might be moving. Will know for definite in a couple of days. We only moved to our current place in December, but we might be moving again. I don’t like moving – it stresses me out. But I’d rather move now whilst I’ve got the energy than when I am huge and very pregnant. Anyway, will keep you posted. Alhamdulillah, although we are keeping to our timetable, I’m a little worried that moving and then the baby’s arrival will take a huge chunk out of our HE for this year. I think for me, if I can get all the English and Maths stuff done before the year is out, I will feel really good. If she is also reading Quran fluently and has finished memorising her juz – then I’ll be happy inshaAllah. But will we be able to get through all of this with the moving and birth of no.3? I hope so inshaAllah.

A beloved friend has departed

Her name is Ramadan. I cannot tell you how sad I feel that Ramadan has gone. This Ramadan was different for me. I really enjoyed it so very much. I am terribly sad it won’t be another year until I see it again (if I live that long).

Alhamdulillah, R completed her first ever FULL day of fasting. We woke her up for suhr, she ate, prayed fajr and went back to sleep. We were out most of the day and she did really well up until 3pm and then basically asked us every 5 minutes if it was iftar until iftar came around. I did give her the option to break her fast, but she persisted and carried on mashaaAllah. We broke our fast at a sister’s house who had invited us and I felt so very proud that she had done it mashaAllah. I really learnt something though. When she kept telling me she was hungry, my heart felt pain but I knew that she would eat in a few hours. But what about those mothers who hear those same cries but do not feel relieved as they don’t have anything to fill the empty stomachs of their little ones. I felt so grateful to Allah for the fact that we have food and I do not have to go through days with my children going to sleep hungry. May Allah help our brothers and sisters who are fasting. Ameen.

We had a nice Eid – alhamdulillah. Prayed in Regents Park Masjid in Central London. Then the kids enjoyed a day out at Gambado’s in Chelsea. There were so many Muslims there. I bumped into an old friend – she actually hosted my walima (wedding party) in her house. It was so nice seeing her after all these years. We were then joined by some old friends from North London. After that we accepted an invite from a HE family and had dinner there. R was happy. Z was very happy (and naughty!) and I was shattered and collapsed as soon as I got home. I think I often forget I’m pregnant! Lol! Does that happen with no. 3?

We are taking a few days break until next week from our HE schedule. I told R that she could do whatever she wanted to do today, so she made bookmarks and then asked to do some Maths.

To help with her addition, I have printed out and will inshaAllah laminate a rainbow number line and 1-100 chart that she can keep next to her whenever she does her Maths. This advice was given to me by other HE sisters on the IHSAN Forum. You can find the number line here and the number chart here. I found these on the sparklebox website for early years and key stage 1 but they also have a key stage 2 website and everything is free I believe.

We also attended the Thursday Home Educators get together and children from one family made cakes and brought books and toys to sell to raise money for Gaza. They made £85 mashaAllah.

R’s birthday is next month. My mother (who isn’t a muslim…yet inshaAllah) knows that we don’t celebrate birthdays so she bought her a gift and gave it to her on Eid instead. It was a play kitchen with utensils and food! R was ecstatic. She has wanted this for ages. Both R and baby Z have been playing and playing and playing with the kitchen. She has made me so many meals, wants to make a fridge out of a cardboard box for her food and baby Z has been feeding himself and me! It made me realise how important it is for the kids to play, play, play. Role play is extremely important and I really am trying to incorporate that more into her schedule inshaAllah.

Aside from that, thats about it. See you soon…inshaAllah.

Keeping to schedule

Uploaded a new page (see the top of the blog) which includes our timetable which has been tweaked a bit since I included it in my previous post.

Alhamdulillah, we have really been enjoying our HE. We have kept to schedule except afternoons which I had a bit of a problem with. For me after lunch, I kind of wind down and don’t want her to do anything that is messy. But I have had to overcome my fear and just let her get on with it. I really have relaxed about things like cleanliness and really just letting her enjoy the HE experience and I can see that she has been learning a whole lot more.

A very dear sister who is also HE (she knows who she is) has been a rock to me. I don’t think she realises how much. I don’t take illness very well in that it drives me mad when I can’t do what I normaly do. At a time when I felt like I couldn’t go back to normal, she helped me and continues to help me see what HE is all about.  May Allah (Swt) bless her and her family and their HE journey. Ameen.

So, anyway – what have we been up to? I’ll let the pics do the talking:

I have realised that in order for HE to go smoothly with R. I have to make sure that baby Z who is almost 18 months old is occupied. I found Mr. drawing all over the walls with a fat blue crayon. The curtain rail broke as he thought he was tarzan and we had to buy a new keyboard for the PC! So different to his sister. Anyway, it seems that he likes puzzles and was occupied for a full 40 minutes!! These puzzles were stored away til he reached 3 but he really enjoys them. Alhamdulillah.

Every day she reads 2 books to me and I read at least one to her. We really enjoyed this book. I was surprised how much.

We are revising her reading and are using the Ruth Miskin Series. She can read these books quite easily, but I want to use these next few weeks to review everything we did last year before moving on to more difficult books. She feels quite happy when she reads the entire story all on her own. This series is good because it gives the parent questions to ask the child as you read through the story.

We were waiting for the butchers to open and the kids enjoyed chasing pigeons. It was a nice moment for me, reflecting over the ayat in surah mulk - that it is Allah (Swt) who keeps the birds afloat in the sky.

Hubby didn't like the traditional Qaidah which uses the Asian style of Arabic. He's not used to it and wanted the other style (can't remember the name of it) So, I was given this by a sister and mashaAllah the lessons work perfectly with R. MashaaAllah, she is progressing nicely. We do 1-2 pages of this a day.

We made date parcels which was one of the activities from the TMEG Ramadan Guide.

She decided which Islamic reminders she wanted to put into the date parcels. Can you figure out what the picture is? It was a good idea from TMEG as we have been discussing the meaning of the reminders at the time of iftar as suggested.

She has started her swimming lessons and has had two lessons so far. She is really enjoying it mashaAllah. The course lasts for 14 weeks and then she can move on to the next level.

I am using A&C Black for Maths. Some of the stuff is really easy for her, but I want to cover all the reception stuff as revision. I think we will be switching to Year 1 fairly soon inshaAllah. If it really does get to easy, I'll just scrap the Reception stuff and move on to year 1 straight away. AND THAT IS THE BEAUTY OF HE. If she was in school, we would HAVE to stick with reception level! What if she is a whizz at Maths and progresses to Year 3 work whilst she is still at reception level age - HE allows you to do that.

Finally we are back!

I have been rather useless at blogging these past couple of months. But I have a good excuse for it. We will be expecting a new addition to the family in 6 months time. Yup, by the grace of Allah (Swt) I am just over 3 months pregnant. R is very excited and I am somewhat nervous as baby Z will no longer be a baby, but a very busy 2 year old when the baby is born inshaAllah.

The last 3 months have been full of morning sickness.  I actually feel irritated that they call it ‘morning’ sickness as mine was all day. Alhamdulillah, feeling much better now. 2 days after Ramadan began, I got bad food poisoning from prawns which got worse and had to go into hospital. Feel recovered somewhat and so today is my first official day of fasting. R has expressed her ardent wish to fast with us tomorrow which will be a Saturday. So, we have decided to wake her up for suhr and let her try. Lets see how it goes.

So, what have we been up to? Well, R went to Algeria and is back. She apparently had a wonderful time swimming in the sea, playing with monkeys in the Berber mountains. I used the time whilst she was away organising HE for next year. All resources are now organised into categories. It took my forever, but got there eventually. I now have lists of everything we have for each subject and they are all in one place.

Aside from that, we received our Ramadan Guide from Tailor Made Educational Guides which we have been working through. It feels so great to have everything ready. All I have to do every day is take a wallet: the instructions and resources are all there. We just need to follow it. As I have been ill, we are a little behind, so instead of one activity a day, we are doing two activities.  I think they are going to do a Hajj one, so looking forward to that one too inshaAllah. You can find more about them at www.tailormadeeducationalguides.co.uk

Here is something she made which was day 2’s activity of the guide – a Ramadan acrostic poem (it took her almost 2 hours to complete, but she persisted mashAllah):

Our timetable for the year is finished! Yay! When I have time, I will add it to the top pages of the blog. We started our HE today. As it is Ramadan, it is not as full as our main timetable. This is what we are doing during Ramadan:

RAMADAN TIMETABLE

Quran         3 pages of revision
3 new ayat hifdh
2 pgs Qaidah

Literacy        Read to her
She reads two books to me
Literacy work x4
Handwriting x2

Maths            Maths work x4

Islamic Studies    Ramadan Guide from TMEG

Once Ramadan is over, we will switch to the full timetable which you can find here: (it probably looks a lot, but one activity takes no longer than 15-20 minutes)

HE Timetable 2009-10

And that is it for now.  Hope to be posting more regularly.