Tailor Made Educational Guides Website

Remember this from one of my old posts.  Well, their website is up:

Here is the sister’s email:

Asalamuu ‘alaykum,

We begin with the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

Our website is now up and running, walhamdulilah.

You can visit us at: http://tailormadeeducationalguides.co.uk/

Please spread the word amongst your contacts. Especially all of the mothers who do not want their children spending hours in front of the TV or computer during the summer holidays. And for the home educated mothers who want to start something new and different for this coming September.

Thank you to everyone who has made duaa for us and has emailed all of their contacts. From the emails alone, we have had so many orders that have prevented us from completing the website until now.

Please continue to make abundant duaa for us.

Walaykum ‘aasalam
On behalf of the team at TMEG,
Umm ‘Abdullah

I’ll be posting a longish post soon. We have been doing LOADS AND LOADS of Arts and Crafts, Arabic and Quran. Oh, and R is whizzing around quite confidently without stabilisers on her bike now, masha’Allah.

Old Skool

Sometimes you just gotta do what you’ve been accustomed to doing!

I like talking to sisters about how they HE. I enjoy it, but I think recently I have been ‘listening’ too much and as a result our HE life changed slightly.

I was beginning to feel guilty about doing a lot of work with R. Was I pushing her too much. ‘She isn’t even 5 a sister told me.’ I really was beating myself about it and so tried to take things ‘easy’, and I felt more tired than when we were actually following a schedule.

So, with myself almost falling into a HE burnout, I formed a new timetable to follow until Ramadhan (yes, we are going to work through the summer insha’Allah as Ramadhan will be our break. Last year, we did so many activities and I didn’t have enough time for my own ibadah, so this year I will only be doing Qu’ran with her and reading) and I cannot tell you how this week has been for both me and her. She even told me how much she has enjoyed this week so far. Alhamdulillah, the good old way of doing things has made me feel calmer and she enjoys it too. So, I now know that our way of following a schedule works for us. We enjoy our time together and we stick fairly to our routine. Smiles all round.

Masha’Allah, my beloved sister who gave me dawah when I was a non-Muslim gave me some good simple advice. ‘Be yourself and just do what you’ve got to do, not what others expect you to do.’ I do love her so much and please make dua for her – she is due to have a baby anytime now.

So, this is roughly what we have been up to:

QURAN

Still working on the Qaeedah. She finished memorising another surah and beause it was one of the longer ones in Juz Amma, I treated her to this which I bought from thebookpeople.co.uk (there were over 10 different ones in the pack): She has had a ball with this. In fact, as I write this, she is colouring and cutting out more clothes. The pack comes with a dinosaur set, under the sea and much more. Definitely worth it, and a good incentive to get HE work done.

READING

We are rounding up our phonics work until Ramadhan. You can kind of say that our HE til Ramadhan will be a round up of things I want her to work on ready for HE next year insha’Allah.

A kind sister on the IHSAN Forum had a whole load of school exercise books to give away free and so alhamdulillah, I took quite a few and they have come in very handy. May Allah (Swt) bless the sister. Ameen.

We now have a ‘Phonics consolidation’ book. Remember our phonics caterpillar, see the older posts. Well, we take three each day and I write a few words, ask her to read them and then she has to write a sentence on her own trying to spell the words correctly in each sentence.

We have also started a handwriting book with 1-2 letters each day. Again, this is all prep for HE next year. You see, these lessons don’t take long to do, but a little every day really does have an effect masha’Allah. I split each line into half using a pencil and explain to her that she needs to touch the middle line and the bottom line, that the circle needs to be drawn anti-clockwise. When she was writing something else at another time, I noticed that she wrote the ‘a’ in the same way.

We practise reading with Snapdragons series which she loves (again from The Book People) and Oxford Reading Tree.

MATHS

I think I have found R’s forte: Maths. Masha’Allah she is good at the other subjects, but I think when your kids get to a certain age you can see which subjects they are stronger in and which ones they are weaker in. I think Maths is her strong point. I was amazed at how quickly she wizzed through some addition and took ages over some literacy work.

ISLAMIC STUDIES

We have started an A to Z book on Islam. I feel that now she is older she is more able to produce it on her own. Today, she wrote A is for Allah all on her own. I asked her if she needed help with the spelling. She said no, and mash’Allah, she wrote it correctly. I then wrote ‘Allah’ in Arabic and she decorated it with glitter. We will continue with this insha’Allah.

ART AND CRAFT

She is making her own doll using a kit from the £1 shop. She has finished sewing and stuffing the doll. Pictures to come soon insha’Allah.

SPORTS

My little brother bought R a bike a few years ago, and she was riding it with stabilisers. She has frequently expressed her wish to ride without the stabilisers but I was reluctant. So, she joined a cycling club in East London organised by my dear lovely sister and her husband. They have 8 kids masha’Allah and HE all of them. Anyway, it was the first time R rode without stabilisers and she did it masha’Allah. Since Saturday, she has been whizzing around on her bike whenever I have taken her out. It was definitely a moment for me when R did it. *sniff* My little girl has grown up masha’Allah.

And lastly, she can’t get enough of these Hama Beads and produced these by herself:

The fish was actually quite large but doesn’t come up in the picture. It took her quite a few days. She kept asking me to iron them (when you iron them, the pieces stick together and you can take it off the base. I kept putting it off. And then….BAAAAM! Baby Z came along and pulled them both down and there were pieces EVERYWHERE! She took it well and just said ‘Z, that wasn’t very nice.’

More from us soon insha’Allah. Oh, and if you haven’t registered on the IHSAN Forum (link above), do so. We have a wonderful summer’s competition for the kids on the forum.

Phonics Caterpillar

It has been a long time since I actually posted about what we have been doing, so here is a wee update:

READING

A kind sister who was Home Educating left four huge bags of books that she no longer needed. Masha’Allah, some excellent non-fiction books in there. So, R has been enjoying looking at pictures and attempting to read a few.We made the following caterpillar. I cut out the caterpillar parts of the body and R decorated them. She then wrote the phonic blend on each one. We then made the caterpillar and stuck it on the wall.

After we made this, we have been covering three ‘parts of the body’ every day. I ask her what the sound makes. Eg: ‘ay’ makes the sound ‘a’. Or ‘y’ at the end of a word makes the sound ‘I’. We then bring out the whiteboard and we practice some words. I put the blend all over the board. I ask her to spell a word for me by writing it down, or I write out a word and ask her to read it.

R also has a new penpal masha’Allah. She made the following card for her and unfortunately we have lost it! She made it over a week ago, and we have been searching frantically for it! Today, she received a letter and a drawing from her penpal and was so upset that she hadn’t managed to send her card first. Anyway, she is making another one. I really recommend this, R’s face lit up when she received her first bit of post!

R has also been working on addition, her hifdh, reading the Quran and enjoying meeting up with her friends at the Thursday Club for Home Educated children.

So far, that is about it. Will update more soon insha’Allah.

Tailor Made Educational Guides

No, we haven’t disappeared. Just been very busy with myself finishing up with my own studying for this year. So, we have been taking it quite easy.

Am writing this post, because I really do like to support my brothers and sisters in their business ventures, especially if it has anything to do with HE. This is a sister I know. Please do spread the word. I know that she is putting a lot of effort into this and is very good masha’Allah. Here is her message:

In the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

Asalamuu ‘aalaykum,

Are you a Home Educator who wants to provide your children with a fun education, specific to their own interests and needs? Do you want your children to learn the ‘traditional’ subjects but in a fun way related to their hobbies? Are you a parent who is unhappy with the ‘boxed in’ approach within your children’s school and wish to provide a supplement at home to your child’s education that they will enjoy? Are you a parent who not only values the education of your children but also is passionate about them excelling in their unique interests? Are you a teacher who works in a private school and needs help with planning for your unique students?

 If you have answered YES to any of the above questions, then I am excited to announce something that will insha’Allah meet your needs, more importantly your children’s needs and will give you more time to enjoy educating your children. My name is Umm ‘Adbullah and I would like to introduce you to Tailor Made Educational Guides.

All praise is due to Allah, we are a small group of sisters who have led careers as teachers. Some of us left the ‘traditional’ teaching path and are now home educating our children. We provide a service whereby the parent, home educator or teacher contacts us with the interests, strengths and weaknesses of the child. A tailor made educational guide is then produced specifically for that child. We take into account the hobbies of the child, what they absolutely HATE doing, and what they LOVE to do.

One of our recent customers was a homeschooling mother. Her youngest child, aged 5 loves insects and reptiles, hates writing and loves maths. We took this into consideration and produced a 6 month guide whereby he pursued his love of insects and reptiles (with integrated Islamic Studies), enjoyed the fact that there was a lot of ‘insect and reptile maths’ and we created ways in which he could practice on his writing skills without realising he was actually doing so. In the end, a happy mother and child.

We have a range of guides to suit you:

* 1 YEAR CURRICULUM

* 6 MONTH CURRICULUM

* 3 MONTH CURRICULUM

* HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES

* EXTRA HOMEWORK CURRICULUM

* UNIT STUDIES.

The process is as follows: – You contacts us with your requirement. We then email you a questionnaire which will enable us to create a tailor made curriculum for your child. – You choose a GOLD, SILVER or BRONZE option and within an agreed time frame, you receive your educational guide.

GOLD: The guide with resources.

SILVER: The guide with ideas to do with your child.

BRONZE: The guide.

We specialize in Islamic Studies as well as integrating Islamic Studies into your child’s hobby-based guide.

The benefits of this option:

* A quality educational guide based on what YOUR child ENJOYS.

* You have more time to enjoy educating your children as we do all the planning for you.

* Authentic Islam integrated into the tailor-made guides based on the Qu’ran, Sunnah and way of the righteous predecessors.

We are in the process of setting up our website, but in the meantime, if you would like to take benefit of our services and to request a quote, you may contacts us on tailormadeeducationalguides@hotmail.co.uk

Waalaykum ‘aasalam Umm ‘Abdullah

Thoughts on Planning for the rest of this year and next…

If R was going to enter school this coming September, it would be her ‘first’ year of school at reception level. We have been homeschooling now for the past 2 years. My approach has been the structured approach with some flexibility and I feel under slightly more pressure now that the coming year would be her entering school.  But, as per the advice of a few sisters, I am going to take it as easy as possible as masha’Allah we have covered quite a lot of the reception and some year 1 work already.

Next year is going to be a tough year for me – it is going to be my final year completing my English Language and Literature degree and so come September, I want to be fully prepared for R’s HE so that I don’t spend my time planning/searching for resources. I simply won’t have the time.  I don’t even know if I will have time to blog! Anyway, I have sorted all of the resources per subject into files. I just need to sort them into a monthly order. A sister who used to HE masha’Allah gave me folders and folders and folders of stuff for R to do. I am so very grateful. Alhamdulillah. And another sister, allowed me to photocopy quite a lot of reception stuff. So, workbook wise - I am sorted. I do want to make it fun though, so what I am going to do is make a structure for the year and slip in arts and crafts activities, projects, lapbooks, trips into all of that so that she enjoys it as much as she has been. I need to get all of this done way before August, as I want to spend the first few weeks of August spiritually preparing for Ramadhan inshaAllah and I do not want to plan or do anything else during Ramadhan except the Ramadhan activities I have planned.

As for this year, I have decided to scrap the rest of our timetable (!) Anything that we haven’t done will insha’Allah be incorporated into next year’s timetable. So until Ramadhan, we will be focussing on the following:

1. I want to consolidate all work on her Qu’ran reading. She has been working her way through the Qaeedah, but I would like to see her reading Qu’ran by Ramadhan insha’Allah.

2. I want to really push her reading skills insha’Allah. She is reading more to herself now and I just feel she needs a lot of my time sitting listening to her, reading to her and encouraging her to read more. So, a lot of phonics work and sight reading etc.

3. I would like her to finish the hifdh that she is working on insha’Allah.

4. Reading fiction in Arabic – insha’Allah the Qaeedah should help with that.

5. And anything else that she would like to do .

I feel that if she can do the above, then it will really make next year’s HE  quite different and more exciting for her. But if it doesn’t happen – no worries.

I do really like this aspect of HE, trying to get everything ready for next year. I just hope that I can make it as fun as possible for her insha’Allah. Make dua for us please. 

It’s All About Nature…

Not much sitting-down-with-pen-and book HE has been done this week. But, we have been to a few places and the facts we have both learnt is amazing. For example, did you know that owls don’t ‘poop’ as other animals do. Instead, because they swallow their prey whole, they bring up their meals in the form of a pellet! In one picture, I tried to capture an owl’s pellet that was dissected by one of the girls from a HE family that we went with. You can actually see the skull of a rodent! SubhanAllah.

The first visit was to the Butterfly Enclosure which is located just outside of the Natural History Museum, London. It was organised by a sister and we had quite a few Home Education Ummis turn up. It was quite hot inside, and butterflys were flying everywhere! Landing on heads, hijabs and hands. There was also a feeding table and a glass case showing real caterpillars turning into butterflys.

The next visit on the same day was in the Natural History Museum, again organised by the same sister. This time, we enjoyed a ‘bugs’ workshop. And yes, with real life bugs! There were centipedes, millipedes, cockroaches, a spider and much more. R got to stroke the leg of a rather large spider. I kept well back (except to take the picture of course!)

And finally, we spent today in East London with another HE family (dragging both husbands with us) and spent a good four hours at the Wildlife Event. It happens once a year and mashaAllah it was brilliant. Apart from the fact that there were real life animals brought to the event, animals that actually live in London’s wildlife areas, there were tents of many organisations. Each organisation provided activities for the children to do and masha’Allah all the children had so much fun making the activities as well as learning about wildlife and nature. Apart from making an arts and crafts dragonfly, beetle and butterfly…they also made a bird feeder using twigs, an apple and pumpkin seeds. We don’t have a garden, but we are off to our local common to hang the apple on a tree and insha’Allah observe the bird feding. I have got so many ideas of doing things with R and the rest of the HE families I know. Fancy a Bat walk anyone??

Today, really made me realise how important it is for our children to be surrounded by Allah’s creation, learn about it, appreciate it and love it! Insha’Allah I think I need to look into the Charlotte Mason method a little bit more.

Right, it is 11pm! I am shattered and off to bed. See you soon…inshaAllah

Two moments to treasure…

Masha’Allah, R has been reading for some time now, alhamdulillah. But yesterday she did something which I had actually been discussing with a sister only hours before. We were talking about the transition between learning to read and independently reading. Masha’Allah the sister’s daughter had done that and I wondered with great anticipation when R would become a ‘reader’. I was brought up surrounded by books and they have always played a huge part in my life and so I really wanted this for R, but for her to obviously do it in her own time and when it is right for her. Well, whilst I was on the IHSAN Forum, this happened:

I heard her start reading behind me and I didn’t budge. And masha’Allah she read it to herself! I didn’t ask her to get the book and read, she just casually got up, picked up a book and read! I can’t tell you how happy and proud I was. Masha’Allah. Allah (Swt) allowed for me to give my child the gift of reading. Have I ever expressed how much I love Home Education!

If that wasn’t enough, she also made this:

It is her first piece of 100% independent writing! She sat there, drew some designs on the reverse side of the paper and then wrote this. There are quite a few spelling mistakes but masha’Allah, she did it on her own. It reads (with me correcting the spelling mistakes): “Ummi I love you. Thank you for the watch that you buy for me.” Again, a moment to treasure. And who says HEd doesn’t work! Eh?! But, you know what is really special…being able to witness such moments instead of hearing about them from a teacher who is a complete and utter stranger!

Anyway, what else have we been up to?

She has done quite a bit of adding but I think she doesn’t like it or just got fed up with it, so we stopped. We continued with our weather lapbook. She has almost finished memorising surah Buruj mashaAllah.

And…we have been cross-stiching. She did this all by herself after I showed her how:

This came from Poundland. That’s right! 3 designs complete with 3 needles, all thread, 3 pieces of mesh and 3 design to copy all for £1! She really likes this thing, so I have told her that we can buy some of the material to draw he own designs on and then embroider like that.

Due to a sister posting up pics of her children’s butterfly entries for the Nature Detectives Competition, as well as seeing that my dear sister over at Always Learning had also done it, I thought why not enter R’s version of the butterfly. There are some amazing prizes to be won. But, I just thought she would just love to have abit of an arts and crafts day. It was also an opportunity for me to explain Symmetry. Afer explaining the concept of the symmetry of a butterfly, I left her to it and she started off like this:

and then here is the finished piece:

She definitely understood the concept of symmetry masha’Allah. So off in the post tomorrow insha’Allah.

And finally, just to make you all laugh! Every Thursday, we attend the HE gathering in East London. The kids have a beautiful playground to play in and have the option of doing activities in the wonderful centre they give to us for two hours. This week, one of the dear sisters brought an activity along called scoubidous! Now, I have never heard of these and was intrigued. I asked her if I could have a go. And by the end of our session that Thursday, we had 10 mums sitting around the table making scoubidous. The kids were more interested in the bubble painting and playing outside, but we were hooked! All that was missing as one sister said was the tea and biscuits! It was hilarious. Anyway, here is mine..really it is quite relaxing. lol

Happy homeschooling!

Thameena and Thawri

A few posts back, I mentioned that we were working on a Spring lapbook. We did start it but R didn’t seem as interested. So, I put it aside til another time.

R is really enjoying the warm weather masha’Allah and loves the fact that she doesn’t have to wear her coat. And so, she is forever asking me whether she can wear her ‘jacket’ today because it is Spring. Well, the weather hasn’t been very ‘Springish’ these last few days and one of them she had to wear her coat.

Furious that the weather had changed so drastically, she asked me, “Ummi, why is it sunny one day? And raining and windy another day?” So, I grabbed the opportunity headed down to our local library and took this out:

I then headed over to one of my favourite places on the net! And downloaded everything for a weather lapbook. Basically, I see what mini book she will be working on in her lapbook, read about it from the library book and then complete the mini book for her lapbook.

Today, we learnt about how snow forms and she drew 3 pictures to show how it forms (and I filled in the written description):

I don’t know if you can see it, but basically ice crystals form in the highest part of clouds. They then gather together and form snowflakes which then falls to the ground. She really grasped the idea masha’Allah.

We also learnt about hail, fog and dew. We read about it and completed the mini books. R couldn’t understand how fog is basically clouds that are near the ground. So, we headed off to youtube.com and I searched for fog and we watched a video of some people walking through a cloud! She couldn’t believe it and her face lit up like she understood! So, after that we had to search for dew and hail as well. Seeing it made so much sense to her.

The traffic lights, see my old post was a huge success and so we made this to teach the different sounds of ‘th’. I present Thameena and Thawri:

I took a piece of card, jazzed up the sides a little bit (if you can call it that. Drew a girl in hijab and a boy in a kufi. Wrote ‘th’ on the hijab and kufi and then asked R to copy words for one type of ‘th’ on Thameena’s hijab, and the other type of ‘th’ words on Thawri’s thobe. I cannot tell you how much she loved this. She then coloured it as they were just ‘too plain’.

She not only read all the words but played with it all day! When it was put down, she pretended to be thawri (with sword in hand) defending Thameena from those that won’t allow her to wear hijab. It was hilarious. But hey, if she’s happy, I’m happy!

Finally, I have been spending way too much time on the www.learninga-z.com site. They are allowing free downloads for one day only for the week. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the sister who told me about this. I spent more than 2 hours downloading non-fiction levelled readers for R and other reading resources and an entire one-year science program based around literacy. Today is the last day for the sciene, but try and catch the writing freebie day tomorrow.

And I would be rude if I didn’t introduce the latest member of our family (well, she’s a member for 2 weeks) – Mineko, the terrapin. Her family have travelled to Algeria for 2 weeks, so we are babysitting. I haven’t formally introduced her to Sulhafat (our tortoise) as Mineko is a meat-eating terrapin, and I’m scared my beloved very slow tortoise will be bitten and eaten up! Anyway, here she is:

Hijab and Time Lapbooks and Traffic Lights!

Firstly, for those of you who were having problems subscribing to the blog, I have rectified the problem. Please visit the page at the top of the blog that is called: ‘To subscribe to this blog…’ and follow the directions.

Secondly, do visit the old entries of the blog for work that we have done when R was 2.5 years+. (See the side panel for the monthly archive).

 

Like I stated in a recent post, we have become a little lapbook crazy! Last week, we completed 2 lapbooks and this week we are working on another one.

TIME LAPBOOK

As you know, we are working on telling the time. R had a wristwatch that I bought her, but has lost it. She is absolutely devastated. But I am adamant that I will not buy her another one as she has to learn to look after her things! Anyway, we made this lapbook – which in my opinion has everything you need to teach your child how to tell the time. Here are some pics:

Front Cover:

R making a paper clock to go into the lapbook.

The digital card packs have different times on them. R pulls out a card and then has to show the time on the clock.

This fan mini book teaches the 5 minute ’slots’ of time.  She had to draw the clock hand to represent 10 minutes past, 20 mins  past. She uses this mini book a lot to help her put the time on the analogue clock as per the digital card.

Here, R had to colour in the triangle to represent the 15 min ’slots’. This has taught her quarter past, half past, quarter to and o’clock.

 

HIJAB LAPBOOK

I took this from this wonderful blog. R really enjoyed making this. A lot of copywork went into this blog which was an option I took.

I measured and weighed R to put into this heart-shaped mini book. And she uses the tape measure to measure her doll’s hijabs etc.

This was her favourite part of her lapbook and she at least takes her Muslim doll out weekly. Here, we cut out the doll, laminated it and put it together. Then, we printed and cut out all her clothes. R coloured them in and the doll sometimes wears a skirt and blouse if she is at home, and puts on her abaya and handbag if going out! R loves it.

To finish off this long post, we also made this; it was to reinforce the ’sh’, ‘ch’, and ‘th’ sounds. In case you think it is a lollipop – lol. It isn’t. It is a traffic light. R copied the sh, ch, th on the outside and wrote words with that sound in them on the inside of the traffic lights.

Godstone Farm and Hastings

Today, we took a trip with another family to Godstone Farm and finished off at Hastings Beach.

We have been to some farms in our time, but I must say this was a wonderful place – designed especially for children in mind and has everything for a wonderful and educational day out.  Do visit the website above -  I would recommend this to anyone. Included are: Lots of animals, an animal-touching tunnel, 5 sandpits, at least 4 adventure play areas designed for all ages, a nature trail, a woodlands maze and the best thing about it is that there are educational trails posted up, educational information about the animals written in attractive colours and written in easy-to-read language for children. Everything is at children’s height. It was a superb day. Masha’Allah. Here are some pics (which doesn’t really capture the wonders of the farm):

We finished the day off in Hastings. The other family who are friends, wanted to visit the castle associated with the Battle of Hastings, but we opted for a picnic on the beach. R splashed about in the sea, made sand castles with the little sand there was (it is a stony beach) and just enjoyed being surrounded by the beautiful creation of Allah (Swt). Seeing her so carefree and happy made me realise how important it is for her to be surrounded by nature. MashAllah, they grow up so quickly and so I have decided to schedule in more time to get dirty by climbing trees, jumping in puddles and rolling down hills. You’re only young once right?!

A little news on Baby Z. 13 months old now masha’Allah. Finally, pulling himself up on tables and sofa. Quite slow physically but already saying quite a few words mashAllah: mama, baba, ya yaan (for his sister), zunka (to go out in Algerian), nini (to sleep in Algerian), six (his sister taught him that!), lala (’no’ in Arabic) and he likes to try and sing tala al badru alayna! LOL! As soon as he hears it, his face lights up and he starts talalalalalallaaaaaaaaaaa!