Bare walls and Bob Books

Yesterday, we took down all of her work that was displayed on the bedroom wall and stuck it in two large scrapbooks. I also printed out pictures from the blog of activities we had conducted together and stuck them in as well. She helped me take them off the wall and stick them in and it reminded her of lessons we had done together. However, now her walls are bare and are screaming to be filled again. She is very proud of her two scrap books and wants to show any visitors when they come around. For me, it is a good way to organise displays and to keep work that she has put a lot of effort in and also allowing space for new 6 weeks blocks of ’school’. I have planned for us to make a number daisy chain and will insha’Allah make it extra big to cover up all that white wall paint!

Bob books are great! I ordered them almost a year ago and my daughter read one all by herself yesterday, masha’Allah. The 6 weeks of literacy lessons have paid off as she is actually reading, alhamdulillah! It was a simple book. It reads:

Mat. Sam. Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam. Sam sat on Mat. Mat sat. Sam Sat. The End. I asked her to read it to her Abi to show him that she can actually do it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His three and a half year old reading, mashaAllah. And he said something which really made me feel happy: ‘You’re doing a really good job.’ For me, 9 months pregnant, exhausted, recently attacked for homeschooling my daughter by another sister – it really made my evening. And indeed ALL praise is due to Allah (Swt).

Are there toilets in Jannah?!

We had a one-week break last week from our ‘planned’ homeschooling. It was a nice week, alhamdulillah. A busy one – as there were quite a few things I had been invited to and had to get done, but overall a nice week. I used the week to plan the next 5 weeks of homeschooling, we normally do a 6 week block, but I’ll be giving birth insha’Allah. So, Saturday was our first day of our new block and we started it off with Islamic Studies and Art. We created a masterpiece of bubble painting – it was actually quite fun, but my daughter got tired of doing it after a while. I find that she is much more interested in writing and reading then crafts and drawing etc. I find it quite strange and slightly panicked on Saturday night that she is turning into a bit of a nerd. However, I spoke to a dear sister about my concerns and she made me feel reassured that reading and writing ARE her interests and that there is nothing wrong with that.

Yesterday, we did quite a bit of school. An hour of Islamic Studies, an hour of literacy, an hour of numeracy and a science /arts and crafts project which my husband made with her. Naturally   it was a complete disaster, the actual model didn’t work and the floor ended up being covered with tin foil, to which they then made a foil football and played football – typical! I think next time, I’ll just stick to homeschooling and he can stick to bringing in the ‘dough’!

So, anyway, yesterday we did our Islamic Studies lesson. I have decided to follow my dear sister’s Islamic studies plan for kindergarten stage – you can find it on talibiddeenjr.amanahwebs.com. We are focussing on the Aqeedah Unit this week and daughter is thoroughly enjoying it. (Jzk sis!) So, the topic we were studying was Allah being the creator of everything. My daughter then asked me ‘ Does Allah make bad people?’ I responded by saying that ‘Allah is the creator of everything, but that when Allah made people – they were all good, but then later on they became ‘bad’.’ She then asked me ‘What about Shaytaan? Because Shaytaan is dirty.’ I explained that he used to be good but then didn’t bow down to Adam (AS). She seemed to understand and exclaimed ‘ Shaytaan is definitely going to jahannam!’ – Which then led on to her favourite discussion – jannah and jahannam. Who will go there, what it will look like, who she would like to take with her, what she will ask Allah for etc etc. She then out of the blue asked me ‘Are there toilets in Jannah?!’ I couldn’t contain myself and burst out laughing. She could not see the funny side and was extremely serious, so I surpressed my laughter. ‘No, there are no toilets in Jannah as people will not need to do a wee wee’, I explained. Her eyebrows creased and she put her hands on her hips and said in an adult fashion ‘Ummi, but then if there are no toilets in jannah, I will do it in my kilota (knickers)!’ She shook her head (matter of factly) and carried on writing the word ‘Creator’ on her activity sheet. This incident made me realise that alhamdulillah she is still young, innocent and not as much of a nerd as I thought she was becoming. *phew*

Trip to the Transport Museum

On Monday 11th February, we joined a wonderful group of homeschooling ummis and their children and went on a trip to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden, London. The weather was beautiful, masha’Allah and the company was simply fantastic. Aside from the fact that my daughter thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the different trains and buses, it was especially nice for her to mix with other children as well as for me to meet others who are homeschooling too.

A lot of the mothers had been conversing via yahoo homeschooling groups but had never met each other in person. So when we all arrived at the entrance of the museum, it was really nice to put faces to names on yahoo group emails.

Here are a few pictures of what we saw. I thoroughly recommend it. It was clean, no music and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

PIC 1: An old steamer train

PIC 2: The museum was full of interesting buses, trains and other forms of transport. But trust my daughter to find a doll’s house in her pink hijab…of course!

PIC 3: View of the museum from the second floor.

PIC 4: A big red bus! I don’t know why they removed these off the roads. It brings back so many memories for me as a child – running for the bus and grabbing onto the pole as it slowly moved off.

PIC 5: An old (sixties) bus…I think!

We had a wonderful day and I really look forward to going on more trips with the sisters insha’Allah. For those of you who have not yet joined. Please do join muslimsandhomeeducation and homeeducatorsandukmuslims. They are both yahoo groups. Perhaps I will see you at the next trip insha’Allah.

She wrote her name!!

A few days ago, I was lying in bed, feeling very heavily pregnant and just couldn’t get up. My daughter was complaining and asking me to get up so that we could do ’school’. I asked her to be a good girl and give me ‘5 more minutes’. She winged and moaned so I told her to get her magic board and draw me a nice picture in bed. She replied: ‘I don’t want to draw a picture, but I can write number 1 and 5′. So she showed me her number 1, 5, and a few letters which I was very proud of, masha’Allah. She was beginning to get bored so I told her to write her name, thinking to myself that that should occupy her for a good few minutes. (Extra stay in bed). To my amazement, she wrote her name. I was so proud of her that I immediately sprung out of bed, grabbed my phone and took a picture of it. Here it is:

 

Okay, so her letters are not perfectly formed. But, it really makes me feel like I have accomplished with her during this homeschooling journey. (teary eyed)

So, who says all that handwriting practice that we have been doing with foam, sand, rice and pen and paper doesn’t work! Alhamdulillah!

Crafty numbers

 

Another simple idea to teach number recognition as well as counting. I cut out the numbers from sugar paper. I then made a few piles of arts and crafts pieces. In this case: feathers, star stickers, lolly pop sticks, pom poms and pink squares.

Daughter covered the whole number in pritt stick glue. And I asked her what number it was. After this, I told her she needs to put the right number from each pile of crafts on to the number. So 1 pom pom on number 1, 1 feather on number 1, 1 star sticker on number 1, 3 pom poms on number 3, 3 pink squares on number 3 etc.

What was interesting about this was that I noticed that she really took extra care to count how many things she put on each number. She told me: ‘Ummi, I have to count them first’ and ‘Oh! I’ve got four pink squares – that’s wrong. I need 3 for number 3′. So it really showed that she understood the concept I was teaching her. Alhamdulillah.

Sand Numbers

 

I know you can buy montessori sand paper numbers…but we made our own and it isn’t with sand paper. All you need is card, glue and sand and a paintbrush.

Daughter painted the numbers I cut out with glue and a paintbrush. She then spread sand all over them. We shook off the excess and let it dry.

Why would I waste my time doing this looong option? I could have easily just cut out sand paper and stuck it on card! I do believe that children learn better when they really get their hands stuck in and it is also messy and fun. Our children need to enjoy learning, getting messy and really getting dirty. If the early ages are not the times to do this, then I think we have failed as homeschooling mothers. There will come a time when our children will be too ‘old’ to want to do things like this. Let them enjoy it whilst they deem it to be fun. They grow so fast…

Just can’t get enough of chocolate…Presenting: ‘Science and chocolate’

As if numbers and chocolate wasn’t enough, we did a very late science lesson at 7pm on Monday evening. My excuse is that I am almost 8 months pregnant – so bring on the lessons involving anything ’sweet’ that is edible…of course!

So, what did we do? We made chocolate swirls. Yummy! Daughter and I cut some baking sheet paper and placed it in a baking tray and then emptied two packets of white and milk chocolate chips into two separate containers.

 

I boiled some water in a pan and explained what ‘boiling’ was. I then placed each container into the pan and daughter mixed the chocolate chips until they melted. We then had a very interesting lesson on solids and liquids and melting! Once both sets of chocolate chips had melted, we spooned 6 of each onto the baking sheet paper  and then swirled the opposite colour into each one. The tray was then placed in the fridge so that they would harden. After 45 minutes, we took them out, peeled them off the baking sheet paper and my daughter was fascinated that they were hard – which of course led us onto ‘freezing, and liquids to solids’. She was so excited! When her father walked in from the masjid, she exclaimed: ‘Abi – we made chocolates that were soft, but they’re hard now!’ So, alhamdulillah she understood what I was trying to teach her.

The best part of the whole experience was ‘licking the bowl’. It was actually our first ‘licking the bowl’ moment together as mother and daughter! *sigh*

Maths: Numbers and chocolate?!

As a part of our number recognition and counting lessons, we did something that was a huge success! Alhamdulillah!

 Firstly, we made numbers 1 to 5 using playdough. My daughter rolled and I cut and then we swapped, I rolled and she cut. We made the numbers out of different coloured playdough and placed them on the table. To test her, I would make number 1 and then ask her what number I needed to make next. She got it right, alhamdulillah. After making the numbers, I gave her a ball of yellow playdough and asked her to stick tiny balls on each number: so 1 yellow ball on number 1, 2 yellow balls on number 2 etc etc.

After this, we took 5 plastic cups from the kitchen and a bag of honeycomb balls covered in chocolate (yummy!) I placed a cup next to each number and asked her to place the chocolate balls in each cup according to the number next to the cup. She did it successfully, masha’Allah and then smiled a cheeky smile which literally said: ‘Okay, let’s eat them now!’ Which she (and I) did! Here is a picture of the chocolate balls in the cups before we devoured them (!):

Henna

My daughter looooooves henna! We were having a relaxing early afternoon after lunch and she asked me to ‘do henna’ on her hands. Now, for those who know me – I am definitely no artist. But, here are my latest designs:

 

It was interesting as we got into a discussion about how the henna ‘turns orange’ and stays on her hand. The reason why this discussion was initiated between myself and my 3 1/2 year old is because as soon as I had finished my master designs, she wanted to wash it off immediately so that it would ‘turn orange’. Thus, I explained that she needed to wait; why the henna was brown first of all and how the orange result stayed on her hands. She was intrigued and fascinated. Now, for those ‘unschoolers’ out there, I am beginning to understand your method. However, I am not converted…yet! It was interesting though: a scientific lesson from drawing a flower and a butterfly on the hands of my daughter using henna! Mmmm…