Natural History Museum

Last Tuesday, we joined other homeschooling ummis and visited the Natural History Museum. I was very close to not going due to illness, but as R has known about the trip for some time, I couldn’t disappoint her. Although we have been there many times before, the main purpose was to attend a storytelling workshop. Here are some pictures of our day:

PIC 1: Most of us bought this key stage activity questionnaire. It took us to the rocks section and there were many fun educational activities to complete. It cost £1, but unfortunately we could not visit it. I think another trip to the museum is needed…

PIC 2: A dinosaur skeleton. SubhanAllah!

PIC 3: Stuffed peacock.

PIC 4: Like I said, we have been to the museum so many times before, and every time R sees this stuffed swan with her young, she screams in delight: ‘Look Ummi – The ugly duckling!’ (one of her favourite stories)

 

PIC 1: When R saw this fossil, she called me over jumping up and down. Why? Because a few months ago, a dear sis bought R  two fossils from a museum abroad. They came with certificates stating that they were over 1 million years old! The one in the picture looks almost identical to one of the ones we have at home..only this one was very very big!

PIC 2: An escalator taking museum visitors into the Earth section of the museum.

PIC 3 and 4: Story telling workshop on the story of Rapunzel. After the lady told the story, using puppets, she informed us all of many facts. One of them which I am still puzzled by, is that a bunch of humain hair is so strong that it can hold 2 elephants!!

PIC 5 and 6: The same workshop but this time of the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. As a result of this story, she talked about mammals and non-mammals. Gave me ideas of facts to learn from simple story tales!

My favourite part of the day was a part of the museum we were simply walking through. We came across one of the museum staff who had a few props. We stopped by and stayed for almost 20 minutes. The activity was excellent. She talked about penguins with the kids. She had a large penguin figure with parts of its body missing and asked the children to place the correct wing, nose etc, and asked them why they thought it would be this type of foot and not the other. She then explained how the male penguins hold the eggs containing the baby penguin for months, on their feet, not allowing it to touch the ice beneath them (the egg would die). The female penguin goes out to hunt and feed. When the female returns, the male penguin passes the egg to the female using only their feet (can’t remember the name for penguin feet!). So, she brought out diving flippers, asked for a boy to represent the male penguin and a girl to represent the female penguin – placed a baby penguin onto the flippers of the boy and asked them to work together to transfer the baby to the ‘mother’. The kids had so much fun. Masha’Allah R did it twice and succeeded both times. Here are 2 pics (I do have a few videos…but can’t seem to figure out how to upload them – if anyone knows, please let me know)

When we came home, R was so excited because not only did we visit other parts of the museum than the same old dinosaurs section. But she saw human skeletons and was thrilled by her new found knowledge. She couldn’t stop talking about the fact that we all have bones in our bodies and that if we didn’t we would be ‘flat’ (as she described it). That we wouldn’t be able to walk or do anything and that they ‘protect us’. I have been talking about bones with her for some time, but it just didn’t sink in. Its amazing that it all came together when she saw the real thing. It just goes to show that hands on education really does have more effects than simply reading up about it in a book or watching a video. She was also talking about earth due to her visit into it via the escalator! Once she had taken a breath and stopped talking (lol) she asked me to teach her about earth and bones. So here come some lapbooks insha’Allah. Watch this space!

And to finish, we visited my favourite part of the museum: the mammals. Inside the main room, is a HUGGGGGGGE replica of a whale. For me, it increases me in faith – just to imagine what Yunus (as) endured and the miracle of our Lord (Swt) saving him. It also allows R to see how large a whale is and to visualise the story of Yunus (as).

Islamic Studies

As per our timetable (see my other post Timetable, A Board and Sssssh), we read an Islamic book and discussed it as well as doing an Islamic Activity.

The Islamic Book we read was:

I do love this book and when I bought it, it came with a large poster of the water cycle. What I love about this book is that it teaches Science and Islam in one. Here are a few pages from the book:

 I allowed R to choose which Islamic book she wanted to read and she chose this one. It was the perfect choice masha’Allah as it tied in with our ‘Name of Allah of the week’ – Ar Rahman. So we discussed water being a mercy from Allah.

For our Islamic Activity, R completed a couple of pages from this book:

It is a great book for young readers and the concepts are easy to learn. Here are a few pages she completed:

Another resource for the ‘Islamic Activity’ part of our schedule was this fantastic CD rom that we bought for R last Eid. It truly is an excellent one, masha’Allah and does not have any music, faces etc.

At first, when I explored the CD – I thought I had spent my money unwisely. But soon realised that there are so many ‘hidden’ activities within this one CD rom that there is so much for your child to do, play with, learn etc. For example, there is a masjid which the child enters. Within the masjid, the child clicks on a picture which leads on to a game or activity. It is absolutely brilliant. A hajj game, learning surahs, stories about the prophets and much more. Here are a few pics (hope they come out okay as they were taken from the PC):

TIMETABLE, A BOARD AND SSSSSSSH!

I hope this post is beneficial to those who take the root of some sort of planning for their homeschooling. I have received a few emails this week asking me how I plan, what my goals are etc. so I hope that this will help inshaAllah.

Firstly, this is something that I made yesterday for R. She liked it and it will help me teach the concept of ‘time’, the days, months and years in Arabic and English as well as focussing on the things we are learning on a weekly basis.

PIC 1 & PIC 2: I will fill in the board every day/week. In case you cannot see it clearly in the picture, at the top is: Yesterday was………….    Today is……………..       Tomorrow will be………………

Underneath is the Date…………        Month……………..     Year……………….

We then have DUA OF THE WEEK

Followed by NAME OF ALLAH OF THE WEEK

Finally, Surah to memorise this week……….. and Today’s Timetable……………………….

R is always asking me what day it is, what tomorrow will be, whether she is going to be 5 tomorrow even though she has only just turned 4! She wonders when it will be October again because then she knows she will be 5! LOL Hopefully, the board will help sort out this confusion! I’m thinking of letting her fill in parts of the board on a daily basis. This will help her with her writing skills. I decided to write everything in Arabic and English as my dream is for her to be fluent in both with extra emphasis on what Islamic month it is and the virtues of that month. (This will help me too inshaAllah.)

Onto our timetable in detail…this is what I will be using for the next year or so insha’Allah if nothing drastic changes in our life!

DAILY:

Set Standard

1. Surah review and new surah

2. 2 pages of Qaeedah to learn how to read Qu’ran

3. Name of Allah – English and Arabic and what it means

4. Dua of the week

5. Read an Islamic book together and discuss the Islamic lessons within it.

6. ISLAMIC ACTIVITY

BREAK

1. Read a book of a higher level of vocabulary to her.

2. News book journal

3. Workbookactivities related to literacy

4. She practises her reading with the Oxford Read inc. series / Bob books

5. READING ACTIVITY

BREAK

The above is our set standard. Every time we do ’school’ we start off with the above set. I then divided the rest of the week as follows:

MONDAY: Set Standard

                Maths Sheets and Maths activity

                Gymnastics

 

TUESDAY: Set standard

                Writing sheets and Writing Activity

                Wing Chun

 

WEDNESDAY: Qu’ran class

                     Meeting with two other homeschooling mothers: we have pre-planned activities for our  children.

 

THURSDAY: Set standard

                  Science Activity

                  Baking / Art and Craft

 

FRIDAY: Set standard

             Maths sheets and Maths Activity

 

SATURDAY: Arabic and Qu’ran with her father

 

SUNDAY: Qu’ran

 

The ‘Set standard’ is what I described above. In relation to the parts that say: ‘ISLAMIC ACTIVITY’, ‘READING ACTIVITY’, ‘WRITING ACTIVITY’, ‘SCIENCE ACTIVITY’ and ‘MATHS ACTIVITY’ – this is what I have done:

I went through all the resources I have at home, internet sites I like, online games, and ideas and wrote them all down under each subject section. I was really amazed at how much we have and how we tend to use the same resources all the time with the other resources gathering dust! Once I finished my list for each subject, I divided the list into my objectives and goals for her learning. Now, when it comes to our schedule and it says READING ACTIVITY, I can look at the objective we are working towards and go through all the resources I have in however long it takes to teach her that concept. I see a few benefits in this: 1. All resources are used.   2. She has variety in her learning – which I think is important for young learners. If you use the same resource or even method of learning all the time – the child does get bored.   3. By having this variety, a rich environment for learning is created and I can then see what method or resource works best.

For example, one of my goals could be for her to learn how to tell the time. When it comes to Maths – I see that I have put down that we need to do Maths sheets and a Maths activity. The sheets I would pull out from workbooks or print off from the internet would be related to time and I could then look at my resource list and see that I have a book on time, a movable clock, a clock puzzle, a time game in Educationcity.com, a unit study and a lapbook on time. Each time we do maths, I would change the resource or method but it would still be related to the goal.

I used to put a 6 week period on how long I would work on a concept but now I am more flexible. It could take my daughter 1 week to learn how to tell the time and 2 months to learn how to subtract. I now believe that we must give our children this flexibility.

Oh, and I drew up a list for each subject and wrote down what I want my daughter to learn by the age of 5. These are my goals:

LITERACY

To learn how to read confidently and independently with ending punctuation.

 

NUMERACY

Count to 100 from memory

Recognises numbers 1 to 100

Can notice patterns and continue the pattern

Tell the time

Add between 1-10

Subtract between 1 -10

Story problems and equations

Matches written numbers to objects

 

WRITING

Write all letters – upper and lower case from memory

Write all numbers 1-100 from memory

Copies complete words and sentences

Beginning to write short sentences and paragraphs on her own.

 

SCIENCE

The human body

Seasons

Properties

Living and Non-Living Things

 

ISLAMIC STUDIES

Juz Amma memorised

Most daily duas and adhkar memorised

Able to read Qu’ran independently

Able to read and write in Arabic

Tawheed – knowing it, understanding it and living by it

5 pillars of Islam in detail

6 pillars of Emaan in detail

 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Ride a bike without support wheels

Improves in Gymnastics

Improves in Wing Chun

Can swim independently

 

ART AND CRAFT / BAKING

Learns how to sew (embroidery)

Can bake simple recipes with a little help from Ummi

Improves in her art work and craft making

 

And that is it – this may seem like a lot to some, but remember this is over the course of a year. In addition, my daily timetable may also seem to be a lot but some of the components of the set standard only takes 5 to 10 minutes.

On a lighter note and stepping away from the planning (!) I can’t believe I haven’t introduced an old member of our family on this blog. This morning, he was sleeping away outside on our balcony – the falling snow causing him to sleep ever more deeply. Take a peek but remember to be quiet…he’s hibernating. Sssssh…

Older Posts

Was looking back over the blog since December 2007 when I started it and looking at all the pictures of things we made. Seems like ages ago. Alhamdulillah, since then I have met and spoken to some wonderful homeschooling mothers. And there seems to be an increase in homeschoolers in the UK.

Anyway, I have also been looking at older posts on other sister’s blogs and there are some real gems out there that noone benefits from anymore – and I feel that that is a shame. So, insha’Allah going to try and start something off. Those (like me) who take a lot of benefit from other homeschooling blogs, click on the monthly archives. Should be on the right or left hand side of the blog. And look at the lessons and activities we, homeschooling mothers have done with our children. You may be looking for a tip or a resource not knowing that it is there buried within an old archive.

So, in regards to my own blog, in the older posts – we have:

Science: Melting and Properties

Reading: Loads of phonics stuff, potato printing, glitter letters and so on

Maths: Number buddies, chocolate and numbers

And the list can go on and on. Do benefit from older posts insha’Allah. Alternatively, click on the subject category and all the posts relating to that category – e.g. maths will come up.

Happy older post reading!

Busy Few Days

This week has been quite a busy week. Alhamdulillah.

ARABIC: R is now reading 3 to 4 letter words in Arabic, makes some mistakes but alhamdulillah getting there. This is all in preparation for her reading Qu’ran in the future insha’Allah. Her writing has improved and she writes 3 to 4 letter words in Arabic.

MEMORISATION: She completed Surah Bayyinah and Surah Qadr and is beginning to memorise Surah Alaq.

DUA: We are working on the dua for travelling. It is quite a long one and she seems to be making a few mistakes so trying to make sure that we use it when in the car etc.

READING: We have been working on her reading and I am trying to make sure that she reads more words easily without sounding them out first. Getting there…

We have been working on other bits and pieces like writing, maths etc. But nothing too exciting to write about. BUT…

We have been working on a new lapbook. Here are some piccys…but I won’t reveal the whole thing until it is finished. But R loooooooooves it and really is learning a lot from it. Lets just say, when I found this lapbook on the internet I was so happy because it incorporates everything related to one of the goals I have for her for this year’s homeschooling.

PIC 1 & PIC 2: Numbers 1 to 20 on matchbooks were laid out in front of her. She then had pics of different items. She had to count the items and stick them on to the relevant matchbook. I left her to it and told her to call me once she had finished. What was funny was that the website that produced these printables made a few mistakes and duplicated some of the items. So for example, there were 8 bows and 8 cars. I thought that she might have got confused and placed it somewhere else, but she placed both pics on number 8!

PIC 3: We cut out all the pieces and secured the ‘number bubbles’ with a fastener. I then ask her to tell me what number comes before number 6 and what number comes after number 6. She flips the bubbles over and can tell me the number. Hopefully this will insha’Allah act as a number line for her and she can then answer these questions from memory.

PIC 4 & PIC 5: Writing practice for the numbers and their words and then a little book was made. (numbers 1 to 20)

We have been making a few of the ‘Take me to your seat centers’ and as a lot of cutting is involved, R wanted to do everything by herself. As these are resources that can be used again and again and with other children insha’Allah, I wanted to make sure that they are made really well, so I didn’t want her to cut anything. But I decided to work on her scissor practice so that eventually I can leave her to it. She has enjoyed these sheets and cutting along the lines:

 

I also spent a nice day with 3 sisters – 2 of which are homeschooling. We have decided to meet every week and do an activity with the children – there are 9 children between us…mashaAllah! The third sister is a good friend of mine and she has gave us invaluable tips – but more on that at a later date.

Take me to your seat Centers – FANTASTIC!

In my last post, I mentioned that we also received two books that I ordered from Stimulus Learning run by Sister Shukriye.

These books are just fantastic. Here are the three that we ordered:

The books come in different level from pre school to the higher grades (ages 11+). They come in different subjects: maths, reading, science etc.

Basically, the child (and the parent – depending on the age) makes the center and the child takes it whenever he/she wants and completes the tasks based on the instructions on the back. There is a task sheet that he/she completes based on the task.

The one that we made is a very basic one about nursery rhymes and doesn’t really show how fantastic these centers are. I saw a science center about the life of a plant which I will insha’Allah make soon with R. It shows all the parts of a plant and how it is made with activities based on the pieces. Anyway, here are the pics of the center we made:

Basically, in the book, the pages are ready to be torn out. You then, cut out all the relevant pieces and laminate them. You stick the front figure onto the front of a paper bag, and the instructions on to the back of the bag. All the pieces and task sheet go into the bag. The tags give the bag a nice look telling you what the activity is.

The child then takes the bag, turns it over and reads the instructions – performs the activity and fills in the task sheet which normally tests the knowledge of the activity he or she performs. All instructions (as shown in one of the pictures) tells you how to make the center and what to do with it. The bag can be easily stored and used again and again. I have had a look at this particular book in question and they have centers that for number recognition, writing practice, phonics.

The other two books do not use a bag to store the center but use file folders. What is good about this is that they can be used again and again, the task sheet can be photocopied for multiple use, they are easily stored and the next child can use the center.

Today, we also made a toilet roll craft. We have been storing all our used toilet rolls! I have like 20 (I think!). Here is what we made:

Delivery Day

Don’t you just love deliveries?! Those brown cardboard boxes just waiting for you to rip them open. We received three today!!

Kind of breaking the bank at the moment and bought some resources for R.

Bought three books from Stimulus Learning. They are called ’Take it to your seat Learning Centers’ - am so excited about these – more on that later insha’Allah in another post!

Subscribed to Nature Detectives and received their pack – so so so so exciting.

And also, received two items I ordered from Baker Ross – I love that website! – Oh what to be a child again!! LOL

So, this is what we received from Baker Ross and my daughter loved sewing her rabbit. Sewing is absolutely great for developing fine motor skills!

DD hasn’t been very well this past week so we spent a lot of time at home…alhamdulillah. A few days ago, I was in the kitchen cooking and she ran over to me and excitedly said “Come and see this ummi! Quick quick! The sky is sooo beautiful.” I left what I was doing and had to take a picture of how beautiful the sky looked. The pictures do not truly show how magnificent the sky looked that day. This one incident reminded me of something I learnt in a course that I went to. The sheikh was talking about the beauty of Allah’s creation and that as adults, we too must have this childlike amazement at Allah’s artistry. This incident reminded me of two things: How important it is to try to maintain that innocence within my children and How important it is for my heart to be touched by all that Allah has created…

 

Something else my daughter enjoyed, was using her stencils…filling the object with glue and shaking glitter all over it. Great fun and again good development of fine motor skills. Here is a star she started off with:

Reading, Pink and a Dinosaur!

Hubby and daughter went to Ikea recently and bought a new table for R. There were quite a few different colours and varieties, but guess what he came back with?

That’s right! A pink table! I am getting quite fed up with pink. As a homeschooler, I really did not want my daughter to feel that pink is what girls should like. But this is her favourite colour! So its pink this, pink that, pink this. *sigh* LOL

R was given a book called Smart Kids DINO IQ. Really interesting book with lots of facts about dinosaurs, a board game and glow in the dark bones that make a dinosaur. R hasn’t been well over the past few days and so didn’t go to Arabic School on Saturday. I had to go out on Saturday and so left her with her father. By the time I got back, this is what they had made:

They took a large piece of cardboard and sellotaped some paper onto the cardboard. They then took the glow in the dark bones and assembled them to make the dinosaur skeleton. After this, they drew around the skeleton and coloured it in. A mountain as a background was also drawn. And there you have it, in one quick afternoon, R was taught about skeletons! But the best part of it all was this:

The picture glowed and glowed in the dark – great effect! So, now I am in another predicament. Since my husband has spontaneously made this and the other jungle (see my post called jungle mania) it has really left me feeling that I should go back to work and he should do the homeschooling…NAH! I love it too much!

Onto READING!

A few of you have sent messages to me on the blog about how I taught R to read at such a young age. Of course, all help comes from Allah, Lord of the Worlds. But this is what I did. From a very early age, I began teaching her the sounds of letters. I used jolly phonics for this. She coloured letters, we sang about the sounds, I would always test her. I started this when she was 2 years old. I then used jolly phonics and my own resources to teach her how to blend. I believe the way she learnt this was repetition. We would blend all the time – very simple words like, dog, cat, sat. I then focussed on high frequency words such as: in, on, the, and. The more you teach the blends and the words the more it sinks in and then one day it just all came together. Alhamdulillah. That really is it. I truly believe practise is the key- 10 to 15 mins every day can have wonderful effects. Hope this helps. If there are any further questions, please feel free to post on the blog.

What have we been up to?

Did promise myself to update this blog as frequently as possible, but I have been soooooo busy!

What have we been up to?

READING – Dear daughter is reading so much now alhamdulillah. She has read most of her bob books (13 of them), so I think I need to get on to amazon.com and order box 2 which progresses to different phonetic blends of a higher level. Alhamdulillah, she really seems to be enjoying it too! She just goes and picks up one of her bob books and reads it to herself or her baby brother. I can see what other homeschooling mothers were saying, when they said that one day it just all comes together!

ARABIC – She is also learning to read Arabic and is using a different qaeedah now which our tajweed teacher advised us to use. She is reading three letter words which contain fatha, kasrah and dammah vowelled letters. I am trying to ensure that she at least does 15 minutes of this every day. She has also been practising writing her Arabic letters.

MEMORISATION – Alhamdulillah, she has now finished surah bayyinah and on to surah al qadr. My aim for her memorisation before she is 5 years old is to insha’Allah reach the target of juz amma. My husband and I really do want her to become hafidh of Qu’ran and so from the age of 5 insha’Allah, a lot of homeschooling time will be geared towards that. My husband has the aim for her to finish memorising the Qu’ran by the age of 7! I am not so sure if she will reach that at that age, but alhamdulillah I trust him as he is her teacher and has much experience with teaching children tajweed and hifdh (masha’Allah). Just worried that as it is his own daughter, that he will put too much pressure on her. But I place my trust in the Lord of the Worlds.

COLOURING – Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of colouring.

SOCIALISING – I have been out a lot lately. A dear sister is getting married, a lot of revert2reality stuff as well as meeting up with other homeschoolers. DD has really enjoyed mixing with the other homeschooled children and we are trying to make it a regular thing insha’Allah.

And at the moment that is it really. I have just received a catalogue that I placed an order for. The company is called Sweet Counter and it has given me great ideas for making resources suitable for what I am teaching her at the moment. So, watch this space for pictures!