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.