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.