Dua Bulletin Board and New Science Project

We had a busy weekend. Spent Saturday with a lovely sister and her son. Her own sister then invited us and my kids enjoyed being kids with her 5 children masahAllah. I really felt very welcomed by her family. Sometimes, I feel that not having muslim family is a real vital ingredient to my life and my kids life that is missing. Sometimes it feels a little lonely and visits like this make a huge difference.

Yesterday was quite a busy day. In the morning, we took Z to the local Muslim playgroup. He had fun, threw a few tantrums (am so not used to these!) and we came home. Had lunch, put him down for a nap and R and I began our schedule.

Started off with Quran. Alhamdulillah, she is improving mashaAllah. I leave her with this site for her to revisit the surahs she has already memorised. Seems to be working very well for her, alhamdulillah.

http://www.quranicsciences.com/QuranReciter.asp?visitormonid=464759

We then began a new Islamic Studies Project. We are making the fantastic Duaa Bulletin Board that the sisters at this site designed, mashAllah. We have started it and whilst R coloured and decorated the different parts, we discussed the importance of dua, the best times to make dua etc. I like having conversations with R like this.

Here is our bulletin board so far (hubby even let us stick it up in the corridor. Alhamdulillah!):

R colouring in whilst we talked about Allah (Swt) being the Only One who can truly helps u.

Filling in this section of the board with glitter per letter. She was intrigued by the different times that Allah (swt) responds to our dua. She kept looking outside of the window to see if it was raining!

Its important for things like this to be seen by the kids as a reminder. So, managed to persuade hubby to let me stick it up in the corridor hall!

After that, we started on our new Science Project from Science A-Z. The project is about animals. What I like about this curriculum is that it is based around reading and literacy skills. So, basically the child learns about science topics whilst improving in all skills related to literacy.

This is what we did yesterday:

We started off the project by making a T chart discussing and R writing down the way in which animals are alike and different. We later added to this once we had read the main book that is supplied with the project.

Each science project comes with a main non-fiction book. They have different levels of the book: low, mid and high. I printed off the high level to try and challenge her. MashaAllah, she read it fine. We paused as she was reading it to discuss what she was reading and added points to the T chart.

I then tested her comprehension, reading, knowledge and analysis skills using these discussion cards. This wasn't written work. It was oral. Underneath each card it states what part of literacy the child is being tested on. All of the questions are related to the Non fiction book. We had quite an interesting discussion masahAllah. And she told me facts about some animals that I didn't even know about!

One of the new vocabulary words that she learnt was 'habitat'. We discussed different habitats for different animals. She mentioned that our garden has become a sort of 'habitat' for a few animals that visit us a few times in one day. So using card, tissue paper, pens and some print outs, she made this picture.

This science curriculum is from grades Kindergarten to Grade 6 which is age 6 to 12 (I think). You can find more information here:

http://www.sciencea-z.com/scienceweb/home.do

I shared the cost for the year’s subscription with another sister which made it worth it. Alhamdulillah. So far, I like what we are doing. We have a few experiments, more oral work and some written work to come up. Will post some more on this as we carry on with the project inshaAllah.

Little Update

HE is going well, alhamdulillah.

Every week we visit the library and return 15 books and R insists in using her quota of 15 books and takes out that very amount. Its seems as though we are  becoming known to the librarians. Even the grumpy old librarian is sort of ’smiling’ a little when he sees us come in as R always talks to him about why she has chosen the books she has chosen as he stamps them out!

Yesterday, I chose two audio books for R:

As soon as we got home, she sat there and listened to both of them. We have the full reading set at home, but have only read one of the books as R is besotted with the ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ series. The audio was good and I heard her laughing away whilst I cooked. Has reminded me to let her listen to more audio books as it will improve her vocabulary.

Her reading is coming along nicely mashaAllah and I find that she is reading books whose pictures she only previously sat down to ‘look’ at. For ages, I have wondered when she would become a ‘reader’, i.e. when she would actually pick up a book and take pleasure in reading it, not because I asked her, but because she wanted to. She is doing a lot more of that now mashaAllah. So, I think the transition is taking place.

Yesterday, she had her first Arabic lesson with her new tutor. It went quite well, but we’ll see what happens with future lessons inshaAllah.

Monday, we did Math and a question came up regarding how many marbles are there than bows. Such a simple concept, but R just couldn’t get it. It was very frustrating. I feel that it was because we did Math in the afternoon. But later felt okay that this is quite a difficult concept to grasp at first as other sisters advised me on the IHSAN Forum. Anyway, I left it on Tuesday and we revisited it today. I took the advice of ummrashid and used smaller items above one another to show the difference. She also advised me to just leave it and revisit it at a later time. And R got it straight away! MashaAllah. I was so pleased. I am very pleased with the MEP for R. I think it suits her well and I do believe it is very well laid out – revisiting concepts at different times – allowing the children to absorb new math. We are currently on lesson 14 and I can see us sticking with this for some time to come inshaAllah.

Aside from that, I have been getting resources together for a new science topic we will be starting shortly. A little more on that another time inshaAllah. Am quite excited about it, as it uses reading and comprehension as the basis for the actual science study.

Change is good and needed!

One thing I’ve realised about HE, is that it has to change. I may have written about this before but for myself, I need to write about it again. Life changes and so HE must also sometimes change to fit in with such changes.

Right now, I have a very very active almost 2-year-old. When I look back at what I did with his sister, I cringe because I have hardly done the same with him. Many sisters tell me that this is normal and I agree with them. But I do want to give him his time. So, although I had prepared to start R’s HE this morning, I decided to delay it til the afternoon. Instead, we headed off to a local Muslim playgroup where they had an Eid party and Z enjoyed playing and just being a boy and stuffing his face with chocolate cake! Although R was the eldest there (all kids her age are at school), she enjoyed it too. She enjoyed looking after her brother and being the eldest in the group.

When I came home, Z was put to sleep for his afternoon nap and R began doing her workboxes! It just didn’t work. I’ve realised that when it comes to arts and crafts/topic work, the afternoon is perfect for her. But for Quran, math, English etc – she just doesn’t do well in the afternoon.

So, I found myself in a bit of a dilemma, phoned up my HE mentor (another HE Mum who is probably sick of my phone calls) and she simply but wonderfully advised me to just change my timetable and to do arts and crafts/topic work on a Monday afternoon so that Z still has his time and switch the other stuff that I would have done on the Monday morning to a weekend morning.

And by golly, my problem was solved! lol It seems so simple, but I just couldn’t see how I could lose another morning (we lose a morning’s HE on a Thursday when we go to the East London HE group).

During this conversation, I also realised (jzk sis!) that I just have to let go of some things – not everything (!) but some things. I HAVE to accept that Z is a very active boy and to just basically let him get on with it. He is not his sister and will never be his sister and nor should I expect him to be. He is on ‘destruction mode’ most of the time and I just have to deal with that. Yes, I have a son! How different boys and girls are. So, instead of constantly picking up after him – I’m going to really try and chill out and just do a major tidy up of toys/books at the end of the day. I mean, why kill myself. Today, he pulled down 2 shelf loads of books around 3-4 times during the day. By the fourth time, I was at breaking point and it happened whilst I was on the phone to the sister and she just advised me to leave it. This was his way of doing things and if I were to tell him off every time he did it, he would come to the conclusion that going near books was bad. How true.

And so, I left it. And gosh it felt good. Alhamdulillah. My posts are probably not making any sense whatsoever – writing this stuff is more of a release for myself! lol

Oh, by the way – my timetable has changed as a result of all of the above. You can visit the top of the blog to see the new timetable under the tab 2009-2010 TIMETABLE.

The Tooth

Yesterday was a busy day. Our house was the South London collection point for the Gaza convoy. The phone did not stop ringing and the doorbell was constantly in use as Muslims dropped off their donations. I cannot believe how generous Muslims have been. My house was packed with brand new clothes, nappies, medicine, school bags and shoes. And more wanted to donate. But the brother who was driving a van on the convoy had to pick everything up last night. May Allah reward all those involved. Ameen. It was especially nice for R to see sadaqa in action. She kept saying “They’re brining more sadaqa for Gaza!” Hopefully this will be a lasting memory and will push her to love giving to those who are in need.

In the morning, I interviewed our new Arabic tutor. My husband was the one who was teaching R, but to be honest he hasn’t done much with her in the last year and I felt that if I didn’t act soon, she would lose her Arabic. MashaAllah, she speaks Fusha Arabic, but she is not moving anywhere with her reading or writing. And this really disturbs me. So, although we really don’t have the money for a private tutor, I convinced my husband that it was a sacrifice that we had to make. And so the sister from Lebanon came and she will be starting with R twice a week from next week inshaAllah. We’ll see how it goes inshaAllah.

A couple of hours in the afternoon, we had guests and R had a fantastic time playing with her friend T who is also home educated. It was nice seeing them both playing non-stop for a few hours. Gave me a chance to have a nice fruitful discussion with his Mum, whom I love dearly for the sake of Allah.

Then it was off to some ante natal appointments before some more drop offs for Gaza in the evening. So, this is what happened at the hospital which has left me thinking…

R has been quite early with everything. She started walking early, talked early, read early mashaAllah. And at the age of 5 has lost her first tooth! She is over the moon and quite happily tells everyone. The midwife at my antenatal appointment yesterday was no exception. With mouth wide open, she showed her the gap in her mouth. And the midwife exclaimed, “Ooh! Did you put it under your pillow?” I didn’t allow her to go any further and quickly said “We don’t really practise that tradition.” I didn’t want her to imprint a wrong image in the mind of my daughter. If anyone was going to do it, it would be me and I would quickly show her the flaws in this tradition.

In the car, R had a 1000 questions. What did she mean? Why do we put a tooth under the pillow etc? As I was driving home, I considered leaving it but then thought no. She has to learn that there are others who practise things which are quite common in the society we live in but that have no place in Islam.

So, I spoke to her about the non-muslim belief in fairies. But that we don’t believe in fairies, because there is nothing in the Quran or sunnah that states they exist. She was fine with that. I then ’shocked’ her that many parents lie to their children saying that it is the fairies that take the teeth and exchange it for money. You should have seen her face! “So,” she said “they lie to their OWN children!” She couldn’t make sense of it. And to be honest, talking to her about it – neither could I! Children who later discover that there are no such things as fairies learn that their parents have indeed lied to them. Can you imagine the psychological effects this has on a child??? Maybe I’m being a bit ‘Over-the-top’ about all of this, but it really reiterated to me the importance of being truthful with our children and teaching them the principle of honesty by way of action.

In the car, she became quiet and was looking into the distance (she does this when she is deeply thinking about something) and then asked me a question very quietly, like she was really shy of asking lol. “Ummi, did you used to put your teeth under the pillow?” I told her that I did because I wasn’t raised as a Muslim when I was a child. She then asked me how I became a Muslim. And I told her my reversion story. I’m worried that she will see me in a different light. Naturally, I didn’t go into detail about all those ‘wild days’, but I could see on her face that she wasn’t very happy that I once did not believe in Allah.

Since R turned 5, I feel that she has changed somewhat. She seems to be thinking more, analysing more. And I’m quite worried. A sister commented recently that she has started everything quite early and that maybe she would mature early. I, myself began my menses at the age of 9. My mother was also 9 and there seems to be a pattern of early physical and mental development in my side of the family. I assumed that she might start her menses at the average age of 11/12/13. But, my mother has commented that she is just like me when I was her age in her development. This really does worry me because if she does follow the female pattern in my family, I have less than four years to get her ready Islamically before the angels start recording her good and bad deeds.

I’m rambling now. Just some of my concerns… May Allah helps us all. Ameen.

On a small break

Eid was a very quiet one this year. We made ghusl (full bath), got dressed and headed off to our local masjid for the first eid prayer. Returned home and ate breakfast (as is the sunnah for eid ul adha – to eat after the eid prayer) and then I collapsed on the sofa out of pure exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep. I don’t sleep in the day and so this really meant that my body and mind was telling me to take it easy.

 I thought we would start our HE back today, but yesterday was at an eid event all day in East London which I co-hosted and am completely and utterly exhausted!! It was nice seeing all the old sisters of R2R, a dawah organisation I used to work for. And I was truly honoured when they asked me to come back and host the event. But, I really need to take it easy. So, decided to have a week’s break from formal HE. Anyway, there are a few eid parties this week, so that should be nice, although, at the moment I don’t feel like I have the energy to even drive anywhere. Need to listen to my body.

Anyway, today I spent counting how many lessons in each subject R needs to complete by July so that year 1/grade 1 stuff is completed (this includes the one month break after baby is born inshaAllah. Also, tidied up our resources and arts and crafts stuff are now neatly organised.

All of Z’s toys are now in an out of reach cupboard and I took the advice of a few friends and am going to alternate toys so that they seem new after being out of sight.

Have also decided to make a reading box for R. This would include what I would like her to read on a weekly basis. She is then free to choose when she reads them as long as she completes the books by the end of the week. She is reading more and more mashaAllah and takes a book off the shelf herself. I just want to keep it going and push her a little further inshaAllah. A sister told me about an Islamic reading program with levelled readers who had a special offer on. And so I bought the Eeman Reading Series. Got over 50 books at a very very very good deal. The deal isn’t on the website, so if you are interested in getting the deal, maybe I could speak to the brother and see if he can offer the deal to more sisters inshaAllah. R loves them! The different levels are colour coded, and so she takes off the entire ‘yellow’ set and reads through all of them at one time mashaAllah. These readers are colourful, have interesting stories and most importantly teach good Islamic morals. I would definitely recommend them. I think you could probably get the series at the same reduced price. Visit www.olivebooks.info

Have adjusted a few things with regards to our timetable, but more about that at a later date inshaAllah.

R’s Work In Progress

Salaam,

She started on it a few days ago and it is slowly building up – she is quite excited as it is taking form. She’s quite happy that it is all her own work and has come up with an extra idea that she wants to make to go with it. Here are a few pictures from today.  Can you guess what it is???

Covering all sides of a box with blue tissue paper and glue.

Once the tissue paper dried, R is painting it black. Any ideas what it could be??

Drying on the kitchen counter until the next phase in her project.

 

Environment Trip

On Wednesday we joined other Muslim home educating families and attended a workshop run by an environmental project. It was a lovely day mashaAllah although quite cold. The kids really enjoyed it. Gave me some ideas of things we can do at home.

Here are some pics:

They started the day by going out to the local greenery and picked leaves, seeds and fruit. Never seen so many excited children with a plastic bag! lol

They then came back inside and sorted them out into leaves, seeds and fruit. Leaves were to be matched to a leaf key sheet.

The kids then did leaf rubbings with crayons. After this they played a game trying to cross their leaves to the winning 'branch' line.

She then made a collage with the materials she collected.

They also made kites using a straw, bin bag and string. But I guess the best part of the day was when they played a trivia game outside and then collected litter. Here is R in her gloves and litter picking stick! Gotta get one of those!

Aside from that, we have kept pretty much to schedule. R is loving First Language Lessons!! I am really surprised! As I write this, she is working on her lapbook. I am not helping her at all with this. She is writing everything on her own, cutting and sticking on her own. I really want this to be her own work (completely!) She is making some spelling mistakes and spelling correctly in other places. This lapbook has taught me a lot about her literacy skills. More on this later. Here are a few pics of her in action:

Sticking her timeline into order.

 

We have also been talking a lot about Hajj. R has started making something which I think we will enter into the IHSAN competition on the forum inshaAllah. More on that in another post.

And that is about it!

 

 

Challenging Maths and Goals!

Last week at our weekly HE group, all the children and their mothers brought in stuff at home that they wanted to sell and we raised money for Gaza. It was so great getting the children involved and R was particularly excited about pricing the items we chose to sell.

On the day, she manned her stall and we raised more money than I expected we would. In total, the whole group raised £800! Alhamdulillah. I also came back with a yummy red pepper quiche, enjoyed a wonderful piece of very soft chocolate cake on the day and bought baby Z lots of ‘boys’ toys which were being sold for less than £1 or 50p. Baby Z has been enjoying his cars and trucks. I can’t believe how different boys and girls are!

I also bought him his own pens as he loves using his sister’s pens but I’m not too keen with the ink. So bought toddler friendly ones and he is just loving them. Here is him in action  whilst we did our English lesson:

R is now reading the Oxford Reading First Experiences Set mashaAllah. The books are longer than what she is used to and contains more difficult words, so it is a challenge, but she is doing well mashaAllah.

Can’t remember if I mentioned this series but R is in love with them and makes me read at least a few chapters to her every night. They are the ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ series. We finished one of the books. I would definitely recommend getting them. They were written in the 50s and she just loves the stories:

I try and make her read to me every day and to read to her every day. To keep a track of what is being read, I made the following chart. Nothing special but you are free to use it if you want. It makes me keep track of what is being read and how often and how the level of reading is progressing.

Here is the file: 

I also made a Quran Record chart. Every day, she practices her Qaidah/Quran reading. We go over surahs she has already memorised and work on the new surah being memorised. I have been keeping a messy record of this in a notebook but felt I needed something neater. So, I made the following chart. Again, nothing special – feel free to download and use it if you want.

Here is the file:

As you probably know, we are following the Hungarian MEP program for Math. It is at Year 1 level. Although R would technically be in Reception if she were at school, the Reception stuff that we were doing was too easy for her. So, I thought, why waste her time. Lets just move on – the beauty of HE. It has suddenly become a little more difficult and she is not used to being ‘challenged’. For example, she had to complete a chain today of more than (>) and less than (<). Like _ + _ > _ <_ + _ (the underscores is what she had to fill in).  I’m quite pleased with this as it is making her really think very hard about certain concepts.

Today, we were learning about more than and less than but in terms of their signs. Here are some pics:

The whiteboard has come in handy again!

R interacting with sums I wrote on the whiteboard.

This was an interactive activity but required oral work. Earlier on, we had completed two English lessons from First Language Lessons (Grammar book from the well trained mind). I used what FLL taught and made R answer the math questions in full sentences rather than just one-two word answers).

Aside from this, we are working on a few Hajj topics to learn about this wonderful time of the year. More on that later inshaAllah.

I have also had to think really hard about what it is that I want her to formallu learn before summer arrives. Baby is due in March inshaAllah, and I know that I will be taking some time out of formal HE for a while so I really need to take all of this into consideration. When I set our timetable at the beginning of September and thought about goals etc, I didn’t take into account that we would be moving etc. So, here is my list of goals. If I can achieve all of this by the summer, I will be more than happy inshaAllah.

1. Finish memorising Juz Amma. She isn’t far off from finishing it, but she really should have been done by now. But with the interruptions of pregnancy and moving, she is behind where we expected her to be.

2. Reading Quran with tajweed. This is coming along nicely alhamdulillah.

3. Finish first grade of the First Language Lessons Grammar Book. That is 100 lessons and we are currently on lesson 8 I think.

4. Reading confidently. Again,  our reading practice and phonic work is helping and I am pleased with how she is coming along mashaAllah.

5. Spelling at year 1 level. We are using mixed resources for this. And I find that the spelling lessons we do is helping with her reading.

6. Finish Year 1 of the MEP Math Program.

7. Reading and writing in Arabic. A lot of work is going to have to go on this. Arabic is not my language. Initially my husband was supposed to teach her this on his days off. But he just doesn’t have the time. So, it has been left to me. R can speak Arabic fluently mashaAllah but she is more behing in reading and writing in Arabic than English. Any tips/advice would be much appreciated.

8. Better understanding of Islam. This really is down to how I act in front of her. I have realised that she picks up my good and bad habits. And if I want her to have a good understanding of the deen as well as exemplary character, then this requires me to change my bad characteristics. Something I’m trying to do but gosh its hard to change! Make dua for me.

9. Any topics that she takes interest in plus a few I have noted down. This year, I have realised that separate geopgraphy, science, history lessons just aint gonna happen! So, it will have to be a project at a time. A project can last about a week.

10. Improve in her cycling and swimming.

And thats about it!

The middle way and our day..

I copy and pasted my last blog post on the IHSAN Forum and received some good advice from other sister home educators. So, further to that advice, I decided to try something in the middle.

Here is how our day unfolded (in order):

After waking up, eating breakfast, washing up and getting dressed:

1. R decided to take down the folder that contains all her lapbooks that have been completed and looked through her hijab lapbook.

2. Arabic handwriting practice

3. English handwriting practice

4. We are now using First Language Lessons by the Well Trained Mind for grammar lessons. I thought that R wouldn’t like the style as it is less ‘child friendly’ in terms of the fact that there are hardly any pictures etc. She actually likes it more than most of the ‘child friendly workbooks’ that we have. We did a couple of lessons from this.

5. She read to me and the book was her choice. She has read two different sets of readers to me: the Ruth Miskin set and the Snapdragons set. Seeing that she has completed all of the books in each set, we have now switched to reading anything.

6. I read to her. And the book that I read is a definite recommendation. It is called ‘A Day with Dinosaurs’. Although I’m sure we’ve read this together before, I didn’t realise how good a book it is. It is a mix of the knowledge of dinosaurs and Islamic morals etc.

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7. We did two lessons of the MEP Math program. This seems to be going well alhamdulillah. It includes lots of games/physical activities to teach the concept being taught. This is a nice change from just doing written work. For example, we stood at other ends of the living room and we threw a cushion to each other whilst saying the opposite of a word. Eg, up-down; thick-thin, sun-moon.

8. She made bookmarks.

9. Started on a new lapbook – more on that later.

10. Practiced her Quran reading and revised old surahs memorised.

11. Was Miss Paleontologist and has started working on uncovering a dinosaur skeleton which is buried in plaster (got this from the internet). She loves it!

As you can see, she pretty much completed what I had set for her to do. But it took longer as it was more spread out and she also did stuff that she wanted to do in the order that she wanted to do it in.

To be honest, it was more relaxed and we still got everything done. Alhamdulillah

My Unschooling/Structured HE Experiment…

In light of recent discussions on the IHSAN Forum,  I set myself an experiment. I wanted to see what would be different about a structured HE day and an unstructured day. Monday, I set up the workbox system for the first time and R used that system for her HE. Today, we had an unschooling day! Yup, thats right we had an unschooling day.

So, lets compare the two different days:

WORKBOX MONDAY

Preparation: I set up R’s schedule strip on the Sunday night, and filled her boxes according to her schedule which can be found at the top of this blog. What went in the boxes?

Box 1: Word level worksheets (independent work)

Box 2: Handwriting book – 2 pages (independent work)

Box 3: A book read to me (work with Mum) and Making sentences activity

Box 4: 3 pages of surahs she has memorised (work with Mum)

Box 5: 2 pages of Qaidah practice (independent and work with Mum)

Box 6: Maths – 2 lessons from the MEP program (work with Mum and independent work)

Box 7: Arabic – writing practice on her wipe board, 2 pages from Madinah Arabic for kids (independent work)

Box 8: Read a recycling book to R (work with Mum)

Box 9: We began to recycle scrap paper to make homemade paper

Swimming lesson

When she awoke, she followed her morning routine and took her schedule strip at 8.30am. She worked through her schedule strip from 8.30am to 1.30pm (this included any breaks, free time, lunch that I had scheduled in into the schedule strip but not including her swimming lesson).

Here are some pics:

This was R's schedule strip. The numbers refer to the box number and the pictures are breaks etc.

R making some sentences which she later copied out and illustrated.

The recycling book we read. Since we moved, we have really got into recycling. So, we read this and discussed it at length. We have a green recycling box and orange bags from the council and are actively recycling.

Scrap paper that R ripped up and placed into a bowl of water to soak overnight. This was to show how something old can be used to make something new.

UNSCHOOLING TUESDAY

Preparation: She woke up and I told her that she could do whatever she wanted to do today as long as she at least read to me and did her Quran practice. She agreed.

What did she do today? She started around 9.30am and finished around 4.30ish, again that was with meals, breaks etc. Although now, she is reading to her brother. So, I guess an unschooling day doesn’t really end. Mmmm….

Finished making her homemade paper recycling project (it is still drying as we speak).

Dressed up and played

Did her 3 pages of Quran revision with me and 2 pages of Qaidah practice

Painted two pictures

Made a picture using stamp printing.

Made salt dough pieces (they are currently drying)

Read 3 books to herself

Made a geography puzzle

Here are some pics:

We drained the paper. Then placed the soaked paper into a food blender and blended it. R then added food colouring and glitter and mashed it even more.

I used an empty frame and the netting of an old niqab and stretched it over the frame and tied the back.

R spooned the recycled mixture onto the netting and squashed it into the open space of the frame. It is currently in the boiler cupboard drying.

Made a salt dough mix for R (so easy to make - got the recipe from TMEG's Ramadan pack. She then modelled it into what she wanted. They went in the oven and are currently cooling ready to paint tomorrow inshaAllah.

 

So, I asked R which day she preferred. Drum roll please………………………

She said she preferred UNSCHOOLING TUESDAY because it was fun! I really don’t know what to say. Yes, she had more fun today because she did more arts and crafts. But then on WORKBOX MONDAY, she completed more work in different subjects.

My dearest readers,  your comments and advice are much welcomed – structure vs. unschooling…where do we go from here? I did this experiment to see what works/how it works. Yes, they were only two days – so can’t really say much but what do you think? Right now, I don’t know what to think. lol