I am under shock and my hands are slightly shaking as I type this.
My little 25 year old brother announced today that he has become a Muslim and is getting married in a few weeks! Am totally under shock. I can’t believe it. I always said I would shout it from the rooftops if someone in my family embraced Islam.
Well, here I am SHOUUUUUUUUUUTING it! lol
Takbeer! Allah Akbar!
Assalamu alaikum,
Ummihomeschoolsme has been closed for some time. I can’t go into details but I had to make it private for some time. I apologise for not replying to everyone individually who emailed to ask for access or to ask that it be reopened etc. I ask Allah (Swt) to accept this blog as a means to attain nearness to Him, to help others along this home ed journey and to protect, guide and nurture myself and my family along the way. Ameen.
We’re back! 🙂
During Ramadan, I have been planning for next year inshaAllah and we are going to be trying out some new methods, curricula and so stay tuned for more ummihomeschoolsme posts.
A request please: I hope that I will not have to make this blog private again and so I ask you all to make dua for me and my family.
JazakhaAllahu khairan,
Umm Raiyaan
Please support this email to your contacts – especially those that want to gain some reward from Allah and volunteer for the project. And revert sisters in difficulty who would benefit (it doesn’t matter how small or big the difficulty is).
As Salaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu,
May this meet you in the best of health, happiness and imaan.
Here is some really exciting news, Masha’Allah.
SOLACE, a new voluntary organisation has been set up to help revert sisters in difficulty. www.solaceuk.org
At some point, you have most likely received a forward in your inbox or a text asking you if you know of anyone who can house a revert sister who has been thrown out of their home or asking you to donate money for a revert single mother who is unable to pay the rent and has been threatened with eviction.
How often do you think that these sisters get the help they need? And after their immediate problem is solved, who is there to follow up with the sister on a regular basis, just to see if she is okay?
What most people forget is that many revert sisters may have been rejected by their families and don’t always receive the support they need from the Muslim community either. Sadly, we are not in a position where mosques or Muslim community centres can offer lasting assistance to these sisters and they are often left to fend for themselves.
SOLACE, with the help of Allah, aims to provide comfort, companionship and practical assistance to these revert sisters.
Here is a taster of the kinds of support SOLACE will provide, bi idhnillah;
By the grace of Allah, we have the support and full backing of Sheikh Haitham Al Haddad, who has given us his time and advice to help establish SOLACE. May Allah reward him for his generosity.
However, SOLACE needs YOUR help.
Here’s what you can do…
1. First of all, please spread the word to revert sisters you know who may be facing difficulties. They may be coping alone with health problems, suffering depression, isolation or loneliness. Or suffering marital problems or physical/emotional abuse, or needing help dealing with non-Muslim relatives? They may even be considering leaving their Deen.
If so, please pass on the SOLACE website address to them: http://www.solaceuk.org
2. SOLACE is a voluntary organisation that relies solely on fundraising and donations. It is still in urgent need of an extra £5000 funding.
– If you would like to host a fundraising event in your area please contact info@solaceuk.org
– If you would like to make a donation, then visit the website where donations can be made via Paypal or direct bank transfer, (to be safe and secure.)
– If you know of any companies that would like to sponsor SOLACE, forward this email to them and ask them to contact donations@solaceuk.org
100% DONATION PROMISE
You can be confident that 100% of the money you donate goes towards assisting reverts in difficulty. No money is taken from your donation for our administration costs.
Do you know of any sisters based in London who have 1-2 hours a week to spare, to listen and provide support to a revert sister in difficulty? (full training will be provided free of charge).
Do you, or anyone you know have skills that you think SOLACE could benefit from?
eg. administrative, fundraising, counselling skills etc
SOLACE needs your support to make this a beneficial service for revert sisters in difficulty.
Please make du’a for this project.
JazakAllahu Khairun
Wasalamu alaikum
SOLACE Team
(Solace is supported by MRDF: Muslim Research and Development Foundation)
Z is 2 years old and 8 months old now mashaAllah. He is a completely different character to R. SubhanAllah! It’s strange because when R was his age we started formal home ed and I can’t imagine ever starting that early again with Z.
Whilst R is doing her work, I occupy Z with his toys, puzzles, arts and crafts, videos and I read to him. I do try and give him a little of his own time each day as I feel that between the demands of his older sister and younger brother, it would be easy to just ‘ignore’ him and get on with it. But he is my child too and so deserves his time doing things with Ummi.
Z is a typical boy who loves cars, is obsessed with trains and fire engines and can’t keep still for more than a minute! He keeps me on my feet and I think were it not for his energy, I would surely be more overweight than what I am!
He is speaking more and more now mashaAllah and I find that whilst he was a real handful a few months ago, he is calming down a little.
Z loves everything messy and so when the arts and crafts comes out – he goes mad!
Two activities that Z recently did were real winners. And seeing that I rarely post about what I do with him, I thought I’d share what a typical two and half year old boy really enjoyed:
BUNNY EARS
Gave Z a large sheet of sugar paper and chalk. He drew all over the sugar paper.
I then folded another piece of sugar paper in the same colour into two and drew two ears which I cut out for him. Laid them out and he decorated them by sticking cotton wool balls with pritt stick.
After that, I cut the paper that he drew on into a large strip and fit it around his head and stapled it together. Stapled the two ears on to each side. And that was it! Bunny ears.
I can’t tell you how much he loved this. He wore it all day – through each meal and wanted to go to bed with it! Simple, easy, quick enough to hold the attention of Z and not too messy.
TRAINS
Ikea do a really good and cheap train set. Wooden tracks and wooden magnetic trains. The track pieces can make different designs and there are some bridge pieces in there. Z loves it and it does keep him occupied alhamdulillah.
So, my husband and R set to work on making their very own battery operated train. I guess this was an activity that all of them joined in.
Hubby took some old wire out of something, a battery and attached it all the to the train. R tested it out. And Z just wanted it to MOVE!!
I actually took a video of it to show that it did work but I can’t seem to figure out how to upload a video to wordpress. If anyone knows, please let me know and I’ll put it in.
Now, we could have just bought a battery operated train, but what would have been learnt?! R learnt some electronics and I guess so did Z and it was a much more thorough learning experience.
Assalamu Alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu
This is just absolutely brilliant. I would really recommend that everyone watches this short video about education. Its why I and many others home educate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded#!
Wasalamuu alaikum
Umm Raiyaan xx
The weather has been absolutely stunningly beautiful here in London masha’Allah. It really has brought a much needed ray of sunshine to our lives, alhamdulillah. My grandmother (non-muslim) died last week and was quite down about it so the weather has really cheered me up. Due to the death, and then my son and I becoming ill, we have really taken it easy on our timetable. In fact, most days for the last 10 days…we haven’t actually kept to the timetable. It has made me think about change. Spring kind of makes you think like that doesn’t it. Change is good, right? (More on that in another post insha’Allah)
Alhamdulillah the IHSAN website and forum is going well. Alhamdulillah we have a great community developing on the forum with 45 members from different continents. Why not come and join us insha’Allah.
Okay, so we have been doing the following since the weather has been too beautiful to resist masha’Allah:
QURAN
A lot of Qu’ran. She finished memorising surah balad masha’Allah. Now on to surah Fajr.
Once she finished memorising surah balad, I printed out this workbook on surah balad. A sister made it, masha’Allah may Allah (Swt) reward her. She also made another one on surah fajr. So once that has been memorised and we work on it, I will post it up here insha’Allah.
READING
We have been reading a lot! I have been reading so many books to her and it has been nice to spend quality time just reading. Something funny happened though: I was reading a book to her and noticed that something was unIslamic so I tried to ‘islamify’ it and read something about Allah. (It wasn’t an Islamic story book!) So, she stopped me, looked at the cover, returned back to the page I was reading and said: “Ummi, I can’t find where it says, “Allah didn’t like that. But then forgave him.” LOL I didn’t know what to say!!! Okay, so now that she is reading it looks like I am going to have to read word for word!!!
JOURNAL
She used her journal. For those that haven’t seen previous posts on this. She draws a picture, and tells me about the event that she is journaling and I write down IN HER WORDS wht she dictates. It allows me to see how she is progressing in her vocabulary and speaking skills. I can see that R doesn’t like drawing very much. She quickly draws something without paying much attention to it – like she wants to get it over and done with. I think she likes writing more? Should I push her to improve in her art work? Or leave it?
ART AND CRAFT
Lots and lots of painting.
She made this butterfly from hama beads. She really loves hama beads…good for fine motor skills.
She also made this masjid with her father using air-dry clay from ELC (currently on sale for £4!) Do you remember the dinosaur they made? and the jungle?! Why is it that I can’t make fantastic things like that with her?? (grrrrrr!) I really think I’m going to leave the HE to him. I spend every week with her trying to make things with her. He does one thing in a blue moon and she talks about it for weeks!!!! Not that I’m jealous of my dear husband or anything?! (grrrrr! LOL…Masha’Allah!)
OUTDOOR ACTIVITES
Like I said, we have been out a lot this week. It has been good for me and for her. I needed to be out to reflect a lot on a lot of things! Can you believe this is in South London? Doesn’t it look beautiful?
Every Thursday we have been attending the Home Ed get together in East London. I love it. She loves it. And I think every sister and child who goes there loves it. I feel like we are building a small community of home educated children alhamdulillah. 2 weeks ago a very kind sister brought henna and they decorated cakes. It is fantastic as children from 13 to babies all mix together alhamdulillah.
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* 😉
At 5pm, we quickly squeezed in a science lesson before rushing off to my daughter’s weekly wing chun lesson on Tuesday. At 5pm, children are normally exhausted from ‘normal’ school and the last thing they want to do is learn. I find that my daughter wants to learn all the time because her education is not fixed to a 9-3 schedule. Anyhow, it was quite fun doing science so late in the afternoon/early evening. We are working on Properties of Materials at the moment (and yes you can teach that to a 3 1/2 year old!)
There were two other pages of the book, but I can’t seem to upload the pic. For the other two pages, I used wooden pegs to describe something that is hard as well as a prickly glittery piece of string-wire to describe something that is prickly.
All we did was pick things from around the house and discuss their simple properties. We then made a little book recording our results. I shall be sticking it up on my daughter’s wall. She adamantly asked that I stick it on her wall in a low position so that every day she can run her fingers over the objects and tell me ‘how they feel’. I was so happy (alhamdulillah) that she is interested in still referring to work that she has already done.
One content homeschooling ummi!
Ummi Homeschools Me 