Before they left..

Just before they left, we were quite busy with home ed (not the textbook sort though – more hands on natural home ed 🙂 – some of which I’ll document in this post incl another one of Z’s conversations at the end!

SPORT

R’s swimming lessons were going very nicely. I feel sad that she is just learning how to swim but better late than never. The last two swimming groups fell apart – one was at a local leisure centre which closed and was knocked down half way through her lessons. The other was a Muslim swim group and that stopped aswell! This group is going well alhamdulillah and R and Z have the same swimming teacher but on different days.

SCIENCE

My brother came to visit us about a week or so before they left and he informed us of Venus and Jupiter being visible. We went outside and took some pictures. My brother who has always been interested in astronomy explained why this was happening and that it doesn’t happen very often. He went as far as explaining that the biblical stories of the three wise men following the stars may have been the planets Jupiter and Venus aligned. He also showed us where Mars was.

SCIENCE AND NATURE

We have a small garden alhamdulillah and in Spring it comes alive! We have set up about 9 bird feeders in our gardens and we receive lots of different species every day mashAllah. Lots of squirrels also frequent the garden and I feel that this is a good learning opportunity for the kids. We have had robins, pigeons, magpies, tiny little bright green birds that we are still trying to find the name for and more.

This year, we decided not to plant veg. The children decided that they wanted the garden to look pretty and so all three of them sat on the ground with a huge sack of soil and filled up loads of plastic cups. They then planted seeds in the cups and we are currently watering them. Once we see some shoots, we’ll replant them all into the actual soil of the ground. The kids were literally covered in soil but its the experience that matters most (my gosh how I’ve changed – years ago I would have had a fit if they had the tiniest bit of soil on them!)

ART R completed her Jewellery course and made a matching set (earrings, bracelet and necklace).

Both of them have also been making things for their playmobil pieces out of recycled cereal boxes.

ISLAMIC STUDIES

We attended the Hajj Exhibition at the British Museum – I was very disappointed. Hardly interactive, not child friendly at all and definitely not worth £12 for the ticket (alhamdulillah we got it free as we went with a home ed group). I started speaking about my hajj experience to a non Muslim lady and before I knew it I was surrounded about 20 people at the exhibition – always a dawah opportunity wherever we go and thats what R and I spoke about after we left.

ENGLISH A month ago, I blogged about R’s desire to become an author. One day over a meal, she said ‘It would be so nice if I could interview a REAL author’. I quickly jumped online and emailed a dear friend, author of From My Sisters Lips, Far from Home and founded of SISTERS Magazine. I told her about R’s dream. She agreed and I broke the news to R. I had to try not to laugh – her eyes were wide with amazement. ‘Ummi, I can’t believe it! A real author’. She was shocked. Two days later, she sat in front of the laptop on Skype and asked her questions. They ranged from how it feels to be an author to how to start and end a chapter, how to choose characters, how to bring the story to life, language techniques. Both Naima and I were quite surprised at the careful selection of R’s questions. And Naima ended the interview saying how ‘on the spot’ she felt – more so then journalists from newspapers! R was well chuffed mashaAllah especially as she had seen some of Naima’s books in the British Museum shop. I told R that Naima was an ordinary person just like the rest of us – but it was her passion for writing and her commitment that made her an author. I could see that R was very impressed by this sister. And in a world where children’s role models are half naked and downright stupid, its nice that she has a new role model like Naima mashaAllah.

After that, R made a book using card and paper, and began writing her very own chapter book called ‘Horse of Horses’. It was freestyle and I didn’t correct her spellings, grammar etc. She has taken a break from it now that she’s in Algeria but I hear that she’s itching to return to it.

MORE SCIENCE Before she left, we started a project on Plants. We were looking at the different parts of a plant and did an activity which was very hands on.

R took a daffodil from the garden and took apart the different parts of the flower. She then stuck them down on a piece of paper and labelled them. We discussed what each part’s function is. Much more interesting then simply reading it in a book. I noticed one day going to the park that she remembered as she told me that this was the stamen of another flower she saw.

Finally…

At dinner, we were eating chicken. This is how the conversation went:

Z: Ummi, what is chicken made of?

Me: Chicken is made of chicken Zuzu

Z: No, but what is it made of?

Me: Chicken is chicken (wondering how else I can answer the question)

Z: (getting frustrated now) NO! What is it made of?

Me: (understanding he really didn’t get it) You know the chicken that you find in the farm?

Z: Yes

Me: The chicken you are eating is the same as the chicken in the farm.

Z: (looking up into thin air – trying to comprehend it all and then almost near to tears) But we need to love and look after animals – so why are we eating it?

Me: Allah made the animals so we can have clothes and so we can eat.

Z: (Looking quite frustrated at this new revelation!)

Recently in pictures..

Just a few things we’ve been up to…

Once it was dry, R cut out hearts from coloured paper and created a Heart Garden. Simple and cute.

After she did this, a great way to occupy little ones without worrying about paint is give them a piece of paper and a pot of water and let them ‘paint’ the paper. What was good is that because R’s water had turned green, he thought it was paint!

Simple art lesson. R ripped up different shades of yellow and green tissue paper and layered them on a piece of paper and painted them with ‘water’. The different colours bled into each other. Leave to dry.

Just thought I would add this – it is an MEP lesson that we did. Hopefully it could give some of you an idea of what a 7 year old is learning at this stage of the MEP.

This was a part of an MEP lesson. Just thought I would show you the MAGIC WHITEBOARD PAPER! I bought this last year. Basically it acts as a whiteboard but is paper that you can just put on the wall and it sticks without sellotape, blue tac – nothing. We use this a lot and I really recommend buying some – just google Magic whiteboard. 🙂

I had a complicated Math lesson with R and needed the boys to be occupied for quite a lot of time. So, got the box of old gone off lentils – into a tray with lots of boxes, funnels, spoons. They had fun for ages. And yes, by the end of it – the lentils were EVERYWHERE. Took a deep breath and within 10 minutes was all tidy. Sometimes we don’t let our kids do these things because of the mess but REMEMBER it can always be tidied up!

Stamping the letter ‘t’ on a cut out shape of ‘t’

Phonics phonics phonics with Z at the moment. Something I did with R – drawing in a tray of foam. He loved this. So glad I can look back over my blog and get ideas I did with R – I can’t remember half of it – the memory of a mother!

A sis I know who is a lawyer had to go to Russia a few weeks ago for a case. I asked her to bring something back from Russia as R has a collection of items from around the world. So she brought her a traditional Russian doll set. Y had a lot of fun with them and was a good ‘size lesson’ for Z.

Last week R started a jewellery course I arranged (locally! so glad I didn’t have to travel). The course is run by a fellow home educating sister who makes jewellery and sells her pieces. It is a proper course with a syllabus mashaAllah. The girls LOOOOOOVED it. R learnt about beading, threading, wiring and used a range of tools. Very different to the normal toy beading they do at home.

In line with our ‘Plants’ topic at the moment – we are planting a range of seeds. This set was a free set we ordered from Marie Curie last year. So, R is following the instructions and placing the compost discs in the a box of water.

We’ve started a ‘Plants’ topic and covering the different parts of a plant at the moment. CGP Science key stage 2 came in handy.

Felt fun Z made it for his brother. A nice bit of brotherly love for a change – normally they are constantly fighting *sigh*

Here, I asked him to trace some letters with his finger. And the other page, I wrote the letters and he had to say the sounds as I wrote them. Then he snatched my pen and said I want to write some and he wrote a few all by himself. I circled them in the picture. Its the first time ever that he’s written some letters all on his own. I love moments like this.

So far Z has learnt ‘s, a, t and m’ – so tried a bit of blending with him. He can identity all of them in true ‘jolly phonics style’ lol but blending is a tiny bit difficult. Will keep trying.

Here are some plants_3-4_vocabulary_cards we used for our Plants topic incase anyone wants to use them. R matched up the words to their meaning and we discussed it in relation to what she read in this book plants_3-4_nf_book_-_mid.