Email that touched me. .

My plan was to make the blog private due to some personal reasons. I didn’t feel many readers would mind as the comments on the blog have been quiet in recent posts.

I was quite shocked at how many private emails I received requesting it to remain open as it has helped with ideas for kids, resources etc. I think most of you readers are lurkers! !

I apologise if I haven’t responded to you privately. There was one email that I received from a sister who doesn’t comment but has been following the blog for many years. It touched me, made me fill up with tears and made me rethink my decision to go private. So inshaAllah it is public again and to the sister that sent me that email. .. Jzk for having a profound impact on me and causing me to reflect on what I do and what’s important to me.

So update from us. .

We’ve had in laws over from Algeria staying with us over the last few weeks. As the children hardly ever get to see my husband’s side of the family every year due to them living abroad, it has been nice for them. But it’s also meant that pretty much everything has gone out of the window!

I find it quite frustrating as R’s Quran schedule is badly affected. She feels it too!  We have started to get back to some sort of normality since they left.

Aside from lots of play, the kids have visited practically every museum in London due to taking the in laws.

I found some cheap sets of magnetix on gum tree to add to the boys collection. They take that out 5x + per day.

R attended a local textiles class and made the cushion in the picture above. She used the sewing machine and glue gun. Quite a nice pretty result mashaAllah. The sister who teaches the class is very creative mashaAllah and it was very kind of her to set up a class just for home educated girls during her break from being a teacher.

We also attended a trip visiting the Brixton windmill which R particularly enjoyed. It came at the right time as we had just finished a project on wind. This windmill is one of the only ones in inner London and is 10 mins from where we live. .. Didn’t know it existed!

Zuzu is as creative as ever. Here he has made a Knight costume and wouldn’t take it off for ages! !

Amazing what he can make with bags,  paper, tape and a cereal box!

Finally, a sister shared this excellent article with me. I definitely recommend reading it. ..

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/give-childhood-back-to-children-if-we-want-our-offspring-to-have-happy-productive-and-moral-lives-we-must-allow-more-time-for-play-not-less-are-you-listening-gove-9054433.html

Wind project

We’ve been learning about Wind this month. It’s been so much easier learning altogether rather than do different projects. Just requires me to look at different age  appropriate activities.

We still have another week learning about wind and I have a few more activities lined up for them.

But this is what we’ve done so far. ..

R wrote a descriptive piece using each letter of the word wind. I encouraged her to use her senses as she wrote the piece. Not sure if you can see what she wrote, it says:

‘Whistling gracefully on lovely gentle days. And blowing fiercely through angry stormy times.

Invisible and delicate, it can shatter into a dangerous storm.

Not visible to the eye but can be heard by the ear in sounds of whoosh and whoo.

Dark and dareful in a storm, destroys everything in a hurricane. Swirling round in a tornado.’

She built a windmill using a Thames and kosmos kit called wind power 2.0
A few months ago, I and a few sisters ordered some Thames and kosmos kits as the price is so much cheaper when you buy in bulk. The prices are more than 50% cheaper! I’m so glad I arranged the order as the kits are fantastic mashaAllah and a good investment as the other kids will inshaAllah use them too.

This particular windmill creates electricity and a bulb lights up without any electricity supply. This led to a discussion about how windmills are used to produce electricity for homes etc. We learnt about the science involved and how it works.

With the boys, we read books about Wind and had a bit of fun blowing different objects around using a straw. We also watched some videos of tornados and hurricanes which amazed the boys.

The above windmill also charges rechargeable batteries. Managed to find rechargeable batteries in the pound shop! So R is planning on conducting that experiment. Let’s see if it works!

A sister has arranged a trip to a local windmill in January inshaAllah so that will tie up this project nicely inshaAllah.
I’ll post up some more of what we’ve done next week inshaAllah.