A brief return to HE!

The kids have been at school now for four weeks alhamdulillah and I must say that life is really busy with them at school and I'm not quite sure that I like that.  We always seem to be rushing about too.  Rushing to school, back home, to madressa, home to eat and then out again in the evenings for their other activities.  I miss them such a lot, we don't seem to get much quality time together anymore and it's not quite the rest I was hoping that I would get either alhamdulillah.  BUT... it has been good to see them learning even if it's not in the way that I would like them to.

I am a little worried that their zest for learning might begin to fade under the weight of so many worksheets, homework and 'the curriculum' so I will be keeping my beady eye on them.  They have already expressed a wish to be home schooled again and I would just love to dash in on my white charger and rescue them from the 'system' however hubby wants them to stay where they are.

That's a turn up for the books.  He's usually a 'whatever you think is best' kind of man when it comes to their education so I have a suspicion that it may be more for the benefit face within his community than anything else [his friends son has just gone off to university to be a solicitor with a whole stack of A's grades behind him and hubby has been wondering if our children '...could be solicitors if they wanted...'] but Allah ta'ala knows best.  Not sure what to do now... more istikharra and patience I suppose.

Anyway, the kids have been off most of this week [yay!] with a virus [boo!] so we have been busy and have really enjoyed just being together, snotty or not!  Despite being ill we have still been...

using the maths balance for solving maths problems...

exploring weight using the scales..

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... writing stories and poems in great abundance

They have also been colouring pictures... dogs, castles, warriors, knights, Warhammer knights, foxes, houses etc... the printer has been on overdrive lol.  The kids were also inspired to write using tips from a program that a friend introduced me to called Brave Writer.  It's developed by an author who believes that English classes do not teach us how to enjoy writing which leads to blank faces when children are asked to write about something [among other things].  I have only grasped a tiny bit of this program from what I read at my friends as I am waiting to purchase my own copy so can't expand on it any more at the moment.  I'm really excited about this and from the little bit I introduced this week and their response I think it would be especially beneficial for Sprite as he already 'hates' writing because of his issues... more on this program in later posts inshaAllah.