Back yard fossils!

So today the kids decided that they were feeling much better so after Jumah prayer Crush and Daisy raised an expedition to the garden to '...dig for fossils...' and what d'ya know, they found some too!

All very common but the intrepid explorers were filled with excitement nevertheless. Here are some pictures of a few that they found:

a very worn ammonite - a marine invertebrate related to the squid, octopus and cuttlefish family which apparently became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period [about the same time as the dinosaur].  In medieval Europe it was thought that they were petrified coiled snakes and were called Snakestones in England.  Apparently ammonites found in Nepal are thought by the Hindu's to be a concrete manifestation on of of their gods [astagfirullah; how does this make sense?]

ammonite... this one is much clearer

 

There's that ammonite again but not sure what the others are (if they are fossils at all; but I'm not going to burst any bubbles until I know for sure LOL)

absolutely zillions of Devils Toenails [Gryphaea], these were oyster type animals that lived from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous period.  They are very common in the UK and apparently it was believed that carrying one of these around could prevent rheumatism.

Daisy has been looking through her Beaver Handbook and has decided that she is going to work very hard to get all of her badges.  She is of the opinion that if she does a small project/presentation on her finds she may be able to submit it for a badge.  So that's on her 'to do list' for next week inshaAllah; I'll let you know how she gets on!

Same old, same old!

Although it seems like such a long time ago we thoroughly enjoyed the snow; here are some of us sledging!

Crush and Daisy have been trying to learn their number names so out came our trusty laminated fish for our magnetic fishing games

More of my home made matching games to learn their number names...I never really bother teaching this as it seems ever such a waste of time as we rarely use number names in 'real life' and I guessed they could catch up on this later but their tutor is insisting on it!  These cards can be downloaded here, although it should be noted that these ones have roses on them; I have had a request from Crush to man it up a bit and do a set with spanners or something so watch out for these to come!

Daisy decided that she wanted to make her own little 1-20 number book!

We did some writing and spelling in sand!

We spent a long time re-organising our resource shelves, games and some of our books!

And although it's not quite clear in this pic but Daisy made a drum kit [sort of] by filling up several bottles and containers with different amounts of water and spent the rest of the day playing and singing to the Prophet's Hands CD by Dawud Wharnsby Ali.  I spent the rest of the day nursing a headache!

We played lots of games this week...funny that you can go months without playing any and then have to play them all in a few days!

We practiced pioneering with paintbrushes and pencils!

We've been playing with plasticine.

We have had a craft day at the museum which included looking at lots of different toys from various parts of the world including, among others, those pictured above.  We also made masks and laminated 'things'...sorry, still not sure what they are meant to be lol.

Daisy, for some reason, has been really - and I mean REALLY - hooked on numbers over the last couple of weeks and she also modelled the numbers 1-20 from pipecleaners lol!

We have been baking up a storm, these are our yummy blueberry, banana and oat breakfast muffins.

Lego has also discovered the soldering iron and has been making remote controls etc, from scratch this week!

Apart from all of this we have had a couple of days out visiting friends and have also been plodding along with our usual school work - nothing spectacular! Tutoring has been going fabulously for Lego who is doing really well on his GCSE courses and I need to start thinking about getting some exams sorted for him.  He really wants to do his Science GCSE but I am finding it difficult to find a center for him to sit the practical aspect of the exams.  I know nothing about getting exams sorted for private candidates so any ideas would be very welcome.  

Tutoring for the younger ones is also continuing but with my approach to home ed. I'm feeling uneasy about them having to follow the National Curriculum so strictly; they have been stuck on number names for longer than I would have liked for no other reason than it appears in the curriculum at this point.  I also feel that Sprite needs to be pushed a bit harder...he is flying through his work and is always sitting their with his coat and bag on when I arrive to collect them as he has long finished his work.  He also needs to learn to focus more...not sure how I can help him with that other than to give him shorter periods of work needing concentration.  Must do some research!  We also had an really good heart to heart chat about life and education during which I asked him which way he liked to learn most i.e. by watching, doing, reading etc and he said...'I don't know', very helpful lol!

Lego also has a swimming gala coming up so the boys have been swimming a few times a week for the last couple of weeks to get their speed up...Lego is determined for his team to win this year!

Banquets and Businesses

This week has seen a business idea of Lego's come to fruition mashaAllah; he has been setting up his eBay account to sell his creations, opened a bank account (he needs to get paid of course) and has designed his 'company' logo, prepared a budget and a profit and loss statement, designed compliment slips and packaging. He needs to photograph his creations so has also designed a 'light box' for the purpose.  I was very impressed mashaAllah and he took the time to explain it all to me and 'prove', through examples, that his idea would work.  As a result I decided to invest a little into his idea to start his business off inshaAllah. A budding entrepreneur indeed, mashaAllah.

The kids have also decided that they want to hold their Historical Banquet at our house in October mashaAllah.  As it all go out of hand before they have been told to keep numbers down and are being very sensible mashaAllah.  They are going to need some guidance as this is their first time organising a 'do' and they are getting a little side tracked and need to set a list of priorities. Their first priority is to get the invitations out asap as each guest will be given a character that they need to dress up as and present a very short precis about on the day.  I though this was a fantastic idea and have already purchased the tooth and face blacking for my character [can you guess who I'm going to be? LOL].

The mums also thought it would be a great idea to hand out the invitations in the style of Funeral Biscuits [just to maintain the historical theme!] which were used in Victorian times to bid people to attend funerals; specially prepared biscuits, wrapped in paper and sealed with wax, the banquet details on the front and a biscuit and information about the original form of the biscuit inside. They sound like great fun to make, we have found a recipe and are looking forward to helping with this one!  Here's a picture of original wrapper displayed at the Pitt River Museum at the University of Oxford.

Everyone is going to bring a dish but the boys want to cook a sample of different foods for varying era's for people to try and are researching and organising historical games inshaAllah.  I'm quite looking forward to it all but dreading the cleaning up!

This seemed to be a week or revisits so we ended up at Watermead Park [again], feeding the ducks and strolling mashaAllah.

And at the Abbey Park Pumping Station [again], here's a picture of part of the pumps:

And we had a day of building marble runs on Saturday at a friends house, here's one they manage to perfect after running various tests with different size marbles, inclines etc....meanwhile I had a nice chat and a cup of coffee with me mate!

Autumn has returned with a vengeance and has left us all with the sniffles but poor Crush had it worse with a very high temperature and hallucinations where all the cloth/material came to life in the house...he was so scared, poor thing, and I find it quite difficult as it reminds me of when my father was in intensive care, he was  complaining that the people in the beds opposite had been partying all night and were cutting off Jesus' legs LOL [yes, we can laugh about it now but at the time...!].  He was begging me to take him home and it was really difficult convincing him that he was in the best place!

Lego is learning all about racism in Amercia as part of his study of Holes, we were worried that they would find it difficult but they are doing very well mashaAllah.  I was a bit concerned about how the English lesson I teach on a Saturday is going and that Sprite wasn't taking it seriously but this week he did me proud.  We read our book and did looked at debating.  We did an off the cuff debate and the kids enjoyed it much more than I anticipated and they have been 'debating' everything every since!

Playscheme Day 3-10

OK so not the photolog I was hoping for but just for the sake of completeness here are a few details about the rest of their trips:

Day 3 - Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Center : This was another favorite day for the boys, they did kayaking, abseiling, air rifle shooting, orienteering and climbing....I think that was all, anyway they had a fab time and was very proud of beating the girls team...boys *rolls eyes*

Day4 - Bradgate Park Hike : hikes are always a winner with the kids but this is a beautiful park (also lovingly known by the kids as the deer park because of all the, yes you've guessed it...deers). The house was the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, later Queen, ruling for a mere 9 days before being overthrown by Mary I. A much later park landmark is the folly known as 'Old John' on the top of the highest hill in the park, built in 1784. The folly, built by the Greys, is a memorial to John, an estate worker killed in a bonfire accident during celebrations of the 21st birthday of the son of the Earl of Stamford, a member of the Grey family.


Day 5 - Sports Day : I kept him home for this because I was too tired to get them all up and out.....well I'm getting on a bit now you know lol.

Day 6 - Twycross Zoo : we have been here before, but the boys felt the day was rushed and they didn't get to see a lot of the animals....awww!

Day 7 - Sports Day : DS1 is no great sportsman but he has a go and enjoys it mashaAllah and again they were pleased to have beaten the girls....

Day 8 - National Space Center : DS1 was really taken with this trip but his friend wasn't too impressed...I guess it depends on what rings your bell.....DS1 is a visual learner and he came back with lots of facts and information about the equipment etc.

Day 9 - Islamic Calligraphy : Still being tired I was planning on keeping DS1 at home for the last two days so he missed this day but his friend said it was fab and was really impressed with the calligraphers skills.

Day 10 - Party Day : OK so DS1 nagged me to let him go to this day and I relented...being as Ramadhan had started they didn't get a party but did get certificates and medals for the sports days etc and iftar on the Saturday (which I managed to completely forget about *wink* much to DS1's annoyance). Well there is only so much running about a woman can do in a fortnight...

Playscheme Day 2 - Warwick Castle

First of all I have to apologise for getting these up so late but I was unable to upload pics at blogger for quite a while....at least it wasn't my fault THIS time, yay! It seems that adults and kids alike were very impressed with the visit to Warwick Castle. Apart from the beautiful castle they got to see some jousting and birds of prey, archery the old fashioned way....there were people around that explained how things were done back then and they got a chance to walk around a kind of museum/wax work thing.....it was unanimously voted the best trip of the whole scheme and we are planning to go back as a family inshaAllah. I'll kick of this trips round of photos with a little video tour that DS1 kindly took for us....

The last camp (I hope!), Stig and cooking.....

OK this is getting a little tedious for me so you guys must be near tears so I won't go on too much about the camp, promise! Anyways, DS1 returned from his Muslim Scout Fellowship camp a little taller (he is now a tall as hubby, lol!) and very bouncy mashaAllah. It seems they had a great time albiet slightly scathed from a few horrid kids but they seemed to have survived admirably mashaAllah. Him and his friend seem to have renewed and revived their flagging friendship too alhamdulillah! They appear to have more appreciation for each other alhamdulillah as they realised a lot of other boys that were there were really horrid! Anyway, they did kayaking, built rafts, archery, assault courses and they had a great camp fire session where they sang nasheeds and did some improvisation! Hmm, can't remember what else, although it is like getting blood out of a stone trying to get all the details out of him.

For last weeks 'Stig of the Dump' homework I asked the kids to design a sandwich and write instructions on how to make it. As a little extra incentive I said that at the following weeks lesson we would buy the ingredients an make them. They were so excited, my friends daughter even jumped up and down cheering...I don't think I've had that response to setting homework before! So the following week we had some wonderful sandwiches for lunch...they were actually really, really good! They were sooooo good that we didn't stop to take pictures ;0( however the other mum did get some pics of them preparing so as soon as I get them I will post them inshaAllah.. They managed to prepare all the ingredients and meet their deadline; a superb job mashaAllah, even if it meant we didn't get any 'Stig' done this week..

This inspired the others to want to do cooking so for the following time we were together DS1 & friend were given a budget and had to choose and plan a menu for 10 to be served by 12.30pm ish. The next youngest for each family were tasked with producing the pudding. This is what they produced....

A fruit smoothie...their own recipe which was verrrry nice mashaAllah....I couldn't get enough of it and I'm not even a smoothie fan!Pasta with chicken.....a bit bland but the littlies liked it!They actually had some chicken breast left over so cubed it and coated it in breadcrumbs and fried....very nice!For dipping the above they made a tomato based dip and a honey based dip....also very nice..This is what it looked like all laid out....awwwThe two younger ones also made smoothies, these had milk, peaches and lemon and were delicious....
And chocolate cake which was also very nice....despite being flat as a pancake as it was made with out of date flour, lol. As you can see it was very popular and smelled so nice I couldn't fend off the kids long enough to get a picture of the cake in its entirety.
They all realised where they had made mistakes and seemed intent on rectifying them in the next meal inshaAllah.

They: made their shopping lists; purchased the items needed; worked with money; manged time and stuck to deadlines; selected and planned a menu for 10 people successfully; measured/weighed ingredients; followed instructions; worked to health and safety guidelines; worked with others in a team; cleaned the kitchen after use and probably a few more skills that I have forgotten to list....I love unschooling...and so do they it seems, they are raring to go for next week...yummy!

I have been thinking a lot lately, it must be my age (I have verifocals now you know), and I have finished up in a confused state about our home education and where we are going.....the kids seem less keen than ever to do anything and I can decide whether to do structure or not....now I have to say this isn't the first time I have had niggling doubts about structure v's unschooling but at the moment nothing seems to be working and the kids are really unenthusiastic about everything except playing in the garden oh and scouts! It's so very frustrating....perhaps it's the nice weather that is distracting them!

Anyway, regardless of their lack of enthusiasm we have done some work in the last two weeks....DS1 has finished the book they were working on with their English tutor and they enjoyed it immensely. We are trying to choose they next book for them to work on but have hit a brick wall....the stuff that Year 6's are doing in schools are really lame at the moment....they have been reading above that level for the last few months and doing really well with it but the books for older kids can have more mature themes running through them that we don't really want them to be reading at the moment.....very difficult, if you have any ideas please let me know!We are still working through the Scholastic Maths Lessons books and the others are either doing phonics or Nelson Thornes for English depending on their age. DS2 is still not reading fluently and seems to keep forgetting all the rules...grrrrr

A friend that tutors occasionally is going to find some time to teach the two little ones maths & English inshaAllah, which will take a huge weight of my shoulders alhamdulillah. I am also going to be teaching DS2 & a friends daughter English using the book Stig of the Dump.... I didn't read it in school but it has rave reviews so I am looking forward to reading it with them inshaAllah. Whilst I am doing that, the other sister will do some math with the little ones mashaAllah.
I am hoping that the change of routine and a few planned field trips will light a fire under them again inshaAllah and we can get back into a good HE routine inshaAllah.
The boys have also just come back from camping with the scouts alhamdulillah. The older boys had to put up their own tent and do their own cooking and cleaning mashaAllah, am just trying to get them to transfer their newly learned skills into the house work here lol. They had a great time and met lots of new people....DS1 has decided he wants to stay in the scouts (Network Scouts apparently) until he is 25 and then become a volunteer and help other kids....inshaAllah Allah ta'Ala will grant him his desires if they are good for him inshaAllah. They also learned how to build and light fires....a skill I don't want them to bring into the house inshaAllah, lol.

We also found this cute little fledgling sitting on our doorstep mashaAllah. The nest is under the tiles on our bay window so we couldn't put it back and had to leave it on the floor at the bottom of the bay. We watched from the window after hearing the mum/dad chirping loudly at the bird and saw the mum coming to feed it and usher it into the bushes for safety, mashaAllah it's amazing how Allah ta'Ala puts love and compassion in animals hearts.

A monthly affair.....

that's what this blog is turning into a once a month update...... but my PC did crash and have to go off to the shop for repair so for once I have a real excuse!!!!

We have all had this really horrid flu and was germ free for about three days when we picked up this vomiting virus thang on our first excursion out of the house.... the car has also decided that it will only work when it wants to (for no obvious reason except that it might be having a strop 'cos my hubby crashed into a bollard); so when not tinkering with the car, coughing, head achy or vomiting we have been going steadily on with Mathletics and Mindsprinting for maths and english respectively.

We have also learned loads about World Wars I & II DS1 & 2 interviewed their nan about her experiences during the war so we have to type the interview up and she also sent us some poems that she wrote about life during the war - all exciting stuff alhamdulilla but this project is going VERY slowly.

We have also done hama beads, threading with beads (this was real fun and great to see all the different levels of understanding and ability; there was DD (4) who was just happy to get the beads on the string without them falling off the other end, then DS3 who was doing really simple patterns and realised you could tie one end to stop the beads falling off, DS2 (8) who was doing more complex patterns with several colours and DS1 (11) who made me a tesbih....mashaAllah).


We have talked loads about germs and keeping ourselves clean; which was reinforced when we went over the adab of sneezing, coughing etc and how these stop us from spreading germs; how perfect is our deen! We have played with playdough, painted and completed lots of drawing lessons online with Mark Kistler - bags of fun!!! We've just been taking it really easy, letting everyone get over this bug inshaAllah.

My husband has also been getting his 'shop' ready to trade and he has been doing all the work himself along with DS1 who was dying to get his hands on some 'real' tools... DS1 has learned how to hammer in nails properly, saw, mix and lay cement, wire a plug and so much more; he absolutely LOVED every minute of it and talks about it all the time - it has brought hubby and him so much more closer together mashaAllah.

The most important lesson over the last couple of weeks has been a chance meeting with a new sister. The sister was sitting on a wall near our house and my husband thought she looked a bit sad and invited her into the house to meet me. It turned out that this sister was desperately in need, she stayed with us all day and kept saying how she has been asking Allah for a friend. It's amazing how Allah ta'Ala brings people together and I am blessed to be a part of this wonderful deen where we are all sisters one and all regardless of colour, race or background. The kids have learned a lot about patience and sacrifice as we have given up a lot of time and energy for the sister and I know some of it has been hard for them. But I also know they have gained a lot and made some good friends, DS2 also learned a lot about painting and decorating too alhamdulillah (think I might have a building firm in the making lol). The sister is very giving and sweet mashaAllah and I pray that Allah grants her, and us all, ease inshaAllah.

The kids have been on a hike with the scouts and are overcoming a bullying incident with one of the boys who actually threatened DS1 with a penknife - subhanAllah what is our ummah coming to?!? This boy has been bullying them for a while and they don't take him too seriously but I am getting this addressed anyway..... I have to say it has been a little difficult to find out how to deal with this islamically and even harder to not to listen to my 'tough East London' alter ego who wanted to go and 'teach him a lesson'.... alhamdulillah lots of duas and assistance from a dear friends husband looks like we might have a solution in sight.

Hmmmm, I have been incredibly lazy at updating this blog, apologies....not turning out to be the record of 'things we do' as I intended but never mind - gives me something to do occasionally lool. I would also like to apologise in advance for this very, very long post....

The boys made these 'Halo' things out of their Lego and made me promise that I would add them to the blog and not being one to break a promise (inshaAllah) here they are - I'm not sure if I like them or not but you can all judge for yourselves.

DS2 made this picture out of card black card, gold pen and some breadcrumbs, rice and coconut that was out of date.....

Here are my poor unsocialised children with the friends they made in the park working together to make this fort with a waterway, all under the watchful eye of their organiser DS2..... lol, they were there for hours mashaAllah - we literally had to drag them away.

Here is the first 'real' picture done by the princess that had a whole story behind it...ahhhh!

This is a pigeon that stood pecking my hubby on the legs until he just had to bring it home. Anyway, it turned out to be a very educational experience.....the bird was a racing pigeon. It had a ring on its leg that we were able to look up on the internet to find out it belonged to someone in the Welsh Homing Pigeon Society and that some birds are 'printed' with their owners details under their wing, and this bird was no exception (research skills). We contacted the owner who was able to tell us where he lived, where the bird was released, how many birds he release and how many he had lost (fractions, percentages & geography). He asked us if we could look after the bird for a few days until he could arrange to have it collected by....get this....the pigeon courier services, yes pigeon racing seems to be big business. We then had to look up how to care for the bird on the internet and my husband, who has kept pigeons previously, showed the kids how to handle it etc... they nearly cried when it had to go as did it's owner when I phoned to say it was on it's way.... apparently it's one of his favorites awwww.

Finally we went to an eid bash at the Islamic Foundation for the new muslims and their families and it was wonderful. The space is great and the kids can run around in greenery and climb trees and you don't have to worry about them alhamdulillah. They had an animal road show and this pic and the ones below are of the kids holding the smaller animals - I had to disappear when they wanted to hold the bigger snakes and the yukky ones like the giant snails and giant millipedes....arghh.

The boys have also started Muslim Scouts and are thoroughly enjoying it I must say, they have already learned how to fix a bike and are half way to earning their cyclists badge, then they will be going on a 17 mile bike ride. Other activities planned before the end of December are: DIY, fire lighting, hiking, games and much more. They are loving the scouts and can barely contain themselves until the next week lol. We also have archery starting for the boys soon alhamdulillah, they have been wanting to do that for ages.

DS2 helped me put together their bunk beds yesterday (I was very brave and even let him use a power tool too lol, he loved it) and when he was using the allen key I could hear him whispering to himself 'loosy leftie and tighty righty' (another thing he learned at scouts) lol.

They have also been back at madressah for the last two weeks and are really enjoying it mashaAllah, they were really missing it (never thought I would hear them ask to go back to madressah!!!!).

We also went for a long walk in the park and collected lots of interesting leaves, cones etc etc and used them to make these lovely plaques with plaster of paris (well except for Lego crazy DS1 who used Lego men to make his lol). We got this activity from the IHSAN website, here.

We have been using Mathletics as a base for our maths, it's a fantastic online resource for maths and I have to actually limit the time the kids spend on it 'cos they love it so much. It's designed as a support facility for schools and is based on the National Curriculum however, we use it as our sole curriculum coming away from it to do some odd work in the Maths books or to take a hands-on-approach to make sure they are understanding new concepts and for additional practice away from the PC.....I'm loving it as it takes all the stress away from me as I don't have to plan or think too far ahead.

For English we are still using the staged lessons from Mindsprinting and Nelson Thorns. We are also starting up our Monday group classes and will be studying Structures & Mechanisms using a unit we downloaded from Currclick. I and another sister are also arranging for a teacher friend to tutor our eldest sons once a week in English inshaAllah, and I will be doing a special tutoring session with DS2 and her daughter once a week at the same time while she does some work with the little ones inshaAllah. It all seems to be coming together alhamdulillah, I am so grateful to Allah ta'Ala and I pray that it can continue inshaAllah.