It's been so long.....

I have forgotten what we have been doing......Well the DS1 & DS2 have finished their exams at madressa and have achieved 96% and 94% respectively so I am chuffed - although they did cheat a bit 'cos the teacher let them do some of it orally as they were having difficulty with all the writing mashaAllah. We celebrated with a nice tea and a gift each from Toys R Us - I really struggle with whether to reward them or not but came to the conclusion that Allah ta'Ala rewards us so maybe it's OK Allahu alim; would love to know what others thoughts are on this!

We have been doing lots of stuff with the Nature Detectives who have a daily activity downloads throughout the summer holidays and DD made this flying bird - this is a fantastic site and I encourage all to join inshaAllah.

We had a huge spider in my bedroom which meant a very sleepless night for me as I kept waking up to check it was still there lol, not because I am afraid of them of course! I had to wait for DH to come home at about 2am to rescue me, my hero, but even he whistled at its size. DS2 wanted me to catch it so he could study it but there was no way that was going to happen. Apologies for the poor photo but I think I may have been trembling lol

The kids have all joined Quest Seekers, the national summer reading scheme, and we have been attending their activity sessions and the kids made some dragons and walkie talkies (your impressed arn't you (lol)).

I had DH up most of the night the other day laminating and cutting out resources for our new 'school year', one of the things we made was this fishing game with magnets to help DD with her counting and number recognition - but she didn't get a look in as the older ones wanted to 'fish' too, so we had to extend it by adding numbers to the box too so they had to match it to the fish they caught. All got a bit silly I'm afraid!

The two elder boys also had a day camp with the Muslim Scouts and will be joining the local troop (or whatever the collective noun is) inshaAllah. The activities planned were changed because of the decidedly soggy weather but they still came home covered in mud and had a really great day. Among other things they learned how to pitch a tent and did some caving (I think!) of some sort, there were some girls that went too and I was really impress with how the sexes were separated at all times. Thumbs up for scouts I think!

What else....well lots of reading, swimming, sorting and organising and planning. We have been doing maths online and I have organised a membership for home educators in my area for Mathletics - an online scheme to learn and practise maths inshaAllah, it is the favorite of schools nationwide but I will give my final verdict once we get to use it properly inshaAllah. The boys have been making lots of robot stuff and lego models with levers and cams etc. We have had a very relaxed few weeks and I can see it continuing so until after Ramadhan!

DS1 has also been learning lots of maths through the Murderous Maths books - they are in the stamp of the 'Horrible Histories' etc but not quite so vulgar inshaAllah. He read two in one day mashaAllah, he thought they were great and they even had me giggling - I did test him on what he read as I thought he was just reading it for laughs but I was surprised that he had actually taken in quite a lot of the maths too mashaAllah. We got ours from our local library so check them out and see what you think, each one has a different focus i.e. measures, predictions, arithmatics etc.
Focus on the next 6 weeks includes, lots of ibadah in Ramadhan inshaAllah, DS to read fluently, finish off our current projects, number recognition and counting to various levels for the littlies, and more phonics, I also purchased some ready made stuff from Tailor Made Educational Guides to do with the little ones for literacy etc and to take us through Ramadhan inshAllah whilst taking the pressure off of me - just for a little while at least...