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DS2 made this picture out of card black card, gold pen and some breadcrumbs, rice and coconut that was out of date.....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