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!

Gardening firsts

This is our first harvest of the year, albeit a bit late because of the odd  weather & the floods it brought; I thought the plants would never recover but they did by the Grace of Allah. The kids were just thrilled to see the results of their efforts & our deformed (or are they normal?) carrots amused them for hours... Daisy even put on a 'puppet' show with them lol.

Catch up!

Well we have been up to so much these last few weeks but now it comes to it it seems that I have little to relay but I'll continue anyway!  Well, due to a prompt from Beavers Daisy and I did a little study on good and bad foods and made this traffic light poster thing [I think I may have mentioned this before].  We discussed the types of food that could be included under each colour and why they were good/bad for you and then she cut out pictures from magazines etc and stuck them under each coloured flap of the traffic lights.  

She did get some wrong so I asked her why she had included them in that category. We then discussed her answers and I asked her to tell me where she thought they were still in the right place.  The 'lights' read: red = Stop! These things we shouldn't eat very often (cakes, biscuits, red meat etc); yellow = Wait! Don't eat too much although they are OK choices (potatoes, pasta, bread, chicken, fish etc) and green = Go! The more you eat the better (fruits & veg).

We have been to the park several times these past couple of weeks and had lots of fun looking for local wildlife; Daisy's keen eyes spotted this toad hiding in the brook!  

We also spent some time admiring the gardens...

Not sure what these plants are but we all liked them!

and spent an hour or so using the outside gym...boy did I ache the next day - the kids want to [and I need to]  go every other day to use the gym but we'll see if the rain holds off first.

 

Lego also started at the canoeing club and will start working towards his staged awards inshaAllah [God willing].  He is also going back to boxing next week now that his hand has healed...he's really looking forward to it.

We have also been to see the dyslexia consultant and she did some amazing work with Sprite and taught him to spell a couple of words in just a few minutes using some visualisation techniques. He was so happy to be able to spell these 'difficult' words and is still able to spell them so the techniques seem to be very effective; it's all about finding ways that make it easy for him to commit the info to his long term memory apparently. She also suggested he worked on his cursive handwriting as it makes it easier for his hand to relax and his memory take over when writing and spelling. He needs to be formally assessed which I couldn't afford to do with them so I decided to contact the LEA to see if they could offer some help.

So we are now 'known' to the Education Inspector who will be visiting us next Thursday.  She seemed very supportive and said that just the month before the Educational Psychologist had agreed to assess another home educated child.  So with a precedent set it seems hopeful that we could get Sprite assessed via the Local Authority, this is important as he will need some additional support in the next few years, especially if he wants to take exams [I am hoping to get some ongoing sessions to teach him strategies to help him with his learning too God willing].  I am also enrolled on a 2 day course, run by the local Dyslexia Action group, which aims to teach us how we, as parents, can help our dyslexic children in literacy and numeracy.  I think these types of strategies could benefit any child to retain information so will pass on any nuggets that I pick up God willing.  Have a strange feeling of deja vu about this post!

We also had the annual Scout Parade [when I say we I, of course, mean the kids; us damp mums went for a cappuccino as soon as we could escape unnoticed] and seem to be setting a tradition of having a post parade pizza meal with our favorite homeschooling family.

This is just one of the Scout bands that were playing during the day...I have no pics of my scouts as my phone decided to throw a tantrum! Lego has also been caving again and has started attending the Explorers group; he is currently trying to decide what he wants to do for his Duke of Edinburgh Award.  Also on the Scout front camping season has officially started and as I type this he is on a Muslim Scout Fellowship camp.  He also has a skills camp coming up with the explorers in June.  Sprite has decided to rejoin the Scouts and is looking forward to being invested in the next couple of weeks.

Both Daisy and Crush are working their way through the 'Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons'; they are really, really enjoying it and we often do several lesson in one day!  Other than that they seem to be working their way through worksheets from the tutor which I try to build on during the week.  Having said that, it needs to be said that Daisy, although improved, is still having difficulty in retaining the information but I get the feeling that it's because she doesn't want to rather than can't!

Great progress has been made on the infamous Owl Project...more of that in another post!  The kids have been plodding along at their various tutors but they all seem to have lost their spark; their enthusiasm for learning.  I thought it was me, the rut, lack of direction or whatever so placed them with the tutors but I have come to realise that they did better when they were unschooled.  Maybe the problems we were having was because I had lost my way and was allowing others to have too much influence in the way my children should learn and what their goals in life should be; you know GCSE's at 16, university and a good job to support their family and, last but not least, return to their Lord!  Wanting all these things is OK but it should be their decision, when they are ready for it.  After all, if they really want to become a doctor they would put in the effort to make it happen wouldn't they?  I mean that's the way it works with me and it definitely worked that way with others that I know.  More consideration is needed on this front! I think the first thing I need to do is to have a chat with Lego about his feelings towards his GCSE's...I need to make sure that he doesn't feel 'railroaded' into taking them just to please me/the LEA/family/tutors etc.  I need to make sure that he wants to do them; for  himself!

No more apologies...

for my complete lack of discipline in posting to this blog.....the fact is that I just don't have the time and that's just the way it's gonna have to be until the offspring get full time jobs, will do the housework for me or teach themselves. None of  which I can see happening soon!  I do somehow feel guilty for not posting more regularly and sincerely thank all of you that continue to follow us on our rocky road and I apologise for any and every time now and in the future for my complete tardiness.

Enough of what we haven't been doing; it's time for some of what we have been doing....

Well we have had poorly children all over the place and we have been at home, nursing this horrid virus...one after another they fell, with one symptom fading out and another taking its place...it is never ending but we seem to be on the up now thank God.  But apart from the coughing, headaches and vomiting it has been nice snuggling down and reading lots of books, playing games and drinking lots of hot chocolate.  It has also been very heartening seeing the children that are well taking care of the ones that arent - each with their periods of ups and downs, so sweet!

Not so sweet however, is this armoury of rapid fire rifles made from Lego that fire elastic bands.  While I can admire the boys' technical ability and all round cleverness I am not too happy at the sight of elastic bands left laying all over the house.  And just when you think it's all over hubby, being so impressed with their modelling skills,  went and bought them a whole new box of elastic bands each. Thank you darling. Arrrgh!
 

Lego also made this 'mech' from paper using a template he downloaded here.

They have also been messing about with the box of electrial stuff and Lego built this alarm which operates using touch sensors. 

Inspired by Debbie over at My So Called Life and Other Lies we have also been rolling some candles from natural beeswax sheets.  A fun little activity that kept us all busy for a while. 

I have also ordered my seeds for this year and we are looking forward to a bountiful harvest, by the Grace of Allah, and have a whole garden revamp to begin in the next few weeks, weather & illnesses permitting.  The kids and I are really looking forward to getting going with this and to enjoying the garden when it's finished inshaAllah.

Paddling pools and Autumn leaves

Can you believe the weather this past week?  Well, we thought that with such a special gift from Allah ta'Ala we should be grateful and get out to enjoy it...and enjoy it we did LOL.  So the first thing we did was to get distracted by a friend and 'dragged' out to the country park with a hastily made picnic lunch.  It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast; apart from paddling in the lake we also took a barbecue and the 'big boys' cooked us up some sausages to accompany our lunch.

The strangest sight for me this week was getting out the paddling pool for the kids whilst sweeping up Autumn leaves from the patio - how weird! 

Soooo we spent the next few days up until yesterday enjoying the sun and the garden [the kids] and getting loads of washing done [me] and we even had friends to stay over for the weekend.  The children also spent some time making a bug and insect hotel thang out of a wheelbarrow....it had a 'play' space for every common garden bug you could think of LOL...pictures to come inshaAllah.

We have also spent a great deal of time on cars in the last week....one broke down and is now 'resting' on the  driveway until hubby can get round to reviving it but alhamdulillah we had just bought another car [as hubby quite skillfully had an idea that the old one was going to die LOL] but the suspension arm broke on that yesterday so we had that to sort out too!  I'm wishing we didn't have to rely on the car so much :0(

It's been great but we had to crack on with the education today, so it's been Maths and English as usual and we did a teleclass with Supercharged Science on Sound and Sonic Vibrations and each of the children made one of these harmonicas that use wind speed and resonance to make a buzzing sound.  They quite enjoyed the activity and all decorated their harmonica appropriately...the first picture is of the harmnoica and the video shows the harmonica in action.....

Oh and, alhamdulillah, Lego had his plaster off yesterday and it looks like it's healing wonderfully and we are hoping that he will be discharged by the plastic surgeon on Friday...yay!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.....

at least that's what I'm hoping will happen...the relationship between me and this blog definitely needs a nudge in the right direction.

Any ho, I will try - in this post - to summarise the main events of the last 8 months [it was a bit of a shocker to see that it's been that long since my last post lol, but it's been made; we've been soooo busy] so among other things.....

The boys have had a few camps with Sprite winning the 'Cub of the Camp' award..he was dead chuffed. They have also done several hikes, archery, abseiling, climbing, kayaking, shooting with air rifles, orienteering, map reading and a whole bunch of other stuff far too exciting for this aging bint! Ooo and Lego was also chosen twice to represent the Muslim Scouts at the Scout Associations Jamboree training camps to talk about Islam and being a Muslim in their Diversity and something Group [I'm sure I've got some of those titles wrong but you can get the gist]!

Lego [and the now drawn in Sprite] have been continuing with their WWI & II projects and have been building numerous war planes out of Airfix [or was that just a ploy to get me to buy the models hmmm]... here is just one of their creations there's far to many to keep track of and just in case your reading boys this pic wasn't picked with any sort of preference it was just the first one I came to:

Lego has also read the autobiography of Manfred Von Richthofen [The Red Baron] - among the numerous other books on the two Great Wars - which he thoroughly enjoyed. However, apart from a short essay on the Red Baron and a short precis on life in the trenches [which was excellent I have to admit] I have yet to see a finished 'project'...think I may need to put my foot down on this and get a line drawn underneath this project [or should I say obsession!].

We have been on lots of nature walks, found some exciting badger sets, some strange trees and had fun in the sun with friends.

We had a couple of trips to the National Space Centre; they do a great deal where you can upgrade your admission ticket to an annual pass free of charge, well worth it if you live in or around Leicester.

We have been to Abbey Pumping station too many times to mention [it's a very small museum but the kids love it there!].

We had the Scout Parade:

and Twycross Zoo:

We built boats to float on the brook:

We attended a 'build a solar car' workshop at Loughborough University, the first is the car built by the two 10 year olds and the second is the one built by the 8 year olds.

We have been for a couple of stays with my family in Essex and had some lovely walks etc. But unfortunately missed out on a trip to Royal Duxford as the car wouldn't start [with, unfortunately, all the kids (including my nephew) sat inside with packed lunches and cameras at the ready]. So, thanks to the efficiency and general all round wonderfulness of the AA in fixing my car we were able to plan to go the next day instead. But, alas, had to cancel again as there is a lot of outside stuff at Duxford and it was absolutely pouring down. So, to placate the angry mob, we had a trip into Harlow and bought some more Airfix models instead, lol!

Lego has been going history mad and has been looking into lots of different eras in history but needs to be tied down as I feel he is getting overwhelmed. So, we will all be starting a unit on Ancient Rome real soon inshaAllah [God willing] using the Evan Moore book on Ancient Rome as the basis of our studies. A friend, who happens to be at Uni studying to be a History teacher [what luck eh!] is also going to set him some work and will be sending us a good text book for him to work through - she has also agreed to mark his work too mashaAllah.

Maths is progressing well with Maths Whizz [thanks to Grandma who finances their memberships bless her] with the odd detour into taught sessions when needed; by the way if you are a member of Education Otherwise I think they were talking about getting cut price membership to this programme, it's well worth checking out inshaAllah.

Lego is still progressing well with his English tutor and I have just started teaching Sprite and a friends child English once a week based on a chosen book...we have started them off on 'Cherry Tree Farm' as it was recommended by an older friend. Not too exciting so far but a nice easy start to the lessons.

Crush and Daisy are still attending lessons with friend once a week to do Maths and English mashaAllah and are doing well and apart from the list above they also enjoyed a trip to Drayton Manor with the Beavers.

We had a break from Supercharged Science as I was doing lots with the little ones about changes in materials and simple electrical circuits etc but have started it up again following the boys interest in robot building... This was Lego's first effort at robotics:

Last but not least we have a new member of the family...his name is Sky, a beautiful budgie to replace Lego's two canaries who sadly died. Lego was beside himself when they died so we got Sky to cheer him up and he loves him so much mashaAllah.

Well I think that's the highlights all done, forgive me if I've mentioned any of this stuff before but hopefully we can get back to normality now inshaAllah...