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!

Not at school

So we spent the first Friday that the kids had off from school in the park.  We were supposed to take a picnic but after making packed lunches all week I couldn't face making another sandwich so we had lunch at the park cafe instead.  They played for hours and spent quite a bit of time in the sandpit... the little ones made a fort..

 and the big ones planned strategic manouvers based on specific scenarios that they took turns to make up...

 Daisy made dessert when we got home.  She planned what she was going to make, drew her shopping list and then went shopping with Crush to get all her ingredients and this is what we had... 

Strawberries in a melted ice cream sauce with ice cream, raspberry sauce and chocolate.  The melted ice cream certainly gave it a unique flavour that I'm not sure I want to try again lol.

 Then on Sunday we went to the centenary celebrations of the Leicester AERO (flying) club.  It was a blissfully warm day and very enjoyable although the kids were disappointed to have missed out on the free flights as they got booked up so quickly each time.

Replica of a WWII Doodlebug

Replica of a Lancaster or Spitfire [depending on which one of the kids you spoke to].

Lots of helicopters to look at.

Kids had an interesting chat to the glider pilot who explained how the glider flew and how to pilot it

A restored WWII Lancaster plane that did an amazing fly by right over the heads of the crowd.

Playing with the 'blues and twos' in the police vehicle.

We went to the fun day as Lego has expressed an interest in becoming a pilot for quite a while now and we did have a lovely day.  The best bit was that the boys got to chat to some really interesting characters including old pilots both private and from the RAF... it was really strange listening to Lego chat to a retired RAF pilot about the qualities of Hurricane planes [or it is jets] that the gentleman used to fly. 

The kids did lots of recapping at school last week and as it's not 'full time' I have had to supplement a lot of their learning with further explainations; especially for Sprite as he has trouble remembering what he has done during the day because of his dyslexia.  He is not enjoying his time at the academy as much as the younger two and has been feeling ill quite a bit... I think that this may be a masking technique because he is finding it difficult to deal with his dyslexia as at other times he is so enthusiastic about what he had been doing.  So we are having to give him quite a lot support at the moment but we are hoping he will settle in soon.

Daisy and Crush come home every afternoon amazed at everything they have learned... like we have never done it before! Hmmpf...

Now that it's getting a bit colder I am planning to start a project with them to do on their 'day off'.  I want to teach them about the human body; I have been planning this for a while and have lots of fun, hands on, learning activities for them to do so hopefully they won't see it as even more 'school work'.

Royal Duxford

As a part of the boys ongoing fascination with war planes and tanks etc we spent a really lovely day at   Royal Duxford in Cambridgeshire.  Set in an old WW1/II airfield it houses hundreds of aircraft, tanks, military vehicles and boats.  And as they had an air show on the weekend after we visited we were also lucky enough to see the old planes flying and doing tricks in the air, it was fantastic - even for me and I'm not into war planes lol.  Anyway at a cost of £17 per adult and children under 16 going free it was a cheap day too and I would highly recommend it.  There is lots of walking between all the hangers and the two younger ones found it a bit hard going so we sat on some picnic benches towards the end and let the older two finish the hangers by themselves but everyone loved it and we plan to return one day soon inshaAllah [God willing].

And as usual, here are some photos...

Gotta love the library!

This is just some of the things we have been up to since my last post and I apologise in advance for the length of the post. Sorry!


Jam tarts...yummy!

This is Daisy's impression of what Jannah will look like...

More baking, this time green sultana fairy cakes!  I don't know why Daisy wanted green ones but they were good any how.

I know some of you will probably be gasping in horror at this but we made crackers for my families xmas celebrations....I know....but they are not religious and we miss them terribly so in a moment of emotional gooeyness with my sister I said I would make some so that they could remember us at dinner.  So there you have it...a token of love to my family at a time when we miss each other the most.  Nothing more.

We have been practicing letter formations:

We also have lilly's blooming in December....can you believe it!

We made meatballs and spaghetti...it's amazing how quickly children tire of rolling meatballs lol.

We also attended our first session at the Libaries home education group.  Wow, what fun.  This week there was a brother from the museum that came to show us some African artifacts as it is (was) Black History month.  We looked a bowls made from the fruit of the Calabash tree...the fruit comes in different shapes and sizes and are hollowed out, left to dry and then used as water containers, bowls, cups etc.  The first picture is the Calabash tree which is followed by two pictures of some items made from the fruit.  All these pictures are not of the items we handled but of items that a very similar...a very efficient library employee managed to pack everything away before I got to photograph it!

We looked at African hand painted fabrics:

And a 'pillow' to help support huge hairstyles whilst sleeping, it was aparently also used by the Egyptians for the same purpose..it didn't look very comfortable though.:

We also saw a selection of African masks some of which were quite scarey lol!

Last but not least we looked at some weaved baskets made from raffia. We talked alot about how we are loosing these skills as cultures become more 'modern'...personally I think we would all be much better off if we stuck to a more traditional way of life!

I also found out that home educators can have a special library card that will allow the family to take out as many books as they like, for as long as they like and will never incur charges...bonus!

The museum will also be arranging a special tour of the museum for the group which will ncorporate a look behind the scenes and give the kids the opportunity to choose some items to be included in a display.  They will also be working on a project with the children about the local area. They will do some research using the archives etc,  talk to the people, do some digital photography etc and this will all culminate in a presentation for display in the library.  History and photography all wrapped up together...Lego's 2 favourite subjects, he was thrilled!  They have also said that they are aiming to meet individual families needs and will be willing to provide any activities that we want free of charge.

Anyway, as a result of this session we came home and they kids wanted to make their own African masks and we are also in the process of learning a little about Africa....any work they do as a follow up to the sessions they can take back to show the librarian, she takes a real interest in their work and will display anything she can.  She is such a lovely lady I pray that Allah ta'ala gives her guidance inshaAllah.

Lego has also been supporting his friend who was in hospital for a relatively routine operation and it has surprised me how thoughtful he can be...makes me want to pinch his cheeks mashaAllah.  The visits to the hospital led to lots of discussions about the other children there that had more serious and long term health issues.  Lego and Sprite both noticed that a lot of the patients spent a lot of the time without visitors and said they wanted to volunteer to visit the childrens wards at the hospital as soon as they were old enough to keep them entertained inshaAllah.  Aww how sweet mashaAllah.

For English Lego has been writing a play of a court hearing based on the book 'Holes'.  He has been doing lots of research and it has really grabbed his attention, he has even interviewed a friend that has studied law and really put a lot of thought into it.  It has taken up a lot of time and effort which was nice to see.  He seems to like writing plays and enjoying learning about the law.  I have also sat with him on this one and 'taught' him as we were going along as he was complaining that I wasn't teaching him any more and just letting him get on with stuff by himself. Complaint noted, guilt filed away, and more effort from me to ensue!
 
Everything else is as usual alhamdulillah...see you soon!

Busy, busy, busy....

We got an Ikea draw set from the charity shop some time ago and it had been varnished and decorated in some animal stencils by it's previous owner and while we had always intended to redecorate it we had never gotten around to it until now lol....

We decied to give it a crackled paint effect but it didn't turn out quite right lol...it was supposed to look a little like this....

However, it turned out like this....not entirely the look we were hoping for and to be honest I'm not quite sure what went wrong; I've done this tons of times before and it's more or less fool proof.  Perhaps the glue was too thin or not tacky enough when the final coat went on....or maybe the varnish wasn't sanded off properly.  Nevertheless, they like it and here it is in pride of place sandwiched between the PC and the reading box, lol.

Lego has been busy with his 'D-Day' model and made the sea today...it was made with sugar, water and food colouring and scrunching the tin foil up underneath gives it a 'wave' effect and I must say I am really impressed.  He researched how to make it on the Internet when I refused to buy 'fake sea' paint [or something] for £8....so he can be resourceful when he wants to eh!  Once it sets rock hard he will trim off the tin foil and paint some foam and crests to the top to add to the effect.  I must admit I'm getting quite excited about this model and can't wait to see it finished.

We were inspired by a Fiona on YouTube today to do some layering in the children's visual journals....they did them all themselves after watching the video with little input from me; except retrieving the materials, mopping up the spillages and the writing which they dictated - I was happy to oblige as it was almost midnight by the time the last coat had dried and they were tired!  They gave their pages a base coat of paint and when that was dry they chose a second colour and painted that over the page ad hoc.  They then tore up some paper and glued it on randomly over the page. After that they drew some 'patterns' over the pages in acrylic paint.  The writing, which was themed around an important thing that they had learned today, the went on top!  They were really, really happy with the results and so was I....we might have to do this one again!

The top one is Daisy's and the bottom one belongs to Crush; he is actually showing some artistic flare mashaAllah and gave consideration to his work with regard to the colours he chose, the way he wanted to put on the second coat [i.e. by flicking or splattering the paint], the patterns and how he wanted the writing to look - strange for a boy! or is it?

They also did some work on their Maths Whizz accounts [for the first time all Ramadan] and actually enjoyed it...a change is as good as a rest they say! We have also spent a considerable amount of time organising our classroom and sorting through the vast array of books we have....they seem reluctant to get rid of them and it's been quite frustrating to convince them that they don't need all of them and remind them that we have access to a vast number of books at a vast number of libraries! And last, but by no means least, Sprite made one of his infamous chocolate cakes which smells so yummy I'm off to get a big piece to have with my cappuccino, lol! Caio!

Doll's houses to dog fights!

Today we: fixed Daisy's dolls house furniture

 

...did bubble painting in the garden [which was a good thing as paint got everywhere and I had to hose down the patio - you can't do that in your living room can you?] for their art journals; again inspired by Umm Tafari  mashaAllah. The colours were not as vibrant as I wanted and I think this is because we used poster paint instead of acrylic paint but the kids like them anyway and really enjoyed blowing the bubbles too.  I am also not that happy with the way that the colours are going onto the coloured construction paper pages so may have to start using white paper and gluing it in but I didn't really want that...hmm!

We also started Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories as planned but unfortunately the illustrations didn't inspire them as I had hoped.  The children didn't seem to be too impressed with the first story either and I wish I had read it first but didn't as it is one of the books listed as a read aloud in the Well Trained Mind.  Anyway, here is what they did with their bubble painting:

This is just a highlight from Daisy's journal...she took the photo and I just like it!

Here is her journal page, inspired by the bubbles I guess...she did narrate a long story about bubbles and fish that she wanted me to scribe for her but she went far to quickly and it was far too long so in the end she just put 'fish blow bubbles'

Here is the page that Crush did [and it had to have some sort of gun in it didn't it!] and at the top he asked me to write: 'bubbles are great, bubbles are fun, bubbles are for everyone' - a poet in the making lol - and I loved his little popped bubbles!  The littlies are really enjoying the visual journalling so far and Sprite has even been joining in; only to 'help' them of course but both he and Lego have asked to do their own journal so I guess I will have to find some better quality paper journals for them to use by tomorrow, arggg!

On to Sprite [I won't forget him again after getting in trouble yesterday, lol] he did some more on his nature diary.  He photocopied some pictures of frogs and their life cycle and coloured them in.  One he used to put behind a frame that he heat embossed and the others he used to make a mini book of the frogs life cycle; I like it!  Tomorrow he has to complete the writing part of this topic inshaAllah.

Lego also completed his 'WW2 Aeroplane' booklet for his lapbook and the main background for that section; he scrunched it up and distressed it with inks [as he did the accordion booklet] as he wants them all to look 'old'.The booklet contains all the things you could ever want to know about the Yak-9 and the picture on the cover shows two Yak-9's in dog fight [bet you were wondering when that was going to come in weren't you? lol].

We read lots and lots of books today too and started to tackle the sorting and clearing out of our classroom/dining room in readiness for a return to a full days learning after Ramadan inshaAllah....it's a mammoth task but I know we can do it!

Lego has been trying to train his budgie to respond to voice commands and the budgie, Sky, of course is having none of it; it's comical to watch the battle of wills going on but Lego is very persistent and patient mashaAllah.  I also had to draw the line at Sky joining us for iftar as the guest of honor at the table!