Flower Lapbook

Better late than never, here are the much delayed pics of the kids flower projects...I have combined the pictures to show the elements included on all their lapbooks as they did some different things mashaAllah...

Here is DS1 cover

and DS2's cover... I won't bore you with any more descriptions, I will let the pictures do the talking

This is a picture of the flan 'cell' we made whilst studying plant and animal cells.

DS2 painted this picture on tracing paper using felt tips and water colors.... very effective mashaAllah.

Got this from You Tube

I am no good at thinking up catchy titles, so I'm not going to today

Lots of stuff going on in our ever evolving schedule of work as usual but the thing that has been occupying lots of time over the last couple of months is the bullying issue that DS1 is victim of... I am encouraging him to continue going to the activities that this boy also attends and to defend himself where necessary and try to ignore the non physical stuff .....a very frustrating situation as apart from the parents there seems to be no other port of call for help! These particular parents have been of little help so far, but this could change with our duas inshaAllah. I know this issue is a minuscule one in the great scheme of things and it has been making me think even more about how the people in other countries survive 'state bullying', please make dua for them also. Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated.

Anyway, on with the home education....I have readdressed our English curriculum as Mindsprinting goes very slowly and is somewhat limiting. However, DS1 likes it (because he finds it easy I expect) but, as I am in charge *winks* we have moved back to using the Nelson Thornes books. I am trying to add some extra interest by expanding on the units inshaAllah, e.g. DS1's first unit is about vikings so we are going to build a viking longboat, find out a little about vikings etc, there are also opportunities to design leaflets etc on the computer and I am hoping this will make it more interesting and break up the writing aspect inshaAllah (God willing).

DS1, along with a friend, has also started tutoring sessions with a teacher friend alhamdulillah; they are reading 'Goodbye Mr Tom' together and doing spelling, grammar etc in relation to the book. MashaAllah, she is doing a brilliant job and they are really enjoying it mashaAllah. And to be honest, I am enjoying not having to worry about this aspect of his education alhamdulillah.

Whilst DS1 + friend are away, I get together with said friends family and I take the 8/9 year olds to do a reading study of 'Charlottes Web' using a unit we got from Currclick (which is now unavailable) and the 'friends' mum does a phonics session with the little ones, so it all works out really well alhamdulillah.

This also ties in nicely with their project on WWI & WWII, they are concentrating mostly on the 'home front' and aircraft which is fine by me. This seems to be going on for ages as I am letting them just 'get on' with this themselves and even though there is nothing tangible coming out of this at the moment they are learning a vast amount. They have interviewed their nan about being an evacuee, angling for some Airfix aircraft models (I have yet to agree, lol), read lots of books from the library, telling me loads about the disgusting things the soldiers did in WWI in order to survive (boys eh!) and also learning lots about how the people coped at 'home'. I also purchased this really cool book from 'The Works' which has photocopies of actual 'war' documents, letters from evacuees, ration books etc that they can pull out and look at.


COOL! said the boys, don't they just love things that open out etc. I've also purchased some very reasonably priced replica ration books, info sheets etc for them to look at and handle... can't wait. It's exciting to see how they run with this...and they are even talking about writing stuff down to make a nice presentation. Alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah).

The scouts in the family are currently working towards their 'Environmentalists' badge and the cubs are half way through getting their 'First Aid' badge, I am really pleased with the Muslim Scouts and at how much they are learning and really enjoying going (apart from the bullying of course!) and would recommend that you find a club near you.. I sound like an advert now! The other week they had a challenge and had to build a marble run, and of course the home educated boys built one that had loop the loops etc and won the challenge mashaAllah, they then wanted to rebuild it at home which wasn't so much fun; not for the friends mum as she had the tidying up to do.

Zombie Ants

For those of you that don't get the Science A-Z email updates there are some new mini news information sheets that you can download free of charge. They are really child friendly, informative and usually have an activity to do too, my kids love them....

The current one is about zombie ants; a kind of fungus infects a kind of ant and controls its behavior, subhanAllah, it's very interesting.....

You can download them at (check out the column on the left hand side):

http://www.sciencea-z.com/scienceweb/member_home.do

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.

Maths off the cuff...

DD brought me this book to read today which led to an activity where I gave her various shapes (two shown below) and I asked her if she could make them into two equal halves. She then cut the gummed shapes in half along her fold line and stuck them on paper; she then had to find the 'whole' shape and stick it on the bottom. We kept repeating the half/whole words used in the book and by using the shapes we revised her shape names; she also traced over the words 'one half circle'; 'one whole circle' etc until she got tired.