FIVE PILLARS...

We are still working at a slower pace than we were before baby I came along but alhamdulillaah we are slowly getting more work done.

A and L were working on an animal project but that has been pushed aside for the moment as they asked if they could put together a five pillars lapbook for baby I. They want to teach him when he is a little older inshaaAllaah and they asked if they could make a lapbook to be able to show him all the work they done for him. At first I was tempted to say no, not until they had finished their animal project but I feel that I need to sometimes step back and stop always having to take control. As long as they are enjoying what they are learning, it doesn't necessarily have to be in the order that I would like it to be. 

They have only just started it but they asked if I could share their work as they go along so inshaaAllaah the next few posts will be their work in progress. 

We started with just two plain flap folders and stuck them together to make our main file for all the information to be stored in. I printed some different pockets and flaps from Homeschool Share. I then handed it over to the children and they began to fill it with information. They plan to make it fun as well as educational so they have added some mini games for baby I to be able to play. 

                         

The front of the Dhuhr and the back of the Fajr salaah info strips

A and L have also been doing some work using their balancing scales and weights. They enjoy playing with them both so to make it more of a learning tool I printed off a sheet for them to complete. They had to place certain items in one side of the scale and estimate how many weights they would need to make it balance. To them this was a fun game but I could see a great deal of maths involved. 

I was quite concerned a while back that my lack of interest in maths was rubbing off on A and L. I really disliked maths at school and now as an adult I avoid it as much as I can. I felt that this was affecting the children as it was not a subject I really pushed on so I made the decision to purchase a years subscription of Conquer Maths. They really enjoy working on this and I have seen an improvement already after just a few sessions on there. I would highly recommend conquer maths for any parent who like me struggles with maths, or simply doesn't know what to teach. 

Oh and I saved my favourite part of the post until last!! We were due to start a flat stanley project. We printed flat stanley off a while ago and were just about to send him off to different places on his adventures when a wonderful sister (Big shout out to the lovely Umm Ayah lol) showed me the work of her children. They had made their own version of flat stanley. Flat Adam and Ameena! We fell in love with the idea and A and L were keen to make their own version. So here we have flat 'Esa and Aaishah

They have gone off to Umm Ayah's house for the start of their adventures and we can't wait to see all the wonderful things they get up to with all the lovely children of the house.

I feel much happier now we are getting back in to the swing of things and the children are really enjoying being more active in their work again maashaaAllaah :-) 

SLOWLY COMING BACK...

Wow! It sure has been a while since I last posted here. A number of reasons has kept me away, mainly laziness on my own part. We had our home education visit back in May and since then we have hardly done a thing. I didn't realise how hard it would be to home school with a new baby in the house. Baby I is now almost 7 months maashaaAllaah and if I am honest I am still struggling to find a routine that works for us. To add to that I am pregnant again maashaaAllaah so the tiredness is double! I must keep going though as A and L should not suffer due to 'life' getting in the way. There are always going to be things going on and I have to find a way to somehow juggle it all.

Anyway just a quick post to try and get back into the whole world of blogging again and to try and motivate myself into doing what I once so loved to do.

We visited Hastings for a weekend which was a nice break. The weather was not so great but it was lovely to just spend some time as a family away from the madness of London. Whilst we were there we visited an aquarium and I was amazed at some of the designs and colours of the fish that we saw. Allaah's creations are simply breathtaking. The pictures are a little blurry as I had to use my phone.

We also used the opportunity to do a little research on the Battle of Hastings. We haven't got round to doing much written work on that yet but alhamdulillaah the children and I know more about it than we did before we went so I guess it still counts as learning. 

We have also been doing some Geography work and a mini fact file sheet for different countries. I printed off a 'passport' for each of the children at twinkl and for every country we work on, I stamp their passports as if they have visited that country. We also made boarding passes at Ticket O-Matic which the kids thought was a fantastic idea. 

Obviously A and L wrote their names in the passports but I removed them to show here!

The children have also been working on their animal lapbook and are currently doing some work on Bees. After all the effort that went in to making our solar system lapbook from scratch i opted for the easy option this time and purchased a lapbook about bees from currclick which made my life a lot easier.  

For arts and crafts A and L painted some baby food jars with glass paints which they really enjoyed. We purchased the glass paints from yellow moon.  I personally think they are quite expensive but we have used them a number of times and there is still quite a lot of paint left, so I guess you get what you pay for. 

That is about it really, as I said not much going on at the moment. Children are still learning Qur'aan and Arabic and alhamdulillaah my husband has now found a teacher who will come to our home 2x a week to teach them. 

I hope to get back on top of things now inshaaAllaah and be more active with the children now the morning sickness period has finished. Du'aas greatly appreciated :-D