FROM WALES TO THE SAFARI...

Anyone who knows me will know that for the last 3 weeks we have been restricted to what we can do lesson wise as we have workmen constantly in our home doing an energy upgrade. We are often stuck up in the bedroom but as they are all around the house on scaffolding we keep the curtains shut for some privacy, which means the room is too dull to really be able to work properly. So today I was overly happy when alhamdulillaah due to the rain the workmen was unable to do anything and we were free to use our classroom.

We started our day by going back to some work we began earlier in the year but never really done anything on it. I made up a small fact sheet and the children have to search their books or internet to find the answers for things such as currency, food, religion, climate etc.

Fact Sheet

I bought a whole load of different stamps on ebay for the bargain price of 99p and so the children stuck a stamp of the country they were working on to the bottom of their fact sheet.

Stamps from Ghana

A and L sorting through the stamps

We also used a great little book from Usborne to help us see all the different flags for the countries which A and L also drew and coloured on the fact sheets. 

A colouring his Union Jack flag he drew

The book comes with stickers of each flag and so we stuck them on some tags we have and added a key ring to hang from our world map. On the back of each tag L wrote the date that each country adopted its flag. 

2 of the tags on which L wrote the date the flag was adopted

L adding the flag for China

Some of the countries we are working on 

Then we made some boarding passes for the countries we worked on and added them to our pretend passports. A and L chose to fly from London to Wales for our UK section. 

L adding her boarding pass to her passport (names removed for safety)

Boarding  passes (names removed for safety)

Pretend passports

After we had finished our Geography for the day we then went on to do a little Islamic studies and worked on our Hajj project. A and L used their Little Explorers magazine to write out some more facts to add to the ka'bah they made.

A writing his facts 

L writing her facts

Our Ka'bah pocket that holds the facts 

We finished our day with some arts and crafts. The children painted some animals which are part of our animal project that we are working on (we have many projects going at once and work on them as and when we want to)

L painting her Giraffe 

A adding details to his Lion 

A sister recently asked me what hours we do each day. To be honest from the moment my children wake up to the moment they go to sleep they are constantly doing some kind of work, whether its reading, painting, drawing etc, they never really end their school day. As I sit and type this up L is colouring and A is reading his new horrible histories books that arrived today from The Works, a real bargain at £19.99 for a set of 20 books! 

I am hoping that the workmen will not be able to work for a few more days so that we can get some work done as I have to admit I REALLY love it when we have a good home school day maashaaAllaah :-)

HAJJ...

The children have spent today working on the final section of our five pillars lapbook. We started by reading our Little explorers magazine and discussing the hajj in more detail.

We spoke about how Ibraheem alayhi salam re-built the ka'bah with his son Ismaael alayhi salam. The children then went on to make a ka'bah out of some old washing powder boxes which they absolutely loved doing and then they asked to make some mini pilgrims so we used toilet roll inserts and toilet paper to make simple little pilgrims. We discussed the clothes that they wear during hajj and A and L showed me how the pilgrims make tawaf by going round the ka'bah 7 times. We stuck a CD holder to the side of the ka'bah which the children will fill with facts about the ka'bah as we go along inshaaAllaah.

The children also read the word 'Talbiyyah' in one of the magazines so we watched a video on youtube and discussed what the pilgrims were saying. Here are some pictures from our work today:

The two issues we used to help us with our work 

L sticking some boxes together

A and L working together to secure the boxes together

L making a start on covering the boxes with paper

Almost covered

All covered and left to dry 

The children went outside to paint the ka'bah black

Starting to add the details 

More details added

Complete with our two mini pilgrims 

Our ka'bah fact holder (a CD wallet)

Cant wait to continue tomorrow inshaaAllaah as today was so much fun :-D

FUN TIME...

I have a huge bag full of cardboard tubes, egg boxes, cereal boxes etc which I always keep thinking we may use one day. That day finally arrived when we had the workmen in and could not get to all our usual stuff. The kids enjoyed painting toilet roll inserts and making skittles which they then played with for ages afterwards.

We then decided to get creative with some crayons and a canvas. I saw a blog which had glued a line of crayons to a blank white canvas and then melted them with a hairdryer to make a beautiful rainbow effect. I didn't really like the idea of gluing them on and then heating it up as I was worried about the smell the glue would produce once heated so I simply sellotaped them in a row and hoped for the best. The end result was not quite how it was supposed to be as the sellotape came unstuck and the crayons moved around but the children had so much fun doing this and they loved the end result so it was still a fun project. They were so pleased with how it looked that they wrapped it up and gave it to their grandmother as a gift maashaaAllaah. 

I have decided that one day a week will be just for arts and crafts as the children really enjoy it and it gives them a chance to be creative and really use their imagination. 

TIME FOR AN UPDATE...

I have not had the chance to update for a while, plus things have been slow since ramadhan. Children have been working on their five pillars lap book. I was hoping this would be finished a while back but alhamdulillaah they are still enjoying working on it so I guess that is all that matters.

Some of the work on the Sawm section was taken from Imans Homeschool so may Allaah reward the sister for her efforts aameen.

They have also been working on Conquer Maths and now we have added MEP maths into our lessons as well as I always worry about the numeracy side of things (It is not my favourite subject and I worry I hold them back in it)

We have re-arranged the class room and we are now back downstairs as A needed his bedroom back (my boy is growing up fast maashaaAllaah). I realised how much stuff I bought (mainly work books) when we first started that we really never needed. I have had a good clear out and our class room is feeling much more organised now.

Pregnancy and a young baby is keeping me nice and busy maashaaAllaah and extra tired so most days we just do some work books and a little bit of Islamic studies. Alhamdulillaah my husband is a great support and does regular Qur'aan lessons with them and makes sure they practice their Qaidah daily. He has also been taking them to the park quite often to give me a break and a chance to catch up on other stuff. We bought the children a games table for 'Eid so they have also had fun playing air hockey, table tennis and other games.

I guess we have taken the un-schooling approach recently and the children have kind of been leading the way. They asked if they could use a big cardboard envelope style box that our white board came in so for a while it was stood in A's bedroom (collecting dust), I was tempted to throw it out as I didn't have a clue what to use it for and then the children asked if we could make a puppet show so we have just started to decorate it and make some puppets for a show they want to put on. I will video this when complete and add on here another time inshaaAllaah.

Before we got started

Where we are at so far

These are yet to be finished

There has been lots of free arts and craft time and the children really enjoyed sitting in the garden painting plant pots that were given to them as an 'Eid gift by a lovely sister and her family maashaaAllaah. They came with seeds but we are yet to get round to doing that part (laziness from me).

They say one mans junk is another mans treasure and alhamdulillaah I found this to be true this week. I have sat for ages searching ebay and amazon for a big plastic container that is strong enough to hold all the work books and exercise books that the children work in daily so that everything is in one place. This makes it easier if my husband has to take over as he doesn't have to search all over for stuff to do. Anyway I found a few but they were either too expensive, not big enough or not strong enough to hold all that I wanted to put in them. Then the other day as I was walking to the chemist I saw exactly what I was looking for on the field at the end of my road. It's a place where people often dump stuff they don't need and so alhamdulillaah I got what I needed and it never cost me a penny  -  Allaah is the best of planners and providers maashaaAllaah.

Baby I has started to show an interest in books maashaaAllaah, he is just 9 months old but will sit for ages with a book and just flick through the pages and stares at all the words (he often chews them as well lol) so I have really been trying to make time to just sit and read to him while A and L get on with work by themselves.

My eager readers, including baby I maashaaAllaah

That's about it for this update. Things are much slower but alhamdulillaah it still seems to be working for us.