OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IS COMING TO AN END (Don't panic I just mean our project)...

Just a quick post to show you some of the things we have been doing over the last few weeks. We had a bug in our house recently so things have been a little slow, also baby I is teething so it is difficult to put him down as he just wants comforting all the time. 


We are still working on our solar system project but are slowly starting to finish things up so that we can move on to a new project inshaaAllaah. I REALLY would like this one to come to an end now. There is only so much we can learn and if we tried to cover it all we would never end as the Universe and all it contains really is a vast subject. I must say though that working on it really has made me see just how great Allaah is. Just learning about our milky way and what it contains has fascinated me, so to know there is more out there and Allaah is the Creator of it all is simply breathtaking. 


The children have been working in the lapbook quite a bit this week and trying to complete as many of the sections as possible. 
We discussed celestial worship and how Prophet Ibraheem (alayhi salam) looked to the stars, moon and sun and for a while believed that they were his Lord, but upon seeing them set realised he was indeed in great error and submitted himself to the One Lord of all that exists, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth.


A printed off some verses of Qur'aan to go in one of the little pockets we made (I did not realise until he had stuck them on that the verses refer to Ibraheem as Abraham):

As part of our religious studies I also explained to the children how one of the six pillars of eemaan is to believe in all the Books, including the Torah, the Injeel, and the Qur’aan, and how they are really the same book (but now, the original Torah and Injeel no longer exist). We read Deuteronomy 4:19 – “And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the Lord, your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven" and discussed how Allaah is telling the people not to worship the celestial bodies but nowadays sadly some people worship many things even though they claim to be following the Book of God. 

The children also made a poster to show the difference between a planet and a moon. We got this idea from a wonderful blog that we follow MaashaaAllaah:

Some new flaps were added to the lapbook to add further information about the sun:

The two that have been completed so far:

As part of our islamic studies we discussed some ayat in which Allaah tells us about the sun. The children then added some of them to the sun flap:

We also covered the sun in more detail, and the children coloured a paper plate to show the different layers:

We made a poster to show the Earth's seasons. The children selected two seasons each and drew a picture to add to our poster. A then drew the cycle of seasons and wrote some information explaining how the cycle works:

We use Friday for our islamic studies that are separate to our solar system work and we recently found a poster that we started back in 2010, we have been discussing the different acts of ibaadah and I explained that as long as something is done for the sake of Allaah and in accordance to the Sunnah then this can become  an act of ibaadah. 

Last of all we have been working on the Names and Attributes of Allaah:

The children chose these five Names to work on after watching a DVD i had recently bought for them. It is called the Misri Bunch and i would highly recommend it. Here is a sample from the DVD:

RELOCATION RELOCATION...

After much deliberation I have moved our classroom from the main living/dining room to one of the bedrooms. Alhamdulillaah I am blessed to have a good size 3 bedroom house which means that A and L both had their own bedrooms, however most nights ended in A grabbing his quilt and camping it out on the floor at the bottom of L's bed as they enjoyed telling one another stories. They often asked if they could share a bedroom but I never gave it much thought. Over the weekend a brother text my husband and said he had some bunk beds that were in great condition and did we want them. Straight away my mind went to A and L's idea of sharing a room and I agreed we should take them. I agreed that A and L could share a room and that we would take advantage of the now spare room and use it as a classroom. Here is how it looks:

I must admit it is nice to finally have the downstairs of my house looking like my home again instead of a school with a settee stuck at the far end lol. We plan to move in the next few years inshaaAllaah and I am aware that A and L can not share a bedroom forever but while it lasts I shall make the most of it :-)

A and L have also been asking if we can move our fish tank into the classroom but this is one request that I refused to give in to.....well not completely.

A and L's very own fish tank, complete with a multi coloured light to give it that tropical touch (L's words, not mine). It is not very clear from this photo but they used cling film across the width of the window for their 'glass'. Tomorrow they plan to add some stones, bridges and rocks inshaaAllaah. I must say I am glad our real fish have not grown this big! The fish were made in 4 simple steps:

1. Take a paper plate and mark roughly one quarter with a pencil

2. Cut that section out to make the fishes mouth. 

3. Stick (we used a staple) the cut out piece at the back to make the tail. 

4. Decorate your fish in any way you like, the more colourful the better we say :-)

I am in love with our new classroom and I am looking forward to filling the walls with A and L's wonderful work inshaaAllaah.

IT'S ALL ABOUT ISLAM...

I have decided that we are going to use Friday mornings for our Islamic studies that will be separate to our main topic we are working on. We usually only work Monday - Thursday but from next week we will be doing 9am to 11am for Islamic studies before we get ready for Jumu'ah inshaaAllaah. Nothing too heavy, just a chance for us to focus completely on our deen and nothing else. 

I made my own cork style board out of some left over floor underlay that I found when sorting out the cupboard under my stairs. I simply sellotaped three sheets of board together and then covered it in green tissue paper. We will use this just for our Friday lessons so that the work we complete can stay displayed until the following lesson. We are going to be starting on the Knowing Allaah book from the Eemaan Made Easy series, and inshaaAllaah hope to work our way through the six pillars of eemaan using all the books in the set. 

We will also be learning a new Du'a each week inshaaAllaah and also discussing different manners using The Box of Manners available from Learning Roots. Our first Du'a will be the Du'a for entering the bathroom. The children know this already but they always forget to put it into practice so I want to discuss it's importance and cover it in more detail so the children fully understand why they should always make this Du'a before entering the bathroom. 

After seeing what I done with the underlay, my husband says he is scared to leave anything laying around in case I transform it into something school related lol 

I am really looking forward to starting this with A and L inshaaAllaah as there is nothing better than giving your children the gift of learning and understanding the deen, wa alhamdulillaah :-)

YEEEY - WE HAVE PHOTOS!!

Alhamdulillaah I now have a new usb cable for my camera so can share some of our work with you all.

We are still working hard on our solar system project and the children have completed quite a bit in the last few days MaashaaAllaah. As I mentioned in my previous post, we are now working around a main topic and branching all our other lessons off from that.

For yesterdays maths lesson we made a pictogram to show how many moons each planet has (this also led to an Islamic lesson but I will get to that part another time). This was a great way to show the children the number of moons for each planet in a way that they could actually visualise. Alhamdulillaah it worked as they have now memorised the facts in just one day. I find that if I just feed them information it is easily lost but if we do something like this then it actually sinks in, plus they enjoy the hands on making part.

The children also painted some paper plates to represent the planets and used them to show the surface temperature. These are now proudly displayed on our project wall (which we are running out of space on - no pun intended).

For arts and crafts the children made some pencil toppers (oh and I just had to make one of those), and also a sun catcher style planet display. 

Excuse the blinds!

A and L also started their own space diaries which they absolutely loved doing. I simply gave them a little black book each which they decorated to make into their space diaries and then each day they record their daily events as if they were a spaceman. For this I have left them to it when it comes to spellings, I will not be correcting them as they go along as I feel it holds them back with their imagination. Any words they spell incorrectly will simply give me an opportunity for a spelling test later down the line inshaaAllaah. 

It really has been all go in this house during the last week and there is so much more work we have to share with you but right now I am in demand from a 9 week old baby, so that's my time on the internet over for now.

I must learn to turn the date off of the camera, it is really annoying!!

LOT'S GOING ON...

It has been a very busy time in our house over the last week. I have been trying to get baby I into some kind of routine so that I can focus on A and L again. Alhamdulillaah a very dear sister gave me the idea to work around a topic and then branch the other lessons off from that. We have been doing that from Monday and it is working so much better for us. I felt that we were all over the place before and that our projects were always being pushed aside so that we could focus on Maths, English, Science etc. Now we are getting loads done on our Solar System project and at the same time getting in a whole heap of Maths, Science, English, History and even Geography.

This week we have worked on States of Matter for our Science lessons, and to connect it to our project we discussed how Planet Earth is mainly made up of Solids, Liquids and Gas. The children made a nice poster to show different examples. L made an ocean out of blue tissue paper, complete with fish, sharks and even a lobster. A made some clouds out of cotton wool to show Gas (water vapour) and he also made some mini mountains out of cardboard egg boxes to show an example of Solids.

History has been included by the children making a timeline of events in space, starting in 1957 when the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 was sent into Space. They were not impressed to learn that Laika the dog was the first animal to be taken into space on Sputnik 2, and never returned due to dying from lack of Oxygen (they were very angry at the 'silly spacemen'). They really enjoyed making antique looking paper using tea bags to stain the paper and then popping them in the oven to crisp them up a little.

Tomorrow inshaaAllaah we will be making Country flags for the famous astronomers and discussing where in the world they were from as part of our Geography lesson.

Islamic studies will be connected by discussing Surah Fussilat: Verse 12 in which Allaah says: Then He completed and finished from their creation (as) seven heavens in two Days and He made in each heaven its affair. And We adorned the nearest (lowest) heaven with lamps (stars) to be an adornment as well as to guard (from the devils by using them as missiles against the devils). Such is the Decree of Him the All-Mighty, the All-Knower.


I have made a table in which I have included Maths, Science, English, History, Geography, Islamic Studies, Religious Studies, Life Skills, Arts and Crafts and Cooking and all this is based around our Solar System project.

The children have been working very hard but at the same time having lots of fun, and I am pleased to say there has not been a work book in sight all week :-)

HANGING UP MY CAPE...

After a long hard talk with my husband and children and a good thinking session over a cup of tea I have decided to hang up my cape. No I am not giving up home schooling, I have simply realised that I am not super mum. I put far too much pressure on myself to get back into the routine that we had before baby I was born, and you know what, it just isn't going to happen!! 

Before baby I was born I never had to stop lessons to feed, change nappies, clean sick, and all the other wonderful things babies demand. We were able to spend the whole day baking, doing crazy science experiments, going out for long walks to see what wonderful creations of Allaah we could spot, and I think I automatically expected to go back to that after his arrival, and when this never happened I felt like I was doing something wrong. For the last few days I have felt quite sad and once again questioned my ability to home educate my children. However after my long talk with my family and a good old cup of tea (I am so English lol) I have realised that with a new baby comes new changes, and that is all it is, a change! It does not have to be the end, we simply have to adapt to having a little baby in the house. So as of today I have hung up my super mum cape and just put on my plain old mum one, it suits me much better I must say. I now see that it is OK if we do not complete some big project every week, or if every now and again we have a relaxed day where the children just paint or do some colouring in, or if we simply spend the whole day just enjoying each others company and just talking together about our interests and life in general. 

Today was a much better day with much less stress from me, which means less stress put on the children. Learning is no fun for them if I am miserable and always tired from trying to do too much. I hope this more relaxed way continues as it was so nice to see the children smiling and enjoying their time learning. Here is how our relaxed day went:

9am - Breakfast and then wash and dress (we usually start learning dead on 9am so I was panicking at this stage. I really have to learn to let go a little).

10am - Discussed today's weather (and weather in general) and filled out a weather chart that we bought in the 99p shop.

10.30am to 11.30am -  L done some colouring in and looked through a book to see how many words she could find that began with the letter blends BL, BR and TR. This gave me the chance to work with A on his measuring in cm work that he had started in his Maths book. 

11.30am to 12pm - A and L played with the shopping list game that we picked up for 99p in the charity shop while I fed baby (and had a nose on Facebook).

12pm to 1.30pm - Discussed Changing States and looked at how water can be solid, liquid and gas. We took some ice from the freezer and the children put some in the fridge, some on the side and some in water and they wanted to time how long it took each one to melt. A little mini experiment led by them which is always nice. 

1.30pm to 3pm - The children had lunch and played upstairs for a while and I managed to get some washing done and wash up all the lunch things. 

3pm to 4pm - The children sat and read some Islamic books out loud to each other which gave me the chance to listen to their reading while at the same time preparing some food for the evening. I was really impressed with how their reading has improved maashaaAllaah. We have picked up some really great books from local charity shops and A and L really do love to read. 

4pm to 4.30pm - We made cupcakes!! This was my favourite part of the whole day as it was so nice and relaxed. Usually I make baking a real structured lesson but today I simply let go and let the children have fun in the kitchen....we even licked the bowl clean!

We ended our relaxed schooling day with a nice tea and cake break where we all sat on the mat and discussed how we had spent the day. The children are now sat watching a wildlife DVD whilst I feed baby and share our day with you all :-)

FUNKY LIGHTS...

Here is another simple arts and craft idea that children can do with hardly any adult supervision (unless they try to drink glue like L did when she was younger, but hey that's another blog). 


All you need is:


1 Clear Plastic Cup
PVA Glue
Acrylic Paints and Thin Paintbrush
Glitter 
Small Child's Torchlight (You can still make the cups without the light)


1. Dribble the glue all over the cup in any pattern that you like, add your glitter and leave to dry.

2. Now simply paint all the different sections with your choice of colours and again leave to dry.

3. Turn your cup upside down and place your torch underneath and there you have your funky light.

If you do not have a torch you can use the cups as a pencil holder or any kind of storage pot that you like :-)