Freestyle Learning

Same old, same old!

2012-02-19T22:11:00.000Z

Although it seems like such a long time ago we thoroughly enjoyed the snow; here are some of us sledging!

Crush and Daisy have been trying to learn their number names so out came our trusty laminated fish for our magnetic fishing games

More of my home made matching games to learn their number names...I never really bother teaching this as it seems ever such a waste of time as we rarely use number names in 'real life' and I guessed they could catch up on this later but their tutor is insisting on it! These cards can be downloaded here, although it should be noted that these ones have roses on them; I have had a request from Crush to man it up a bit and do a set with spanners or something so watch out for these to come!

Daisy decided that she wanted to make her own little 1-20 number book!

We did some writing and spelling in sand!

We spent a long time re-organising our resource shelves, games and some of our books!

And although it's not quite clear in this pic but Daisy made a drum kit [sort of] by filling up several bottles and containers with different amounts of water and spent the rest of the day playing and singing to the Prophet's Hands CD by Dawud Wharnsby Ali. I spent the rest of the day nursing a headache!

We played lots of games this week...funny that you can go months without playing any and then have to play them all in a few days!

We practiced pioneering with paintbrushes and pencils!

We've been playing with plasticine.

We have had a craft day at the museum which included looking at lots of different toys from various parts of the world including, among others, those pictured above. We also made masks and laminated 'things'...sorry, still not sure what they are meant to be lol.

Daisy, for some reason, has been really - and I mean REALLY - hooked on numbers over the last couple of weeks and she also modelled the numbers 1-20 from pipecleaners lol!

We have been baking up a storm, these are our yummy blueberry, banana and oat breakfast muffins.


Lego has also discovered the soldering iron and has been making remote controls etc, from scratch this week!

Apart from all of this we have had a couple of days out visiting friends and have also been plodding along with our usual school work - nothing spectacular! Tutoring has been going fabulously for Lego who is doing really well on his GCSE courses and I need to start thinking about getting some exams sorted for him. He really wants to do his Science GCSE but I am finding it difficult to find a center for him to sit the practical aspect of the exams. I know nothing about getting exams sorted for private candidates so any ideas would be very welcome.

Tutoring for the younger ones is also continuing but with my approach to home ed. I'm feeling uneasy about them having to follow the National Curriculum so strictly; they have been stuck on number names for longer than I would have liked for no other reason than it appears in the curriculum at this point. I also feel that Sprite needs to be pushed a bit harder...he is flying through his work and is always sitting their with his coat and bag on when I arrive to collect them as he has long finished his work. He also needs to learn to focus more...not sure how I can help him with that other than to give him shorter periods of work needing concentration. Must do some research! We also had an really good heart to heart chat about life and education during which I asked him which way he liked to learn most i.e. by watching, doing, reading etc and he said...'I don't know', very helpful lol!

Lego also has a swimming gala coming up so the boys have been swimming a few times a week for the last couple of weeks to get their speed up...Lego is determined for his team to win this year!

Library Homeschool Group: Photography Project Week 3

2012-02-03T18:12:00.000Z

On Wednesday we got to walk [in the freezing cold I might add] all around the local area to take photographs with proper SLR digital cameras. The kids thought it was fabulous and even the smallest 4 year old was encouraged to use the camera and was able to take pictures without any problems - if only we could have influenced the subject matter he chose! The outreach worker had photos of different landmarks of the area from times long past and the kids were asked to take photos of the same spot today so that we can see how it had changed. Lego and Sprite also noticed that there was a diving/extreme sports shop near one of the sites and discussed the changes in how people spend their leisure time! We also handed in our disposable cameras and images from these and the digital cameras are being processed for us to look at next week.....can't wait! Sorry we were so busy taking photos this week that I have no photos of them 'doing' to show you!

Library Homeschool Group: Photography Project Week 2

2012-02-03T08:17:00.000Z

We missed the first week of this project as we were all poorly; in the first week they looked at old and new photographs of different landmarks in the are [places of worship, terraces, victorian buildings etc] and discussed how things had changed. We had done this before as part of one of our projects so hopefully we didn't miss out on much.

This week we got to look at lots of different cameras from different eras and learned how they worked and we got to play with them too...the kids loved this session and asked lots of good questions mashaAllah. All the kids were also given a disposable camera to take home and take photos of their week; homes, food, hobbies, days out etc...they were given advice on how to take photos and some different techniques they could use and were advised to take a few photos every day so they didn't use up all their pictures too quickly. Of course, most didn't listen LOL!

Library Homeschool Group: Museum Visit

2012-02-03T07:48:00.000Z

We had a wonderful day at the museum. We were collected by minibus; of course the kids loved this and it was a real treat for me not having to worry about getting everyone there and parking, yay! We were split into 2 groups and began our behind the scenes tour. We got to see and learn how paintings were restored, how the museum stored and acquired it's exhibits, we learned how fossils were prepared and put together and we also had quite a long stay in the taxidermy department. The boys, in particular, loved all the skins and stuffed animals [hence the pictures, I was pushing a wheelchair so Lego was in charge of the camera!] and we spent quite a time learning how animals were 'stuffed'. We also got to see all the sea/water creatures stored in jars [I felt like I was in the middle of some evil doctors lab LOL] and all the collected and preserved insects. The private areas of the museum had a certain smell and feel to them and you felt very special to be allowed to see it all.

Then, after some tea and biscuits, we learned all about the Ancient Egyptians; we got to walk around some of the exhibits and had the Egyptian death rituals explained to us. We also got to see a typical Ancient Egyptian kitchen and learned how food was prepared and cooked. We got to handle some original artifacts and the kids got to put cloth body parts in the correct canopic jar.

It was a great day, enjoyed by all! Sorry for the poor photos, lots didn't come out for some reason.

More of Legos Pictures

2012-01-29T23:15:00.001Z

No more apologies...

2012-01-29T22:26:00.000Z

for my complete lack of discipline in posting to this blog.....the fact is that I just don't have the time and that's just the way it's gonna have to be until the offspring get full time jobs, will do the housework for me or teach themselves. None of which I can see happening soon! I do somehow feel guilty for not posting more regularly and sincerely thank all of you that continue to follow us on our rocky road and I apologise for any and every time now and in the future for my complete tardiness.

Enough of what we haven't been doing; it's time for some of what we have been doing....

Well we have had poorly children all over the place and we have been at home, nursing this horrid virus...one after another they fell, with one symptom fading out and another taking its place...it is never ending but we seem to be on the up now thank God. But apart from the coughing, headaches and vomiting it has been nice snuggling down and reading lots of books, playing games and drinking lots of hot chocolate. It has also been very heartening seeing the children that are well taking care of the ones that arent - each with their periods of ups and downs, so sweet!

Not so sweet however, is this armoury of rapid fire rifles made from Lego that fire elastic bands. While I can admire the boys' technical ability and all round cleverness I am not too happy at the sight of elastic bands left laying all over the house. And just when you think it's all over hubby, being so impressed with their modelling skills, went and bought them a whole new box of elastic bands each. Thank you darling. Arrrgh!

Lego also made this 'mech' from paper using a template he downloaded here.

They have also been messing about with the box of electrial stuff and Lego built this alarm which operates using touch sensors.

Inspired by Debbie over at My So Called Life and Other Lies we have also been rolling some candles from natural beeswax sheets. A fun little activity that kept us all busy for a while.

I have also ordered my seeds for this year and we are looking forward to a bountiful harvest, by the Grace of Allah, and have a whole garden revamp to begin in the next few weeks, weather & illnesses permitting. The kids and I are really looking forward to getting going with this and to enjoying the garden when it's finished inshaAllah.

My candles..

2011-12-14T00:07:00.001Z

Here are some candles I decorated for my mum....they are addictive to make and I can't wait to make some more...

We learned how to do them from this video!

2011-12-14T00:04:00.001Z

What an exciting week we have had with the children starting with their tutors and mashaAllah, I must say that they had a great time and the tutors have wonderful intentions to help the community. Each of the children were assessed and they all have homework to do, which they did, without being told, as soon as they got home! The sister also said that if I couldn't afford for them to go more than once a week [I am hoping to send them at least twice a week inshaAllah] that she would give them extra homework. Alhamdulillah, this has been such a blessing for me; I didn't realise that I was so stressed about it all!

The children also decorated these candles after being inspired by a video we watched on YouTube

They were great fun to make and I think I may be additcted! Lego also made this papier mache mountain diarama for his Airfix models.

Sprite made himself this Airfix tank!

Daisy made this art journal page. She used a piece of sponge to dab colour all over the page and then used stick on paper letters and sticky back foam letters to make the words. She then went on to paint her next to pages all in black....can't wait to see what she's going to do with those lol!

This is Sprites African inspired giraff mask and Daisy's Zebra mask, both of which were inspired by our session at the library's home school group meeting last week. We also started making some African masks out of paper mache but they made soooo much mess I could hardly bare to look at it let alone immoratlise it in a photograph!

We also made some ghee and learned about it's health benefits and related ahadith.

The kids also made chocolate cake and orange custard, orange in colour not in flavour. I don't know why they wanted orange custard but it was nice anyway!

Daisy has been doing some more sewing...

I have also spent some time going over the lessons that the children did at the tutoring group to make sure they understand the concepts and am doing more hands on activities to ram the concepts home. Lego has been doing forces with related formula and long division, the others are brushing up on their times tables and handwriting before they go back to 'school' on Monday inshaAllah.

Well, we are off for a few days off with my family in London. Yay!

Gotta love the library!

2011-12-08T23:39:00.002Z

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!

Leaving it to the professionals...

2011-12-08T22:34:00.005Z

Well I have finally admitted defeat and decided to give up some of my home ed responsibilities to the professionals. We have been in a rut, educationally, for about a year and it was beginning to have an affect on family relationships and my sanity lol; I knew something had to be done but all my efforts and discussions with the kids came to nothing. I was making so much dua about it all as I didn't know what to do next; I felt that state school wasn't an option for us and I couldn't affort private schooling [not that that's much better!]; then, by the grace of Allah ta'ala a couple of opportunities sprung up from nowhere alhamdulillah.

The first was a home school group run by the library that is open to suggestions for session activities and wants to 'cater for individual needs' - more about that in the next post God willing. The other was a private tutoring service providing Maths, English and Science tuition; the upshot is that I have registered the 3 younger ones for the morning session on Mondays [they will do 1 hour of each subject] and Lego will go on Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours per day to do Maths and Science. This will all kick off this Saturday when Lego begins his classes inshaAllah. The service is run by a husband and wife team mashaAllah. They are both teachers and have lots of teaching experience and the sister was very understanding of my situation and is willing to fit in with our needs, they have a max class size of 12 and they don't believe that sitting down with a text book is the best way to learn alhamdulillah [those of you that know me will know that this will be a great relief to me, lol]. On top of this the lessons are extremely reasonable at only £2.50-3 per hour, based on age! How fab is that mashaAllah?

On the down side I do feel a bit of a hypocrite doing this as I have been, and still am, a strong advocate of home education and would always encourage people to give Home Ed a go but I am just tired and need to recharge my batteries a little! I know some of you will be shocked at all this revelation so in order to defend myself I would like to point out that I have no family around me to help, other than my husband, who is unable to help with the HEd, and I work part time in addition to the normal woman of the house stuff we all have to do. I also suffer from a long term illness that effects my energy levels etc. SubhanAllah, did that sound like whinging....sorry, I don't mean to whine just state my case - a couple of people almost fell off their chairs when they found out LOL!

We had got to a stage where the children and I were on different wave lengths and we couldn't get back our learning mojo that was lost during and after my diagnosis. I did continue to educate through the illness and beyond but it was a continual battle with no time to take a breather. I think the kids and I need a bit of time away from each other to get our mojo back and these two ventures will just about do it I think God Willing. It will allow me not to have to think about what to teach as we can base it on what they are doing with their tutors and the homework they set. We also have the activities at the library which we can work from too and I am also hoping to incorporate a project that we all work on together God willing - but we won't begin this for a week or two to allow us to get into a routine!

We are all looking forward to our new programme of education [although the kids have been talking about the impact it will have on their 'free' time LOL] and it has already lifted some stress from the house; we are having more fun together already and I have more energy and enthusiasm for the little things that I want to teach them like reading, spelling, crafts etc.

Please remember me and my family in your duas as well as all the home educators out there, who give so much, may Allah ta'ala give us ease and guidance in the task raising our children for His pleasure. Ameen.

2011-11-18T16:35:00.002Z

Soooo, yet again the Historical Banquet has been put on hold because of our illnesses and the homecoming of the prodigal son [or father in our case]. We tried to change the date but couldn't find a time to suit all; we do intend to go ahead at some point God willing so watch this space!

So what have we been up to....hmmm....well....not much is the answer! We went to stay with grandma which was lovely....the kids had giant sparklers and played football with their cousins among other things. Sprite has been inspired to finish his owl project so we are aiming to finish by the end of next week God willing. Lego has been doing this [again!]:

The little ones have been doing this:

This was an animal workshop run by Pets at Home. The kids got to handle rabbits and guinea pigs but unfortunately couldn't hold the reptiles as it was feeding time and the staff wasn't prepared for our visit as 'it was in the diary no one put it on the board'. The young man [oh, that phrase gives my age away!] running the show did a fab job and was very patient with us answering all our questions and more. Sprite was very impressed with the way the chap talked about the animals and that he got to handle them everyday and announced that when he was 13/14 he wanted to get a part time job working there with the animals. The workshops are free so check out your local store and see if they can accomodate a visit, it's good fun alhamdulillah!

Sprite has been cooking again and made a lovely Lemon Drizzle Cake....it came out of the oven whilst I was out and by the time I got back hubby and the kids had demolished it so no pictures I'm afriad!

We also held a small gathering for some friends that we hadn't seen for a while; it was lots of fun but we had a complaint from a neighbour that the boys were making too much noise playing dodge ball in the garden... it was past 10pm but we didn't realise that it was so late so now we're off to organise an apology cake!

We are waving goodbye...

2011-10-28T00:38:00.001+01:00

to our snuffles thank God; It's been almost three weeks of illness as each one of us came down with a virus one after another....and of course, as I have no family around me, if one of us is too ill to go out we all have to stay at home. However, it did enable me to catch up with the washing and dusting, OK I was lying about the dusting - and we spent lots of time just talking, reading and cuddling which was really nice!

Spending so much time at home did fill me with inspiration to improve our learning/dining/crafting space so in between mopping brows, dishing out medicine, mopping up yukky stuff and sleepless nights I managed to change around the whole downstairs space [although I'm still putting stuff away!] and my bedroom and I must say they are working out fabulously. I love my new room...it's turning in to a real calm space that I can retreat to to sooth my tattered soul whenever necessary ;)

Some learning has still been going on though with English, Math Whizz, madressah, reading, talking etc however, I did want to give a special mention with regard to the 'Great Debate' we had at Sprites English session. The debate went really well and the children did wonderfully; pushing themselves to present when they found it really difficult and, at times, emotional. We analysed general perfomances afterwards and the children have been asked to write a reflective document on their perfomance as homework, which will identify areas for improvement and offer solutions, which we will follow up with more debate(s) inshaAllah. If you get the chance I would encourage you to organise a debating group/society as it's a wonderful training ground for dawah work, interviews etc and really gives the children a confidence boost.

Well apart from all that we have been making robots [or hacking, as my sons tell me] from bits of old toys, correx and staggering amounts of hot glue; Lego managed to cut himself twice on the spinning disk he put on his model LOL. Sprite's robot didn't make it to the photo stage as it was 'injured' in battle. Sprite also made a fab pastry for a meat pie - yum. We have also been painting still life as well as the walls and making lots of containers for our new classroom from tin cans. Daisy has been sewing using a kit my sister gave her a while back and as the holes were pre-drilled she found it really easy to sew [once she got the hang of a running stitch] and it did wonders for her confidence mashaAllah.

Banquets and Businesses

2011-10-11T09:09:00.001+01:00

This week has seen a business idea of Lego's come to fruition mashaAllah; he has been setting up his eBay account to sell his creations, opened a bank account (he needs to get paid of course) and has designed his 'company' logo, prepared a budget and a profit and loss statement, designed compliment slips and packaging. He needs to photograph his creations so has also designed a 'light box' for the purpose. I was very impressed mashaAllah and he took the time to explain it all to me and 'prove', through examples, that his idea would work. As a result I decided to invest a little into his idea to start his business off inshaAllah. A budding entrepreneur indeed, mashaAllah.

The kids have also decided that they want to hold their Historical Banquet at our house in October mashaAllah. As it all go out of hand before they have been told to keep numbers down and are being very sensible mashaAllah. They are going to need some guidance as this is their first time organising a 'do' and they are getting a little side tracked and need to set a list of priorities. Their first priority is to get the invitations out asap as each guest will be given a character that they need to dress up as and present a very short precis about on the day. I though this was a fantastic idea and have already purchased the tooth and face blacking for my character [can you guess who I'm going to be? LOL].

The mums also thought it would be a great idea to hand out the invitations in the style of Funeral Biscuits [just to maintain the historical theme!] which were used in Victorian times to bid people to attend funerals; specially prepared biscuits, wrapped in paper and sealed with wax, the banquet details on the front and a biscuit and information about the original form of the biscuit inside. They sound like great fun to make, we have found a recipe and are looking forward to helping with this one! Here's a picture of original wrapper displayed at the Pitt River Museum at the University of Oxford.

Everyone is going to bring a dish but the boys want to cook a sample of different foods for varying era's for people to try and are researching and organising historical games inshaAllah. I'm quite looking forward to it all but dreading the cleaning up!

This seemed to be a week or revisits so we ended up at Watermead Park [again], feeding the ducks and strolling mashaAllah.

And at the Abbey Park Pumping Station [again], here's a picture of part of the pumps:

And we had a day of building marble runs on Saturday at a friends house, here's one they manage to perfect after running various tests with different size marbles, inclines etc....meanwhile I had a nice chat and a cup of coffee with me mate!

Autumn has returned with a vengeance and has left us all with the sniffles but poor Crush had it worse with a very high temperature and hallucinations where all the cloth/material came to life in the house...he was so scared, poor thing, and I find it quite difficult as it reminds me of when my father was in intensive care, he was complaining that the people in the beds opposite had been partying all night and were cutting off Jesus' legs LOL [yes, we can laugh about it now but at the time...!]. He was begging me to take him home and it was really difficult convincing him that he was in the best place!

Lego is learning all about racism in Amercia as part of his study of Holes, we were worried that they would find it difficult but they are doing very well mashaAllah. I was a bit concerned about how the English lesson I teach on a Saturday is going and that Sprite wasn't taking it seriously but this week he did me proud. We read our book and did looked at debating. We did an off the cuff debate and the kids enjoyed it much more than I anticipated and they have been 'debating' everything every since!

Paddling pools and Autumn leaves

2011-10-04T23:35:00.001+01:00

Can you believe the weather this past week? Well, we thought that with such a special gift from Allah ta'Ala we should be grateful and get out to enjoy it...and enjoy it we did LOL. So the first thing we did was to get distracted by a friend and 'dragged' out to the country park with a hastily made picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast; apart from paddling in the lake we also took a barbecue and the 'big boys' cooked us up some sausages to accompany our lunch.

The strangest sight for me this week was getting out the paddling pool for the kids whilst sweeping up Autumn leaves from the patio - how weird!

Soooo we spent the next few days up until yesterday enjoying the sun and the garden [the kids] and getting loads of washing done [me] and we even had friends to stay over for the weekend. The children also spent some time making a bug and insect hotel thang out of a wheelbarrow....it had a 'play' space for every common garden bug you could think of LOL...pictures to come inshaAllah.

We have also spent a great deal of time on cars in the last week....one broke down and is now 'resting' on the driveway until hubby can get round to reviving it but alhamdulillah we had just bought another car [as hubby quite skillfully had an idea that the old one was going to die LOL] but the suspension arm broke on that yesterday so we had that to sort out too! I'm wishing we didn't have to rely on the car so much :0(

It's been great but we had to crack on with the education today, so it's been Maths and English as usual and we did a teleclass with Supercharged Science on Sound and Sonic Vibrations and each of the children made one of these harmonicas that use wind speed and resonance to make a buzzing sound. They quite enjoyed the activity and all decorated their harmonica appropriately...the first picture is of the harmnoica and the video shows the harmonica in action.....

Oh and, alhamdulillah, Lego had his plaster off yesterday and it looks like it's healing wonderfully and we are hoping that he will be discharged by the plastic surgeon on Friday...yay!

2011-09-22T18:13:00.001+01:00

Well these past two weeks have been so busy and have flown by. I've been having some Osteopathy on my back [great stuff; highly recommended!] so am getting back on track back wise but came down with an evil stomach virus. Nevertheless we have all taken the opportunity [on any rain free day] to get in the garden to do some clearing, digging and general chopping stuff down and it's now looking like this;

That's an exhausted Sprite you can see in the middle who had been chopping wood and digging with the pick axe [alhamdulillah for his axe training with the scouts lol]....he is soaking in a hot bath as I type! You will notice the missing pile of wood etc that took hubby three trips to the tip to dispose of; not to mention all the metal etc he took a day to put in the garage poor thing. And just in case you don't remember what it looked like here's a little reminder.

We have also been collecting conkers:

And Crash has been cooking [if you can call a flan cooking] and it was extremely yummy!

We have also been making ribbon roses [very addictive and therapeutic!]...I know they look a strange type of cool in the photos but we weren't very successful I can assure you! Lots more practice needed LOL.

Apart from that we haven't done much at all outside the usual daily madressah, maths, English and reading etc and are still trying to get back into 'the swing of things' following Ramadhan. However, Cubs and Beavers are back on as is the English tutor for Lego and sports for the two little ones so I guess it's back to the mad daily dash around.....but on reflection, they won't be needing me for much longer so I should savour every moment inshaAllah.

And lastly... in my quest for the right home schooling curriculum/method for us the 'Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Educations' keeps coming up so I guess that in response to my prayers Allah ta'Ala is guiding me to this book...which I have ordered but it STILL hasn't arrived! I feel that Montessori doesn't really have much to offer my children but feel really excited about what this has to offer and would love to hear from any of you following the recommendations in this book for your home ed!

Inconsistent until the end...

2011-09-10T00:43:00.000+01:00

OK so that was a bit melodramatic but the week did start of exceptionally well and then went rapidly down hill. We started well on Monday with a brand new schedule and everything went really well....everyone got their work done and it was fab...I should have known it would never last. Tuesday I woke up and had a relapse with my back...bah humbug! This was followed by another call from the hospital calling Lego back in and yet another to say that Sprite had to go in to start his physio this week...so another two days taken out of the week!

And with the English lessons starting back for Sprite tomorrow he decides that he wants to change the way he presents his 'nature diary' for his homework! So the old one was dumped and he made this...

Isn't it lovely? It was made out of a corrugated cardboard box cut to fit our stock of 6"x6" papers. On the front the larger flowers he cut from a die I have and heat embossed using different color powders and he stamped on top of them whilst they were hot [you should be aware that these are MY craft supplies and he had me cringing in the corner all the while he was using them, lol].

The first entry was the frog booklet that you may remember from his first attempt at the diary. The second page was mostly researched information and photo's from the internet but the third entry he found an outline picture and he painted the image using watercolor pencils. I like watercolors, you can get away with a multitude of sins [art wise] and always have a good result. Apart from the art lesson these two entries also included a lesson on internet research and IT (cutting, pasting, changing fonts etc).

Lego hasn't done much this week and is milking the 'poor me' thang far too much....his WW2 model was also broken into tiny pieces when it was accidently knocked off a cupboard by dad [I was just grateful it wasn't me or one of the other children!]. He wasn't very happy. Nooo, not happy at all; and he seemed to be uninterested in the fact that he was the one who had left it in the precarious position in the first place. Any ho, it has been unceremoniously dumped in the bin and he proclaimed that he would never build a model again. However, this pledge didn't last long and he is in the middle of building a WW2 scene out of Lego!

Crash and Daisy have left me all Peter and Jane'd out and I am currently in the process of making flash cards of all the keywords to assist in the word recognition process. All maths has been done on Maths Whizz this week but I need to get them putting some stuff down on paper too to so that can apply all that they learn.

Well, that's it for this week! Have a great weekend everyone.

Apparently...

2011-09-02T01:23:00.000+01:00

Daisy's journal has inspired the boys so we have two new journals on the go and Crash also did a page in his journal. Personally, I think they liked all the cutting and sticking and getting their hands on my personal stash of craft supplies....well it's 1am and they have finally finished and I am off to bed, there's just enough time to show you what they created; the first is Crash's [he comes out with some stonking quotations; I don't know where he gets them from and he always manages to catch me by surprise, lol]. The second one is Sprite's, he's very patient and creative mashaAllah. The last is Lego's journal and yes he did have to have a pic of Lego on there didn't he? He has some very interesting ideas but is very impatient and loses interest if things don't work out as he expects mashaAllah, he did very well with one hand I thought!

Sorry about the photos, not sure what happened there I'll try and sort out some new pictures tomorrow inshaAllah.

Loving the art journaling...

2011-09-01T21:57:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure why this love has kicked in with such vengeance today but I think I'm going to HAVE to splash out on a proper art journal for myself...I am really enjoying doing this with the kids and my head is just about exploding with ideas that I would like to do.

Well, back on to the kids lol. Today Daisy's journal seemed to be heavily influenced by something I was doing on a project and a longing to use the grown up crafting materials, lol. I have started doing the 99 Names of Allah with her and our journal entry today was based around the name 'Al-Malik'. She decided that she wanted to do lots of collage but that I had to do the cutting out [arggg, I hate cutting out]. So she painted the pages with a coat of white paint [it was from a Crown match pot] and then did some patches of colour with acrylics and stamped butterflies images randomly over the pages. Not sure if you can see it but she also sprayed the pages with my purple glimmer mists. She then used some letter tiles I have to spell 'Al-Malik' and then we [well I] typed the translation of the name in English with the ayat from the Quran that we discussed in relation to this name. She coloured in two of the words with pink [as always] pencil and chose some sequin mesh and a couple of pictures from the internet that she wanted to glue onto the page.

Well here is her entry in its full glory.....

We haven't done much else today as the disk in my back has 'popped' just a little but I am hoping to get back in full swing for Monday inshaAllah. The boys have been building with the Lego all day and have been very quiet in consideration of my injury [bless] and hubby has done all the cooking and tidying up....so, all in all I had a very relaxing, quiet day!

Eid Mubarak...

2011-09-01T02:08:00.001+01:00

I hope you all had a good Eid inshaAllah....ours was spent at the local hospital so that my son could have a thumb that he broke at the Sky Ride on Sunday reset - they made a mistake at A&E and actually sent him home, all plastered, without even resetting the bone! However, in an effort to make up for it we did get first class, personal treatment from the plastic surgeon when they called him back in. We got back so late that we never really had time to celebrate so had a delayed Eid today mashaAllah!

Everyone has had a virus too so things have been a bit slow here over the last few days but we have been drinking in some inspiration from this very talented lady today - she has unbelievable talent in all areas of art/craft and when you think she has finished a piece of work she adds something else to make her creations even more fab. Well I am hoping that we can do a couple of pages tomorrow based around what she has done here inshaAllah:

I have officially started work on getting the children back to their normal pre-Ramadan sleep patterns so we can get cracking with our new schedule inshaAllah. However, with physio beginning for Sprite [because of some tendon/ligament problems] and Lego with his thumb I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time at the hospital and I am hoping it won't disrupt our home ed too much! However, it is fortunately very close to town so I could back it onto a sly visit to the art shop to get some supplies, yipee, I LOVE the art and craft shop! Sad, I know!

Busy, busy, busy....

2011-08-27T01:13:00.001+01:00

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!

Too busy to post....

2011-08-26T12:27:00.002+01:00

hummm, well almost! We have all been very busy getting the back garden sorted...hubby laid the patio and we have all been helping to strip paint/repaint/put up fences/planting etc so the patio area of my garden now looks like this alhamdulillah. There are still some bits and pieces to do and that's a lot of white space...I can feel a mosaic coming on lol...

However, the back of my garden still has a long way to go but that's enough for Ramadan inshaAllah..

We have been making flowers from scraps [some of which you can see below] which was really fun and it was almost impossible to go wrong so they were really chuffed with the results...

We also had a day at the National Space Museum again [thanks to our free annual pass, yippee!] so the kids could participate in the Lego building competition; the criteria for which was to build a space station out of available pieces. Here are their efforts mashaAllah, starting with Daisy's

Next is Sprite's attempt...

Last but not least was Lego's space station!

Here is a photo of a piece of moon rock....now it may not look like much to you but it had Daisy transfixed for what seemed like forever; she just couldn't believe that here in front of her was a real life piece of the moon lol!

Here are the journal entries that Daisy [top] and Crush did about their trip to the museum mashaAllah. They both used the certificate they got for taking part in the Lego competition as a background. The theme of the entry was collage and they both also stuck on their tickets with Daisy also cutting out one of the rubbings she did at the museum and Crush [quite inventively I thought] managed to acquire Sprite's certificate and cut out the Lego men and used them as decoupage pieces on the page. Sorry about the oily patches they are from the marbling they did 2 pages previously!

Marbling

2011-08-18T03:49:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we did some marbling for the children's art journals and this is the result...

And here is a great video about the art of marbling which was apparently started in either Turkey of Persia in the 1100's; the Turks developed a different type of marbling [called ebru] using thickened water which you can still see practised by specialist artists in Turkey today- see the video below for some art in progress!

We have also been watching lots of 'how things are made' videos on You Tube - we watched the intitial video in response to one of the children asking how glass was made. They found them so interesting that they watched more and more of them.....learning that bubble gum was made of rubber and plastic has put them off of it for life alhamdulillah [I hate the stuff and chewing gum in the house is banned but at least now they agree with me, lol].

Other than this we haven't done much else as hubby had an exam today and I have spent a lot of the last day or so helping him to revise. Back to normal tomorrow inshaAllah!

Doll's houses to dog fights!

2011-08-16T09:44:00.003+01:00

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!

Apologies Sprite...

2011-08-15T10:29:00.004+01:00

I forgot to add the beginnings of your nature journal...here are some pictures inshaAllah. He was given, as homework for English, the task of making a nature journal which will be added to as they move through the book they are reading and this is his effort for that God willing.

Every page is made from a 12x12" sheet of paper and is folded to give a maximum of 3 pockets for tags and has a flap that opens to give two big spaces for journeling or photos. He learned how to make this pocket book from a You Tube tutoria l [of the many, many available] and it was soooo much fun [although he needed help with the inches thang]; we also played around with the gluing an sticking of the pages for a slightly different look to each page. Sprite, is in the process of decorating the pages and adding information - he has only started the green page so far. Eventually he will make a front and back cover from card and the pages will be punched and bound together with string, ribbon or 'D' rings so that it can be added to if he wants...we'll see what takes his fancy!

Here are the 3 pages we made so far with binding strip on the right and you can see the, as yet, undecorated tags in thier places.

Here is a page showing the flap open from the front side giving a photo/journeling space on the right and the pocket on the left.

Here is the same page with the flap open from the back side giving a 'double page spread' lol - sorry about the orientation of the picture!

Watch out for updates on his progress!

Peaks and troughs!

2011-08-15T01:13:00.011+01:00

Well our slight peak has unfortunatelty troughed! What started out as a promising week education wise dipped with the return of my lack of sleep! But we have done this...

Inspired by Umm Tafari the two little ones started a visual journal however, they wanted to start it 'NOW' and I didn't have any spiral bound books but I did have some scrapbooks so we used those instead. The first one is Daisys, she did start off trying to do blow painting but the paint was too thick so she ended up scrunching up paper and dabbing, there are also some flowers made with thumb prints and some material flowers stuck on. I was worried that they would be dissappointed as the blow painting didn't work out but they were pleased with the overall result mashaAllah.

This is crashes journal, he wanted to do handprints on his and painted all our hands and made each one of us put some hand/finger prints on it somewhere lol...he even said that he wants to do a page inside on the theme of families with each of our handprints; I think he may really run with this inshaAllah.

Lego has actually started putting his WW2 lapbook together and produced these two mini books..the first one he put a lot of effort into and it looked great with some great but amusing factual writing [he is actually very good at writing mashaAllah]. The second one...well, it does what it was meant to do but the effort is just not there...this drives me made with him, he is so inconsistant with his work standards! Arggg, he can really let himself down sometimes.

We are in the middle of a garden revamp and hubby [for some strange reason] got the kids to dig this huge hole anyway, it got filled with water and they put their small dingy in it for a paddle...they really made me laugh, they were soooo happy floating on what was basically a deep puddle and it kept them entertained all day. They have also been helping hubby put up fences; apparently cementing and playing with hammers, saws and nails is so much more entertaining than maths and English!

Sprite figured out how to make a water pistol using a hydrolic system...you could have seen it working/spraying but for some reason we couldn't co-ordinate the picture taking with the spraying!

I have been given a copy of 'Just so Stories' by Rudyard Kipling and the illustrations are beautiful - the photo doesn't do them any justice at all I'm afraid - so tomorrow I am going to read it before they start their visual journals to see if it inspires them at all.