Syllables

Self-reference post:

We looked at syllables in words, by saying words with different syllables out loud and clapping to the beats, then completing the pages from Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 5-6) and Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 6-7) independently.

Predestination

For our final article of faith, we began by reading the relevant pages in the Safar Islamic Studies Textbook 1 (kindly gifted to us by my sister-in-law!). We followed this up with a discussion into what it meant, i.e. Allah knows everything (when I asked them this morning, "What do you want for breakfast?" Allah already knew what they would choose before they'd even decided!) and that both good things are from Allah (e.g. sunny weather so they can ride their bikes outside) as well as things they don't like (e.g. it's raining so they can't play outdoors anymore) - but everything that happens Allah knows about and everything that happens is for a reason, even if we don't understand it.

Then we looked at the above worksheet: the first part is a fill-in-the-gaps activity (with an accompanying list of words/phrases to choose from as prompts, if needed). We did this together and continued our discussions to strengthen their understanding as we did it.

The second part looks at two ayaat from Surah Al-Baqarah. We did them one at a time; we read the Arabic together and the translation, then discussed its meaning in a way they could relate to. For the first, about liking a thing which may be bad for us and vice-versa, I explained it in the context of sweets (they taste good but if we ate too many of them it wouldn't be good for our health!) and used examples like playing outside (e.g. having to come indoors when it's raining, maybe they don't want to stop playing and it makes them sad but what about the flowers and the worms and frogs? Are they happy it's raining? And if they kept on playing outside in the rain, what might happen? They could catch a cold! So even though they don't like having to come inside, it was actually a good thing.). For the second, about the burden upon a soul never being too much, we talked about a "burden" being something really difficult and the word "bear" being something they were able to manage - so Allah never gives anyone anything too difficult for them to manage. If something bad happens to us, Allah knows we can manage, e.g. I might have to go to the hospital and stay there for a long time to look after the baby, so they wouldn't be able to see me for a few days,,, maybe a whole week! Would that be hard to manage? But if that happened, then Allah knows they could manage or He wouldn't let it happen. And would Papa be able to look after them and the house for all that time? If it happened, then of course he would be able to or Allah wouldn't have let it happen! We also talked about when they fell over and hurt themselves, it wasn't nice but they were able to manage the pain.

This was definitely the most complicated article of faith - and one even many adults still struggle to understand! - so as long as they just know that everything comes from Allah, then that's good enough for me at this point.

You can download our worksheet here.

The Day of Judgement

For our 5th article of faith, we looked at the belief in the Day of Judgement.

At this age, I don't want to go into too many details as I want to focus more on the positives of faith - i.e. jannah, Allah's love and forgiveness - as opposed to potentially scaring them with the punishment of the fire.

We began by recapping previous discussions on the Day of Judgement with me simply asking them what they already knew. Because of their hifz studies, and our method of becoming familiar with the surahs by watching YouTube videos which have the English translation, they were already aware of some of the basic points since reading the translations had led to them asking questions. Their understanding was that the angel Israfeel (which they remembered from last time!) would blow the trumpet, everything would break and all the people would die, then Allah would wake everyone up, look at their book of good deeds and bad deeds, and decide if they would go to the fire if they had more bad things or to jannah if they had done more good things. I then just filled in the gap by telling them about everyone waiting all together for a very long time and that it would be a very hot day.

We also talked about some surahs they're familiar with wherein the Day of Judgement is mentioned, (e.g. Al-Qariah, Al-Zalzalah) and talked a little about their meanings and descriptions of that day.

Finally, I gave them the pictured worksheet to complete in their own words (and colour in as an optional extra once finished).

You can download our worksheet here.

Instructions (part 2); Recipe: Nutella-Surprise Fairy Cakes

To complete our work on instructions, I helped the girls bake some more cakes (any excuse for cake!), taking photos along the way, then printed these photos off as a memory aid to help them write their own set of instructions.

I cut the photos out and mixed them up, so the girls' first challenge was to order the pictures. Then they stuck them down on the A4 template, filled in the ingredients list and wrote their instructions on the next page.

You can download our worksheet template here.

Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients:
2 eggs (120g)
120g softened salted butter
120g caster sugar
120g self-raising flour
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp whole milk

6tsps Nutella
70g melted milk chocolate
2 Kinder Buenos

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C fan, line a baking tray with cake cases and weigh out all the ingredients.
2) Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) Whisk the eggs, vanilla essence and milk in a separate bowl then beat into the cake mixture.
4) Sieve in the flour and fold it in gently.
5) Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cake cases and bake for 14min until lightly golden brown.
6) Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
7) Cut out the centres from each cake, fill with 1/2tsp Nutella and replace the centre as a lid.
8) Spread the melted milk chocolate on the top of each cake and decorate with 1 square of Kinder Bueno.

Instructions (part 1)

Our next non-fiction text - instructions seemed like the logical thing to explore after lists.

We began by looking at different examples of instructions via comprehension worksheets (two birds, one stone? 🐦🐦) and I asked the girls what similarities they noticed between the different instructions... They noted that instructions are written in a list (How do you know? "Because the lines are underneath each other and they have numbers on the side" 👍) and they have another list of what you need, too (in recipes, this is the list of ingredients!). What are instructions for? "So you know what to do!"

After the girls completed a few comprehension sheets and so were familiar with a number of examples (we did 5 in total, from Letts Monster English – Reading (Age 5-6), Collins Easy Learning – Comprehension (Ages 5-7), Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 5-6) and Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 6-7)), they then had a go following a set of instructions of their choice: they decided to make Monster Masks, as in one of the comprehension worksheets, so I wrote the instructions on the whiteboard for them to follow and helped where needed (including the toddler!):

Adding two 2-digit numbers

The prerequisites for this activity were to be able to add together multiples of 10 in their head and know how to count on using a 100 square.

I decided to focus on mental methods for adding 2-digit numbers as I feel it's important they understand the basics before moving on to the quicker (and arguably easier) standard written methods.

The method I taught them to use is pictured above, which I went through on the whiteboard using coloured pens for simplicity. First, I wrote out an example question with the Tens in red, the Units in purple and the equation signs (and subsequent answer) in blue: 14 + 48 =

I told them the first step was to look at the Tens. What are the Tens? 10 and 40. So what is 10 + 40? 50. I wrote this sum underneath in red, to keep the colour co-ordination.

Next, look at the Units. What are they? 4 and 8. Which Unit is bigger? The 8.

So keep the Tens total (50) and add on the bigger Unit (8) to get 58. I wrote this underneath, colour co-ordinated.

How many Units are left to add on? 4. So I wrote 58 + 4 =

They could then use their 100 squares to find 58 and count up 4 more squares to calculate the total. 62. So I wrote 62 as the answer to both 58 + 4 and the overall question of 14 + 48.

Reading through, this looks like it took a long time to explain! But it really didn't, and with a few more examples and me reminding them of the steps the girls soon got the hang of this method. This is my personal method of choice for mental addition, which is the reason I taught it to them. As they get older and their mathematical understanding strengthens, insha'Allah, then I'll introduce the alternative methods for them to choose from. 😊

After two examples using numbers of my choice (one where the Units total to within 10, another where they didn't), I asked the twins to choose numbers at random for me to use in the questions - otherwise I wouldn't have used 49 + 94 as an example since it goes into the Hundreds! But Alhamdulillah, this was the last example we did together and they understood it fine. 👍

The next day - while leaving the examples on the whiteboard for reference - I gave them the pictured double-sided worksheet to do (taken from Schofield&Sims - KS1 Problem Solving 2). We did the first side (5 questions) together, with me scaffolding their thinking by reminding them of the steps to the method, and I helped with the first couple on the next page too. Then I let them try the last few by themselves and they were both able to do the final two questions completely independently, MashaAllah. 💕

Recipe: Nutella-Stuffed "Cookies"

Based on this recipe from www.theperfectionist.co.uk

I didn't have enough flour to make a batch as in the linked recipe, so reduced the quantities accordingly... Nor did I have any baking soda so went without - I prefer a crunchier cookie to a soft one so thought I'd just see how it went! I also chose to leave them to firm up in the fridge before baking, so lengthened the baking time too.

INGREDIENTS
82g salted butter (softened)
82g white caster sugar
61g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
100g milk chocolate chips
195g plain flour
13 1/2 tsps Nutella (refrigerated)

METHOD
1) Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2) Use an electric whisk to beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
3) Use a fork to whisk together the egg and vanilla in a separate bowl.
4) Add the egg/vanilla mixture to the butter/sugars and beat until fully combined.
5) Pour in the chocolate chips.
6) Sift in the flour.
7) Gently stir together with a spatula to make a soft dough.
8) Scoop the dough into small balls (my batch made 13) and flatten gently on one of the baking sheets.
9) Place about 1/2 tsp Nutella into the centre of each dough disc.
10) Carefully pinch the edges of the dough together so the Nutella is inside and roll between your palms to make dough balls.
11) Leave the dough balls to chill on the baking tray in the fridge for 20min. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 175C fan.
12) Arrange the dough balls across both baking trays so there is enough space around each for them to expand.
13) Bake for 25min, until the edges turn golden brown.
14) Leave to firm up on the baking trays for a few min before transferring to cooling racks to cool completely. Or enjoy warm with cold milk!

The crunch on the outside was exactly what I wanted, but the centre was still a little too cake-like (although delicious!) and maybe flatter discs and more Nutella would be better too - something to experiment with in the future. 😋😋