The Sense of Sight - اَلْبَصَرُ
I see... - …أَنَا أَرَى
After a quick recap of what the 5 senses were (in both English and Arabic), I asked the girls which sense they thought they used the most - after some discussion we agreed it was the sense of sight because when we go to a new place, the first thing we do is look around and that's the first bit of information we get about a new place. We also reminded ourselves of which body part we use to see with.
I had the Arabic vocabulary on display on the whiteboard, so we could refer to it throughout the day and the lesson. They had a go at reading the words and coming up with sentences using the verb "I see". We needed to take care with word endings here (teaching the actual grammar point is a little difficult for them to understand at this age, so I'm hoping they'll begin to pick it up naturally through lots of practise in context), i.e. the noun being described needs to end in a fatha (أَنَا أَرَى القَلَمَ، أَنَا أَرَى بَقَرَةً)
To understand how important our sense of sight is, and how blessed we are to be able to see, we did a couple of activities to highlight this.
I cleared the front room, got the girls to stand at one end and they needed to walk to the other end. Easy! Then they had to repeat it, this time with their eyes closed. It was manageable, since it was just walking in a straight line, but still a little harder than being able to see. Next, I put some soft obstacles on the floor, e.g. cushions, cuddly toys, beanbags. With their eyes open, they needed to get to other side of the room without touching any obstacles - still pretty easy. Then they had to try again, but this time wearing a blindfold so they couldn't see... If they touched an obstacle it wasn't so bad, but they needed to try not to fall over at least! Then we tried it again with both of them blindfolded at the same time, so they had the added obstacle of not bumping into each other!
We talked about how they knew where the objects on the ground where even though they couldn't see them - they could still feel them - and how they knew where their sister was even though they couldn't see them - they could hear them. So when one of our senses isn't working, we can use our other senses to compensate/help us instead. We talked about other examples, e.g. when it was dark in their room at night or when it was too noisy to hear each other talk they could use actions instead. I then explained about how some people can't see and it's as if they're blindfolded all the time - they're blind. They sometimes use a long stick, a bit like a walking stick, to help them "see" by feeling obstacles in the way, or they might have a guide dog to help them! I then gave the girls a stick each (for one reason or another we had a hand pointer in the house so used that!) so they could get an idea of what it was like and they agreed it was a little tricky! Alhamdulillah we've been blessed with both eyes working fine.
Since the room was clear, I decided to make the most of it and play a simple game while they practised their Arabic: they had 2 cushions each, one to sit on and one to hold. Each time they said a sentence correctly along the pattern of, "I can see [noun]" (e.g. أَنَا أَرَى كِتَابً، أَنَا أَرَى البَابَ) they could throw the cushion in their hands forwards, jump onto it then pick up the cushion from behind, i.e. in this way move across the room to the other side. Then they repeated it as a race but standing up. 😁
To calm down again, we watched this Sesame Street video about service dogs (and this related song), followed by this short video of kids meeting a service dog for the blind.
We also talked about glasses and how they help people to see who would otherwise have blurry vision. They named all the people they knew who wore glasses then I smeared some Vaseline on a magnifying lens for them to look through. Could they imagine always seeing the world blurry like this? Would it give them a headache? I cleaned the magnifying glass and we talked about how it can help us to see things better by making things bigger, then we used the magnifying glasses to look at things around the house in more detail. Throughout this activity, we kept on practising the Arabic vocabulary and making sentences along the pattern of "I see [noun]".
I had the Arabic vocabulary on display on the whiteboard, so we could refer to it throughout the day and the lesson. They had a go at reading the words and coming up with sentences using the verb "I see". We needed to take care with word endings here (teaching the actual grammar point is a little difficult for them to understand at this age, so I'm hoping they'll begin to pick it up naturally through lots of practise in context), i.e. the noun being described needs to end in a fatha (أَنَا أَرَى القَلَمَ، أَنَا أَرَى بَقَرَةً)
To understand how important our sense of sight is, and how blessed we are to be able to see, we did a couple of activities to highlight this.
I cleared the front room, got the girls to stand at one end and they needed to walk to the other end. Easy! Then they had to repeat it, this time with their eyes closed. It was manageable, since it was just walking in a straight line, but still a little harder than being able to see. Next, I put some soft obstacles on the floor, e.g. cushions, cuddly toys, beanbags. With their eyes open, they needed to get to other side of the room without touching any obstacles - still pretty easy. Then they had to try again, but this time wearing a blindfold so they couldn't see... If they touched an obstacle it wasn't so bad, but they needed to try not to fall over at least! Then we tried it again with both of them blindfolded at the same time, so they had the added obstacle of not bumping into each other!
We talked about how they knew where the objects on the ground where even though they couldn't see them - they could still feel them - and how they knew where their sister was even though they couldn't see them - they could hear them. So when one of our senses isn't working, we can use our other senses to compensate/help us instead. We talked about other examples, e.g. when it was dark in their room at night or when it was too noisy to hear each other talk they could use actions instead. I then explained about how some people can't see and it's as if they're blindfolded all the time - they're blind. They sometimes use a long stick, a bit like a walking stick, to help them "see" by feeling obstacles in the way, or they might have a guide dog to help them! I then gave the girls a stick each (for one reason or another we had a hand pointer in the house so used that!) so they could get an idea of what it was like and they agreed it was a little tricky! Alhamdulillah we've been blessed with both eyes working fine.
Since the room was clear, I decided to make the most of it and play a simple game while they practised their Arabic: they had 2 cushions each, one to sit on and one to hold. Each time they said a sentence correctly along the pattern of, "I can see [noun]" (e.g. أَنَا أَرَى كِتَابً، أَنَا أَرَى البَابَ) they could throw the cushion in their hands forwards, jump onto it then pick up the cushion from behind, i.e. in this way move across the room to the other side. Then they repeated it as a race but standing up. 😁
To calm down again, we watched this Sesame Street video about service dogs (and this related song), followed by this short video of kids meeting a service dog for the blind.
We also talked about glasses and how they help people to see who would otherwise have blurry vision. They named all the people they knew who wore glasses then I smeared some Vaseline on a magnifying lens for them to look through. Could they imagine always seeing the world blurry like this? Would it give them a headache? I cleaned the magnifying glass and we talked about how it can help us to see things better by making things bigger, then we used the magnifying glasses to look at things around the house in more detail. Throughout this activity, we kept on practising the Arabic vocabulary and making sentences along the pattern of "I see [noun]".
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