Recapping the 99 Names of Allah

Years ago, I had the grand ambition of going through each of the 99 Names of Allah together with the kids, in a very basic way, with the intention of them becoming closer to Allah by appreciating Him in different ways. I raised the idea to a group of fellow home educators so we could bounce ideas off each other for activities, games and crafts, and it was met really positively with the aim to cover one name a month.

Fast forward half a year or so and the enthusiasm from others had pretty much gone, with me feeling like I was talking to myself/forcing my ideas on the group... Life just got in the way, which is understandable, and this little project of mine wasn't a priority! At this point we were due to cover Al-Muhaymin next, and upon reading into its meaning as an adult, the depth of this name felt too overwhelming for me to explain in a way which did it justice - I had lost sight of my original goal of simply introducing the names to my children in a way they could relate to; it was never supposed to be about capturing every nuance, especially in the names which had multiple meanings or meanings which overlapped with others. But I'd forgotten that, and along with become pregnant again I decided to just put the whole thing on hold until I was ready to think about it all again properly.

Now that baby A is a little older (8 months have flown by, subhanAllah!) and I've got more time to think again, I want to restart this project with the twins and also for Z to join in where she can. The original plan was to go through them all on a basic level while the girls were young, so they would find it easier to memorise and so they could benefit sooner from a simple understanding of what they had memorised. As they grow older, inshaAllah, they'll have plenty of time to revisit the names and attributes in more detail and strengthen their knowledge. For now, it's just about introducing the concepts.

Writing this all down is a huge and much needed self-reminder!

So with this all in mind, I wanted to begin by recapping the work we'd done so far. We sang the song of the first 33 names along with the PowerPoint, looked at their folders for the booklet pages they had created and talked about what they remembered. Alhamdulillah they remembered more than I thought! At the very least, the gist of it was there and the idea of Allah having all these descriptions was there. 

Now we're ready inshaAllah to look at the next few names one by one. Ideally 1 name a week, but we'll see how organised I can be with research and planning each week InshaAllah! 

Around the house in Arabic

We started this activity off at Arabic club then finished it at home - the girls filled in a template of a house with things found in that room and a family member in each room too. When they were done, they had to describe what they'd drawn in Arabic. MashaAllah, using their knowledge from Arabic club and the Madinah book, they're now able to say sentences such as "My dad is in the bedroom. My sister and I are in the sitting room. My mum is standing in the kitchen with my sister. I am sad on my bed. Z is sitting on the toilet. My sofa is brown. The kitchen is big." etc.

(F is sad in her pic because it's showing the time Z pushed her and took F's car - I think it happened the day before? So obviously still on her mind! Which was a good eye opener for me that things might need following up on a little more for her to get over them... But alhamdulillah she's able to express herself like this and could talk about it easily with me when asked.)

Maths Update: Adding/Subtracting 2-digit numbers

After revising partitioning, we recapped how to add 2-digit numbers mentally, i.e. partition into Tens and Units, add the Tens, add the Units, add both parts together. They also had the option of adding the Tens from one number to the other, then counting up the remaining Units, e.g.

28 + 43 =

20 + 40 = 60
8 + 3 = 11

60 + 11 =

60 + 10 = 70
0 + 1 = 1

70 + 1 = 71 so 28 + 43 = 71

OR

28 + 40 = 68
68 + 3 = 71 so 28 + 43 = 71

We concentrated on the first method first, to get them used to partitioning the numbers. Then we moved onto the second method as something more efficient.

After the mental practise, I introduced the column method to them as an efficient way of writing their working out down. It's the same principle, partitioning and adding each place value one at a time, but written in a compact way, e.g.

16 + 43 = 

   16
+ 43
   59

We started with numbers which didn't carry over into the next column, then once they were comfortable with the method I explained how to write the extra Tens underneath the Tens column - and to make sure they included them in their answer! e.g.

45 + 36 =

    45
 + 36
    81
    1

We also spoke about using a quick mental method to check their answers.

We did all the above through explanation and examples on the whiteboard first, then answering questions from a photocopied worksheet using the method we were focusing on at the time.

----------

Next, we recapped subtraction of 2-digit numbers via partitioning and counting down, e.g.

38 - 14 =

38 - 10 = 28
28 - 4 = 24 so 38 - 14 = 24

Where the numbers stayed within the Tens, then using numbers in the Unit column which meant counting down across Tens, e.g.

52 - 26 = 

52 - 20 = 32
32 - 6 = 26 so 52 - 26 = 26

After some practise doing this mentally, I then introduced the column method to them - but for numbers which wouldn't require carrying, e.g.

88 - 43 =

    88
  - 43
    45

I decided that was enough for now, so they could get used to the method, and we would look at carrying from the Tens column at a later point inshaAllah!

The above was all done, one method at a time on separate days, first on the whiteboard and then in the context of numbers by working through practise pages from one of the workbooks we have.

Finally, I gave them some word problems to work through so they could use these skills in the context of money. They had the choice to use either a mental or a written method, whichever they found easier.

A Healthy Diet & Pie Charts

This week, we're looking at food and diet in more detail. I was surprised to find out the girls didn't know what the word diet meant! I assumed they already did from our work on herbivores, omnivores and carnivores - but looking back, I guess I didn't use it?? At least it was simple enough to explain in that context now. 😂

We talked about foods being made up of different things and how our bodies use those things for different things, e.g. carbohydrates are mainly for energy so we can move about, proteins are for growing and healing, calcium for strong bones and teeth, vitamins and minerals for keeping us healthy/not get ill, fats for storing energy and keeping warm (they remembered about calcium and fats from previous weeks 👍).

We pointed out which kinds of food we were eating at mealtimes over a couple of days and talked about whether we were being healthy or not.

We also talked about the importance of water and the things our bodies need it for, e.g. blood, urine, sweat, healthy skin - and why we should replace all the water lost by drinking more (why do you think you feel thirstier during exercise? M said because it makes the heart pump faster so your blood needs to be able to move around easier, which I thought was interesting! I linked it to maybe because your blood is moving around more it's picking up more waste so you're making more urine... Maybe, I don't know! Then I asked them what happens when they exercise, wiping my brow as a clue, and F shouted "sweat!", so I then explained how sweat cools your body down by taking heat with it when it evaporates, i.e. dries up).

We then read the relevant pages in the book "Keeping Me Healthy" and stopped on the double page spread of the food groups:

I gave the girls an A3 piece of coloured paper each and explained they were going to make their own diagram by drawing around a plate and using a ruler for the straight lines (I marked the centre of their circle with a dot to help them). This was a good task for estimation, since they were copying the segment sizes from the diagram in the book, and also fine motor skills in lining up the ruler correctly! They then labelled each segment and coloured it in (with wax crayons) before drawing examples of foods on a separate piece of white paper, cutting and sticking in the right place. I chose for them to do it this way to further practise their estimation and spatial awareness skills, making sure the drawing they did would fit into the segment!

We labelled the smallest segment as "fats" instead of "butters and spreads" and talked a bit more about how too many fatty foods aren't good for you (the sugar in sweet foods like biscuits and cakes is turned into energy like carbohydrates, but some of it is also stored in the body as fat which is why these foods also belong in this section). It's ok to eat them now and again, but compared to the other foods we eat they should be a lot less! Then I wrote the purposes of each food group on the whiteboard and they needed to copy the correct caption under the correct label - they colour coded their labels to match the segment to make their diagrams clearer. 👌

Finally, I explained to them that this kind of diagram can also be called a "pie chart" and is used for showing proportions of something. We linked this to their work on fractions and drew some simple fractions as pie charts on the whiteboard. Then I asked them to estimate what each segment of their healthy diet diagrams was as a fraction. Finally, I gave them a maths worksheet on pie charts to complete.

The Importance of Exercise

Continuing with our Science theme of the human body, I decided to move on to how and why we should keep healthy. This week we'll focus on exercise (which ties in well with our Literacy topic since we're looking at East Asia so martial arts!) as a way of both strengthening our muscles (including our hearts! And increasing stamina) and for reducing fat (why it's unhealthy to have too much fat as well as why we need some!) as well as how exercise can make us feel happier and improve our mood.

Some other home edding friends had planned a trip to Clent Hills this week, so I thought it'd be good to tag along. The drive was just over half an hour and it only took us around 20min to climb to the top - going at a steady pace (I was wearing A in the sling and pushing Z in the pram!). Once at the top the kids played around together admiring the views and we enjoyed a nice picnic. Alhamdulillah the weather was really good for a walk outdoors. The girls enjoyed themselves and said we should do the walk again with Papa next time - and Z could probably manage walking too inshaAllah. 💪

We had lots of discussions about the importance of exercise throughout the week (with examples!) then we made a simple spider diagram on the whiteboard together to summarise the ideas and left it on display for a few days - until we needed that whiteboard again.

Stories from other cultures - 4 - East Asia

My mum is ethnically Chinese, so another link to this part of the world as we continue our tour. My husband and I are also both (retired now after becoming parents it seems 😂) martial artists, so I wanted to use this opportunity to focus more on the idea and see if they were interested in learning too.

Maps, atlases, we discussed which countries we would focus on (China, Japan, South Korea)... Discussions on food (they had a go using chopsticks!), climate, clothing and beliefs... Lots of YouTube videos and library books...

I was pleased to find a book in the library on the origins of the Chinese Zodiac, beautifully illustrated in a calligraphic style with Chinese writing on some pages, so we talked a little about astrology with the reminder of what we believe in and why we don't follow star signs etc.

Another book featured a character based on origami, so we watched a couple of How To videos - but they weren't that interested so we missed the opportunity to try our own. 😁

As mentioned above, we looked at different martial arts styles from the different East Asian countries - namely karate (Japan), taekwondo (South Korea) and kung-fu (China) - talking about the differences in movement, which one was their favourite, and trying out a few techniques. F liked taekwondo because she liked the flips and M liked kung-fu because she liked it! 😂

Finally, we ordered dinner from a Chinese takeaway, including fortune cookies for the experience and also to talk some more about astrology and beliefs which are different to ours: you can respect a different opinion by being polite and friendly with the people who believe it and still believe something else.

With all the above this was quite a busy week in terms of activities so I chose not to do any formal writing with them. In the build up to Ramadaan and giving myself to prepare, I'm going to focus on word level and sentence level Literacy skills for the next few weeks inshaAllah - so just tidying up their basic grammar for a while rather than another big topic like this.

Stories from other cultures - 3 - South Asia

This week, we looked at South Asia - concentrating on India, with some mention of Pakistan and Bangladesh. My husband's family originates from India and my dad was born in Bangladesh, so the girls have some links with these countries, too. But since the theme of this topic is other cultures, I wanted to focus more on the non-Islamic regions of India so as to broaden their knowledge a bit more.

As usual, we looked at our maps and atlases and read a load of traditional stories from the library. We talked about climate, clothes and food (with actual examples!), as well as a little about Hinduism (one of the books we took out, as an example of an Indian traditional tale, was the story of Ram & Sita and why people celebrate Diwali).

For our formal Literacy task this week, I had them write a description of a meal with traditional Indian food. We eat lots of this kind of cuisine anyway so I just encouraged lots of talk at mealtimes about the food, describing it using the five senses and what they liked about it. We also watched a few videos from this YouTube channel, which follow someone from Canada trying out different street foods from around the world. I was surprised how much the girls enjoyed watching them! F especially, I think she has her father's travel bug from the way her eyes lit up at the thought of travelling to different countries, mashaAllah. 😃✨

You can download our writing prompt here.

Prophet Musa (AS) - 3 - Escaping from Firaun

Over a couple of days, we read from our books the part of the story where Musa (AS) was chased by Firaun, ending up with Firaun drowning in the sea.

We also watched some of this video (played in background while they were downstairs) and then this Adam & Mishmish video to inspire the girls' imagination before their craft, so they could think what the Red Sea at the time might have been like and which kinds of fish they could draw in the water.

For our craft, we made another simple folding pop-up using blue paper, yellow paper, cutting/sticking drawings of fish from scrap paper and using glitter pens for the waves of the sea:

We talked about how Firaun only called out to Allah right at the end as he was drowning - but it was only out of fear and it was too late. The lesson I wanted them to learn was to follow the right path before it's too late - don't get distracted by what's easy or what might look like more fun. And to talk to Allah during good times too, thanking Him for His blessings, not only when times are bad and you need to ask for help.

We also went to Brueton Park, as we've not been before and I've heard good things about it, as a place for them to stand in front of a large body of water... Since we're a little too far from the coast! So they could appreciate a little the feelings of despair Musa (AS) and his people must have felt, knowing they were being chased and with no way across, and then awe from seeing the water part before them.

While we were in the park, we recapped the previous part of the story where Prophet Musa first went to Firaun and the magicians threw down sticks to look like snakes... We found some sticks and I asked the girls to try and arrange them to look like a snake... It wasn't easy! And it definitely didn't look real! But when Allah commanded Musa (AS) to throw down his staff, what happened? It was a miracle and it really did turn into a snake! No wonder the magicians believed in the message, because even though their sticks looked like real snakes (enough to frighten Prophet Musa), they knew they didn't have the power to make them come alive. Only Allah has the power to give life to things.

Heart & Lungs

The girls were ill last week (all four of them in turn! Alhamdulillah I wasn't included!) so we didn't have time to do any Science... So I merged last week's with this and we covered the topic of the heart and lungs together. Fortunately, they go together well anyway!

We started by reading through some books on the topic, and doing some of the activities mentioned.

Then, we worked through the following worksheets, discussing points in more detail as they came up:

You can download our worksheets here.

Arabic: Grandparents & Love

In Arabic club last week, we practised making sentences about our grandparents and conjugating the verb "to like". At the end of the session, they made cards for their grandparents with pictures of things they like inside. When we got home, we finished them off and wrote the sentences inside - ready to post and surprise my parents in Ipswich!

The writing inside says "I love my grandfather. I love my grandmother" and "My grandfather likes books. My grandmother likes flowers."

We wrote the translation in an accompanying letter to explain what we did. 😁 I didn't realise they didn't yet know properly how to post a letter lol... So we talked a bit about the layout of the front of the envelope (where the address goes, why it's needed, briefly how letters are sorted, where the stamp goes, why it's needed) then went for a 5min walk to the end of the road to post it. 👍

Stories from other cultures - 2 - The Middle East

Our next stop on our world tour was (North Africa &) the Middle East. 🌍

We went back to our globe, maps and atlas to find this region of the world, point out any familiar countries and read the names of others. We looked at the general climate, talked about deserts and discussed why some of the culture between the Middle East might be similar to areas of Northern Africa, such as Morocco.

I decided to use this week as a good opportunity to read some general stories of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW)'s life (e.g. from books such as this and this, which were hand-me-downs kindly gifted to us from a friend) as well as practise our Arabic reading and understanding by going through the relevant Big Cat books we have (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

It was difficult to find any books from the library set in the Middle East, with the exception of Sanji & the Baker - which is a beautifully illustrated retelling of a well-known story which I love. 😁 We really got the most out of this book, talking about the clues in the pictures to tell us about the setting, the characters, etc. and a good discussion on the moral of the story, fairness and greed. 👍

As all these stories were set in the past, to remind them of what the region is like currently we rewatched some episodes of Iftah Ya Simsim - as it contains clips of children doing different activities in various Arab countries - and looked back through our holiday photos/videos to Istanbul and umrah last year. We also watched a random travel blog of some people camping in the Sahara!

As we didn't do a focused Literacy task last week, this week I decided to have them continue writing a story I started which was set in a desert:

You can download the story and template writing sheet here. (I included little cliparts on the second page as reminders of what was mentioned so far and so prompts for what they could include next. Excuse the pun in the title, too. LOL. But a good chance for a mini recap lesson on homonyms. 😂)

I wasn't so focused on their spelling, grammar or punctuation with this task, but more on their imagination, text structure and organisation. We talked a bit about what could happen next, but without me giving them any ideas - literally just a few questions about the cliparts and this on the whiteboard. Lol.

I then set the 30min sand timer on the table in front of them and let them write as much as they could, in silence, for that time.

I wasn't expecting them to complete the story with a lot of detail, but I wanted to give them that chance to free write with no interruptions or worries about "getting it wrong". For that reason, I gave them pens to write with so a) they wouldn't waste time trying to rub out mistakes and b) so it felt a bit more special. I had this video playing in the background as inspiration/to set the mood, and halfway through the time I stopped them so they could read and comment on each other's work so far. This helped as it gave them a short break as well as kept them focused on what to write next. The yellow highlighter shows where they got up to in the half an hour. As they didn't finish, I said they could complete it as and when they felt like it over the next couple of days - so it wasn't sitting in silence, but just writing a bit more for fun. This is what they ended up with! 💕

M

F

Finally, the plan is to go to a Lebanese/Moroccan restaurant so the girls can taste some of the foods from the region again. And as an excuse to go out. 😋

Maths update: Number sense

We're spending this half term working on their basic number skills, so understanding numbers, place value into 3 digits (and beyond!) and practising more efficient ways of addition and subtraction.

First, I checked they were comfortable switching between numbers as numerals and words, and were able to write a spoken number correctly as digits.

Next, we recapped partitioning. The Year 2 NC has the target to partition the same number in different ways, so I made up a simple worksheet to test that.

You can download our worksheet here.

Alhamdulillah, they managed to do it with no issues. Next, we're going to revise efficient mental methods for adding 2-digit numbers and I want to introduce them to the column method inshaAllah.

Prophet Musa (AS) - 2 - The burning bush

We read the next part of the story of Musa (AS) from book 1 of the Safar series, this time focusing on the time when Musa (AS) became a prophet. The lessons I wanted to bring out from this were 1) recapping miracles from Allah and 2) how Allah speaks to us through the Quran.

I asked them if they could remember any other miracles we've talked about to do with other prophets... Alhamdulillah, they could! We spoke a bit about them then did a simple craft together to help them remember this part of the story.

For their craft, they made a collage of a bush on fire. I asked them how they wanted to do the bush and M said to paint it... Then they cut up pieces of cellophane (old sweet wrappers!) and used PVA glue to stick them on top as the fire.

When they were done, we spoke some more about how Allah is able to do anything. Allah spoke to the prophets and sent them signs and miracles. But did he speak to them like we speak to each other? No, it was usually through dreams - but he spoke to Musa (AS) directly. And does Allah speak to us? How can we hear Allah's words? By reading the Quran! And the Quran itself is a miracle too... No one can write anything like it - although this is a little more complicated to understand/appreciate until they're older! I thought it still worth mentioning now. 💕

Recipe: Chunky Chocolate Brownies

Wow. I made brownies for the first time and they taste amazing. 👌 Need to write this down now before I forget what I did! Tweaked this recipe slightly as I usually find the full amount of dark chocolate in recipes too rich. 🙆

Ingredients
160g salted butter
150g dark chocolate
35g milk chocolate
275g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
75g white chocolate (chopped)
50g milk chocolate (chopped)

Method
1) Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat oven to fan 180C.
2) Melt together the butter, dark chocolate and milk chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water on the hob.
3) Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy/doubled in volume. Add the vanilla essence and whisk to combine.
4) Pour the cooled melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and gently fold together with a spatula.
5) Sift in the flour and cocoa a little at a time, folding in gently with the spatula.
6) Add the chopped chocolate and fold in gently. Try not to overmix.
7) Tip the mixture into the baking tray and carefully spread evenly to the corners with the spatula.
8) Bake for 25min. When it's ready it shouldn't wobble when the tray is shaken.
9) Leave to cool completely in the baking tray.
10) Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

I think I might have to experiment with this as the base - change the amount of chopped chocolate, replace with walnuts/marshmallows/Smarties... Add Nutella... Top with ganache... The texture and richness of these were just perfect though. 😍

Lapworth Museum

We visited Lapworth Museum to learn about skeletons and fossils in a little more detail - mainly to see the allosaurus on display!

The museum doesn't open until 12pm on a weekend (I thought it opened at 10am ) so we arrived on campus half an hour before opening time... But alhamdulillah the weather was fine so we used the time for a quick trip down memory lane - we walked through the university centre (where everything was closed lol) and up the stairs to one of the lecture theatres, but it was locked! And past the Old Gym (which isn't so old anymore!) where my husband and I met. 💕😂 The campus was pretty much dead when we arrived but by midday lots of people started arriving - so we used all this for a short discussion about uni life and student habits. 😀

Inside Lapworth, we looked at all the skeletons on display - revising our work on herbivores/carnivores and using fossils for clues. F had recently asked if there were any flying dinosaurs to which I'd answered pterodactyl, and fortunately there was one on display hanging from the ceiling.

allosaurus cast

pterodactyl cast

allosaurus skull - feel its teeth!

another carniverous dinosaur...

hippopotamus skull

Most of the exhibits just showed parts of the skeleton as opposed to the whole thing, eg the femur of a stegosaurus, so there were some good opportunities to revise bone names and find the equivalent on their own bodies.

Surprisingly for me though, the part of the museum they enjoyed the most was looking at all the different rocks and gemstones upstairs!

rock wall - feel and describe their textures!

my favourite stone because it's my favourite colour~

their feedback in the bottom right!

We managed to look around the whole museum comfortably in just over an hour. Definitely somewhere worth visiting again next time we're on campus or when it ties in with another topic inshaAllah!

When we got home, I put out the Fossils book we have:

I really like this book series, but this served as a reminder how careful we need to be with the educational material we give to our children - especially when it looks like a trusted source - since the last few pages of the book are dedicated to the theory of humans evolving from apes and present it as non-disputable fact:

I don't wish for the girls to grow up sheltered, so I thought since it came up we may as well discuss it. Rather than censor the page completely, I decided to stick some flaps over the top instead with the following:

So the girls can still see the information underneath, but they can treat it in the same way as they treat beliefs from other religions.

We also spoke a little about scientific theory and how the principle is correct, to have a prediction and look for evidence (just like we do for our experiments!), but how important it is not to have preconceived biases or we end up with the wrong conclusions.

Recipe: Chocolate Shortbread

Ingredients:
175g salted butter (softened)
90g caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100g chocolate chips

Method:
1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, stirring together to form a soft dough. (Add chocolate chips at this point, if using). Keep stirring the dough together until it comes away clean from the sides of the bowl.
3) Leave the dough to chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
4) Preheat oven to fan 180C and line 2 baking trays.
5) Roll out the dough, cut into shapes and place onto trays.
6) Bake for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool on the tray to firm up. Decorate once cool, if desired.

For these biscuits, we decorated them with melted white chocolate (part of our work on skeletons!). I made the cone out of the same greaseproof paper I lined the trays with. 😊

Stories from other cultures - 1 - Africa

This term for Literacy, we're doing a whistle-stop tour of the (non-Western) world to tick off the suggested NC target of stories from other cultures. Each week, we'll go to the library (and I'll check online) for books and stories for that part of the world and then do a few activities to help them learn about and appreciate that culture a little more.

...I have to keep reminding myself the twins are still only 5! So a very basic overview is enough at this point - there'll be plenty of time in the future, inshaAllah, to do each country more justice! I feel like I definitely have to mention that at this point as this week was just spent looking at Africa as a whole, when obviously it's a whole continent, but concentrating more on central and southern Africa. 🙈

I chose to start with Africa as there's an abundance of children's books either set in the savannah or using safari animals (e.g. The Ugly Five), so it kind of feels familiar to them. Also, their paternal grandparents were born in Mozambique and Uganda, so they have some connection to the continent too.

We started off by finding Africa on their world map and globe, and also looking up individual countries (ones they knew and ones which came up in the library books) in their children's atlas. We talked about how Africa is a continent with lots of different countries inside it. We talked about the kind of climate it has and which kinds of animals are found in the wild there.

Three of the library books which really stood out as perfect teaching material were: Mama Panya's Pancakes, Baby Goes to Market and Grace & Family, set in a traditional Kenyan village, a west African marketplace and a Gambian compound respectively. They opened up lots of discussions on village life, different foods and also different families.

In order to paint a fair picture, I thought it was important to point out to them that Africa is a vast continent and it isn't all villages! So we looked at some pictures online of big cities, such as Nairobi, so they could see the similarities between there and a city here such as London.

After all our reading and discussions, two things in particular stood out as being different from here: the clothes people in the books wore and some of the foods they ate. So I planned two related activities based on this. 👌

1) The girls designed their own African inspired prints, based on the illustrations in the books. We looked at a couple of the books again, flicking through the pages to talk just about the pictures and what people were wearing: we used lots of good vocabulary to do with pattern, shape and colour. The conclusion the twins came to was that they wore bright colours with big designs on them, both the men and the women! And they listed out the kinds of common patterns too, such as animal print, stripes, spirals and flowers.

I then printed out a simple template with three outlines of a dress on it (short sleeved like all the dresses in the books!) and one square blank for them to draw their own clothing of choice.

You can download the template here.

MashaAllah, Z is getting a lot better at pen/brush control and is enjoying copying her sisters! I was really pleased with her efforts and desire to join in. 💕

So they used wax crayons first to draw their designs, then watercolours over the top to colour the dresses in - continuing the watercolours theme lol. I did one alongside them as an example, and because it looked fun and I wanted to. 😂

We then watched a couple of episodes of Tingatinga (in Arabic! for listening practise 😀) and talked about the designs of the animals - they weren't coloured realistically, but the patterns were traditionally African. This also doubled up as another example of stories from the African culture.

2) We had a go at making some of the foods in the books, namely the pancakes from Mama Panya's Pancakes (recipe in the back of the book!) and some chin chin biscuits from Baby Goes to Market. The pancakes didn't turn out so great (the batter is using water and I had trouble frying them 🙈) but the chin chin biscuits were a hit. 👍

I followed the recipe from this website but substituted vanilla essence for nutmeg and baked for around 20min at fan 180. The quantities made 45 biscuits, so I sprinkled granulated sugar on 15, demerara sugar on 15 and left 15 plain before baking.

They taste a bit like scones, but crunchy - and after looking up a scone recipe I found they're very similar! - and are usually fried rather than baked, which I can imagine would taste less dry... But I didn't have enough oil and wasn't keen on frying them to begin with anyway. 😀

Next week, we're going to look at northern Africa and the middle East, inshaAllah. 🌍

Skeletons (& Fossils)

Following on from our work on teeth, I thought it made sense to look at the skeleton next!

We read through some books on the subject and talked about what they already knew.

Then, we worked through the following worksheets together:

Some notes about the pages...

1) I picked out a few bones I thought were the most prominent... I decided against naming the individual arm and leg bones at this point - it's enough for me for now they just recognise there are bones in their arms and legs! I deliberately left the lines off for them to draw themselves, so I could check their understanding more. Once they were done, I asked them how they could make their diagram clearer? M said straightaway to colour it in and F immediately chimed in with, "Like the teeth diagram last time!" 👍

2) The pictures at the bottom of this sheet are meant to be clues. So a blob, i.e. no structure (skeleton provides a frame and support), a shield, i.e. protection (it protects our soft internal organs), and a statue, i.e. no movement (skeleton has joints for movement).

3) MashaAllah, they guessed straightaway the bottom skeleton was a horse! There was some debate over which was the cat and which was the dog, but then they looked at the tails and both agreed the top one was the cat. 😁

4) I wanted to use this opportunity to practise their scientific thinking. We talked about dinosaurs being extinct so there are no real life examples around nowadays for us to look at, so how do we know what they were like? By using knowledge we have from other things as ideas (look at the animals alive today which are carnivores!) and looking carefully at e.g. the dinosaurs' skeletons for clues. For the question about the stegosaurus' tail, F said, "Maybe it used it for killing other animals..." to which I was impressed but thought I'd ask to check what she meant... Why would a herbivore want to kill other animals? "Because it wanted to give them to the tyrannosaurus to eat!" Lol. A bit more discussion about what the T Rex might have eaten and she came to a different conclusion herself. 😂

You can download our worksheets here.

While they were working through, I had the sudden inspiration to make gingerbread men but to decorate them by drawing skeletons with white icing. I explained my idea to them to see what they thought... What could we use to draw the skeleton with? Icing or white chocolate? They decided chocolate... But instead of gingerbread, what kind of biscuit should we make to make the white chocolate stand out? M said a black one. 😂 So I suggested chocolate... They agreed. 😋 I've not tried making chocolate shortbread before, but these turned out ok! Will make a separate post soon for the recipe, inshaAllah.

Finally, we made model skeletons using the template in the link above.

We did this activity on a different day as a kind of revision.

First, I asked the girls to colour their skeletons in but using a different colour for each different bone (and the same colour for bones which were the same!). As they coloured, we talked about which bone they were colouring to reinforce the new vocabulary, as well as casually introduce a few more (e.g. breastbone, shoulder plates, kneecaps, etc.). Even though teeth are part of the skeleton, they're not bones so not coloured in. 😁

Before they cut the pieces out, I explained what the end product was supposed to be and held the paper up to ask if they thought the material was strong enough... F said no, it was too flexible! 👍 So how could we make the paper stronger? F said to stick it onto card - so we did. After gluing the whole sheet onto a piece of A4 card, the girls cut the bones out.

I helped Z with her cutting, but she did all the colouring herself!

Once they were done, I asked the girls to lay their skeletons out flat, putting the bones together like a jigsaw.

Finally, I took out the split pins and demonstrated using one to join two of Z's pieces together. I used a sewing pin to make a small hole to make it easier to push the split pins through, then let the twins get on with putting their skeletons together by themselves. Z handed me pins and I asked for her approval before joining each piece. 😂

Prophet Musa (AS) - 1 - As a baby

We read the beginning of the story of Prophet Musa (AS) together, from the books which we have, focusing on his mother putting him in the river and how Allah not only kept him safe but also reunited them together - the morals I wanted the girls to understand from this part of the story were 1) to trust in Allah and 2) if Allah wants something to happen, there's nothing anybody can do to stop it from happening.

We talked about how Prophet Musa's mother must have felt when she gave birth to a boy and knew the soldiers would kill him if they found him... We talked about whether it was easy for her to put her baby in the river - because what might happen to him in the river? But what would happen to him if she didn't do it? We related it to baby A (who's now almost 8 months mashaAllah!) and how they would feel having to do that to her - and mothers love their children a lot more than siblings love each other! But where did the idea come from in the first place? It was from Allah so Musa (AS)'s mother trusted it would be ok... And it was!

Since it came up, we had a brief biology lesson into why Firaun's wife needed a nurse for the baby... By "nurse" the book meant "wet nurse" and a wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeds the baby for the mother - maybe the mum can't feed the baby herself for whatever reason (no milk, not enough milk, too busy, doesn't want to!) and in those days they didn't have baby formula and bottles! So why couldn't Firaun's wife feed baby Musa? Because women don't make milk all the time, only after they've had a baby. Firaun's wife hadn't had the baby so that's why she needed a wet nurse for him - and Allah brought Musa (AS)'s mother back to him in this way.

For our craft activity, to help them remember the story, I thought of a simple pop-up type picture - similar to the zamzam picture we did before. I drew my idea on the whiteboard so the twins knew what the end product was supposed to look like:

Then they painted their picture onto white card. We used watercolours again (it feels like watercolours have turned into the art theme for now!) and talked about blending different shades, the direction of their brush strokes (F said they should be horizontal for the river and vertical for the grass!) and how they could layer the paint as it dries.

While the paintings dried, they drew, coloured and cut a picture of a basket from some brown card and sellotaped the back to a blue pipe cleaner. A lolly stick would have been better, but I've still not got round to buying more yet! But this was a good chance to recap materials: we talked about what the problem was (it was too flexible!) and how they could fix it (make it shorter... make it thicker...) - they ended up folding it in half and twisting it about itself which made it a bit more sturdy.

I cut a line along the centre of the river so they could thread their pipe cleaner through and so move the basket by using the pipe cleaner as a handle. Finally, I asked them to write a sentence to summarise what the picture showed.

MashaAllah Z did well, copying her sisters! I think this is the first painting she's done which has actually resembled something and not just a brown mess. 😂