Science/Arabic - The Sense of Touch

The Sense of Touch - اَللَّمْسُ

I can feel... - ... أَنَا أَلْمَسُ

We reminded ourselves of the five senses and which part of the body we use for each one - we talked about how we feel things with every part of our body, so our skin, but it's easiest to use our hands and fingers when we want to know what something feels like!

I wrote the word "texture" on the whiteboard as a new concept. Something's texture is just the way it feels... So we talked about some familiar objects and how the word they use to describe what it feels like is its texture, eg their skin is soft and smooth, a tree trunk is rough and bumpy... Then we quickly read through some of their younger sister's "That's Not My..." book series, emphasising the word "texture" for the material on each page. This was also useful in giving them some ideas for words for later on.

I then gave them a piece of coloured card each so they could draw around their hands to represent the sense of touch and then cut them out (fine motor skills and scissor practise). Our 2 year old joined in with this part too; obviously I had to help her with the drawing and cutting! One of the twins asked me to neaten up her cut out hands for her while the other was happy doing it herself. Then they stuck these down onto another piece of coloured card.

I'd already prepared a variety of materials from around the house (chosen to encourage them to use a wide range of vocabulary and so help their descriptive language) which they felt one by one before sticking down around the paper. We also used this opportunity to remind ourselves of the Arabic for "I can feel ..."

The materials I chose for them were:

1) a feather

2) cotton wool

3) a piece of shiny gift bag

4) a piece of foam

5) blu tac

6) a lolly stick

7) velcro hooks

8) glittery card

9) scrunched tin foil

10) pipe cleaner

Some things they stuck down with PVA glue, the others with sellotape - it was good to hear their reasoning for why it was easier to use sellotape for some items and why they could only use sellotape on the edges rather than simply on top (or they couldn't feel the texture!).

After a break, to let the glue dry, we got out one of the big whiteboards and brainstormed a list of vocabulary they could use to describe the textures on their paper, making sure they had at least one word for each thing. There's something about writing on a whiteboard kids find fun, mine being no exception, so doing this as a shared activity was really effective!

To finish off, the girls had to choose one word to describe each texture and write them down inside the fingers of their cut out hands - 10 textures, 10 fingers! They could use the whiteboard display for ideas and spelling help. 

Obviously the toddler didn't do this last part! But she really enjoyed the gluing activity and got to hear all the lovely vocabulary being used to copy whilst talking about what she'd made. 😁

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Taste

The Sense of Taste - اَلذَّوْقُ

I taste... - ... أَنَا أَذُوقُ

We talked about the sense of taste and how everything can be sorted into 5 main groups: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

The girls were then blindfolded and I gave them something to taste, one at a time. First, they guessed what it was (... أَنَا أَذُوقُ - if they didn't know the Arabic word they could just say that word in English!) then I told them which category that food was an example of. The foods we did were:

Sweet = teaspoon of honey. They already knew what sweet meant!

Salty = ready salted crisps. They already knew salty, too!

Sour = slice of lemon. These foods make your mouth pucker up.

Bitter = spinach leaf. These foods make you want to stick your tongue out.

Umami = cheese. These foods have a really strong flavour.

They took off their blindfolds and I gave them some more foods to taste; some were distinctly only one of the five basic tastes, others were a mixture - I tried to choose a variety that would lead to a good discussion and understanding!

The foods we used and the groups we thought they belonged to were:

banana = sweet

fizzy belt = sweet & sour
kiwi = sweet & sour

cucumber = sweet & bitter
dark chocolate drops = sweet & bitter
whipped cream & coffee = sweet & bitter
popcorn = salty & sweet
salt n' vinegar crisps = salty & sour
tuna = salty & umami
Marmite on toast = salty & umami
soy sauce = salty & umami
ketchup = sweet & umami

Finally, they filled in the below worksheet and recapped sorting using a two-way table.

We did the worksheet later on in the day so they had to think and remember which foods they tasted! We wrote down what they could remember on the whiteboard then I helped them fill in the gaps. Then they worked through the list sorting them into where they thought they best fit. Lastly, they could colour the pictures if they wanted! And we talked about which taste each picture represented.

You can download our worksheet template here. I forgot to blank out half of the squares for their copies but it's fixed in the original file now. 😊

Recipe: Chocolate chip shortbread

Makes 20-24 biscuits:

150g salted butter (at room temperature)
75g caster sugar
225g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
100g chocolate chips
2-3tsps Demerara sugar

1) Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) Sieve in the flour, a little at a time, stirring together with a wooden spoon.
4) Tip in the chocolate chips and bring the mixture together with your hands to form a soft dough. Try not to overwork it to get a better texture to the biscuit. When the dough comes away from the bowl, leaving it clean, then it's ready.
5) Lightly flour a surface and roll the dough to the thickness of the chocolate chips. Cut into shapes and place on baking tray.
6) Sprinkle with demerara sugar for an optional sweet crunch!
7) Leave to chill in the fridge for 20min and preheat the oven to Fan 180C.
8) Bake for 12-14min until the edges turn golden brown.
9) Leave to firm up on the baking tray for 5min before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
10) Enjoy with a cup of tea or glass of cold milk!

Another cub to the pack!

Alhamdulillah, we welcomed a new member to our family in the early hours of this morning. 💕

She and I are both doing well, but this is the reason posting has and will significantly slow until we find our feet and get into a comfortable routine! Her birth just so happens to co-oincide with UK summer holidays, so I'm telling myself I don't need to worry if the academia slows and the girls spend a couple of months just playing. It's what their school-going peers would be doing anyway. 😏

Ramadaan Prep 2018 - Useful Things To Do in Advance!

I feel like I've not prepared as much this year as last - actually, I know I haven't because most of it is just a repeat/re-using what I did last year. 😂😅

Things for me:

1) Batch cook and then freeze individual portions of onions/garlic/tomatoes to save cooking time during Ramadaan. I started this around a month before Ramadaan last year and actually have just continued doing it ever since! I'll buy one bag of onions, one garlic and two packs of salad tomatoes during the weekly shop and cook them all at once one day during the week. I'll take out the extra mix and keep in individual freezer bags in the freezer (so one bag per meal) then cook whatever dinner I'm making that day with what's left in the pan. Then later on in the week when I don't have time to cook from scratch, I can just defrost one bag in the pan (or two if I plan to cook a larger amount to last for two days!), add the relevant salt/spices/meat/veg and dinner is done in less than half an hour. 👌 In the weeks before Ramadaan, I'll make sure I have enough in the freezer so that I won't have to do any cooking from scratch for the whole 30 days, insha'Allah. Alhamdulillah, Ramadaan is not all about the food in this household... And I'm grateful my husband prefers a proper meal at the end of the day instead of the usual fried foods which take much more time and energy to prepare!

2) Clean the house! Change all the bedsheets, scrub down the kitchen and bathroom, mop the hard floors, vacuum the carpets (including behind sofas, those nooks and crannies, etc.) If I know its all been done properly just before Ramadaan, I'm happy just wiping down and vacuuming visible surfaces until the month's over. 😊

3) Have a general tidy up/declutter. All those sideboards and shelves which somehow accumulate junk... Old clothes and toys, ready to give away to charity... This process takes a good few weeks as I don't have time to do it all in one go otherwise! Then one final sweep through the house in the days before. 💪 Similarly, any odd jobs around the house which need doing but have been put off (e.g. DIY things, filing paperwork, the garden, etc.), we try and get those done before the month starts, too!

4) Plan Eid outfits. At least get the clothes bought and the outfits decided, even if I don't iron them - I did that before and somehow they ended up creased in the wardrobe anyway, so now I've decided to just do them the night before Eid instead, insha'Allah. 😅

5) Buy and wrap Eid gifts. Another thing I don't want to waste time thinking about or doing during Ramadaan itself!

6) Set a Quran goal. I made a list last year with how many pages I'd need to read a day in order to complete the whole Quran within the month - I'll admit I'm not the most fluent of readers, so it was useful for me to have a concrete benchmark each day to work towards. I also worked out how long it would take me to read that many pages and planned a suitable time each day to fit it in. Last year, it happened that I'd have some time after Fajr and some between Maghrib and Isha (i.e. when the kids were asleep!) so I could split my reading between then.

7) Set a Hifz target. I'll also admit my strengths definitely don't lie in memorisation! A manageable goal from before was to memorise one ayah from Surah Al-Mulk each day, which meant the whole surah could be completed by the end of the month. 💕 This year, I think I'll make the effort to concentrate on Juz 'Amma - with the added goal of being able to help my children with their hifz more easily too, insha'Allah!

Things for the kids:

8) Get the decorations ready! Previously, I've put them all up myself the night before as a surprise for the kids... Now they're a bit older, I'll let them help out and it'll reduce my workload too. 😂 Same goes for Eid decorations - some of them are pre-bought (e.g. tinsel, balloons, etc.) but others we can make together during the month as an activity in itself, insha'Allah.

9) Prepare a Ramadaan calendar. I've seen lots of beautiful ones (but expensive or time-consuming to make! 🙈) online, but last year I simply printed out the numbers 1-30 (in both English and Arabic numerals), mounted it on a piece of coloured card, they coloured it in and decorated the edges. Each day the twins would take it in turns to stick a sticker in the morning to signify which day we were on and a sticker in the evening to show the day had ended... (I also prepared a small container with pre-cut stickers for them to choose from, so will be re-using that, insha'Allah!) Not sure how we're going to do it this year with three kids lol - just more taking in turns! Maybe when they're a little older they can have individual calendars, especially if they're going to try and keep the odd (whole/half) fast here and there, but for now we don't have the wall space or desire for clutter. 😂😅🙈 You can download our calendar template here.

10) Decide on 30 Good Deeds. We did this last year and it worked well - the girls have requested to do it again this year! So with the lack of time, I'm re-using what we prepared last time lol. We decorated an old container with tissue paper mache and stickers; I printed out 30 flower shaped templates onto coloured card (you can download the Word file here) and cut them out, then we talked about the kinds of good deeds we could do and I wrote 30 of them out, one on each flower, for them to then decorate the petals with glitter glue pens. Aside from needing a little touch up (as some of the writing has faded, especially with the paler glitter gel pens!) these are fine to use again this year, I think! So the cards go in the container, they take it in turns to choose one at random each morning, then they have the day to complete/focus on that good deed. We couple this with reminders on gaining reward and how the month of Ramadaan is blessed with the chance to get even more reward than usual! Here's our list of 30 deeds, for reference:

1. Smile at people outside.
2. Feed the birds.
3. Listen to Mama and Papa straightaway.
4. Give salaam quickly.
5. Share my things.
6. Say "Bismillah" before doing things.
7. Say "SubhanAllah" 100 times.
8. Say "Alhamdulillah" 100 times.
9. Say "Allahu akbar" 100 times.
10. Make dua to Allah.
11. Make dua for someone else.
12. Help Mama with some chores.
13. Tidy up after myself.
14. Give some toys to charity.
15. Tidy up my bedroom.
16. Say "please", "thank you", "sorry" and "excuse me".
17. Call Nani for a chat.
18. Make a card for Dadima.
19. Speak in a soft voice.
20. Let someone else go first.
21. Learn more Arabic.
22. Read extra Quran.
23. Pray sunnah prayers.
24. Not waste water.
25. Not waste colouring pens.
26. Help look after our little sister.
27. Bake food for someone.
28. Donate to a food bank.
29. Give people compliments.
30. Make Eid decorations.

After they chose a deed each morning, we'd put Blu-tac on the back and stick them around the fireplace as both a reminder and to create a wall display of flowers. After the month was over, we left them up for a short while then took the opportunity to discuss them as we took them down.

11) Prepare 30 Hadith to read through together! I think we'll just use this book again this year, as all the work's been done for us: 30 Hadith for Kids by Zanib Mian. We used this a discussion prompt in the evenings just before bed, like a bedtime story replacement. The girls used to look forward to it, and the book's been put away since, so I'm sure they'll look forward to it again this year, insha'Allah. 💕 Maybe when they're older, we can concentrate more on hadith specific to Ramadaan and fasting, but just introducing the idea of hadith and familiarising the girls with the idea of them is enough for me at this stage.

12) Have a Quran routine ready. Alhamdulillah, we already try and have daily Quran sessions but admittedly these are sometimes missed on particularly busy days or cut short for one reason or another... So I need to ensure more priority is put on the Quran - and Ramadaan is a good boost for doing so. Many people say that first thing in the morning is the best time to do it, so I think I'm going to try having a half an hour slot blocked out after their breakfast. Once we get into the routine of it, I'm hoping it will then stick even once Ramadaan is over, insha'Allah! Within this month, though, I want to spend 5 minutes at the end of each session reading through some translations of surahs they know... Ideally, this should be planned out already! But honestly, I've not had the time to do it so will just have to wing it each day. 😅 The idea being to strengthen their bond with the Quran, especially if we can pick out Arabic vocabulary they know within ayaat, too.

Simple Paper Mobile

To finish off our topic on the six articles of faith, I thought it'd be nice to make a craft to summarise what the articles are... So we made some paper mobiles. 😊

We used A4 coloured card cut in half lengthways for the main body. Along the top they used a medium star-shaped holepunch (0.6 inches) and along the bottom they used a large heart-shaped holepunch (1 inch) to cut out 6 hearts - one for each article (around 4.5cm between each one). I bought our holepunches from Hobbycraft since they were on sale, but I'm sure you can find similar for cheaper online. 👍 In the centre of the strip of card they wrote "The Six Articles of Faith", then decorated with glitter gel pens and stickers.

For the hanging part, we used shiny paper around 4cm wide (when it's time to repeat this for younger siblings, insha'Allah, I'll probably get them to write on different paper then stick on as labels, since the shiny paper was difficult to write on/smudged easily!) and used the star-shaped holepunch to cut out a star in the centre at the top of each. Then they wrote one article on each (singing our song from before to help - without any prompting from me! 😂)

Finally, they chose which coloured ribbon they wanted to put through each article, and which two colours they wanted for the top - then I had the (tedious lol) task of tying them all on. 😏 I used the first ribbon to measure out the length I wanted, then used that as a template for the rest. Same for the top ribbons - these, I threaded through opposite stars so the two ribbons made a cross in the centre, then tied all four ends together at the top.

I hung their mobiles on display in their bedroom (they have a piece of string going across the room for this purpose... paintings, posters, etc.!) using a mini wooden craft peg to keep them up. 💕

Planting the seeds...

Finally got round to planting this year's seeds... The girls have a little patch at the end of the garden which I dug up for them last year to plant flowers in - they wanted to do it again this year so we bought three packets of assorted (easy to grow!) flowers from Asda (they always seem to have a special offer on this time of year 😄) for them to sow.

I prepared the soil for them by digging up the weeds and raking it (they did pulling up weeds at the allotments earlier this week, and these weeds were quite deep rooted and tough! So I thought it was fine to let them just play in the garden while I worked... lol), they pre-watered the soil with their watering cans (again, from Asda! Kids-sized, metal cans for £2.50 - one pink, one orange, one turquoise), had a packet of seeds each to spread thinly over the ground (I helped the toddler 😁), I covered the seeds with the raked soil, then they watered the ground once more.

Finally, I stuck in the bird scarers (made from foam tulip heads and an old CD stuck onto a wooden lolly stick) the kids made at the allotments at the end of last year and which have otherwise just been cluttering our kitchen window sill. 😂

Now to wait... Insha'Allah they should flower by next month - so now the girls are responsible for watering them on all the days it doesn't rain, especially if it's hot and sunny!