Fairytale Picture Summary

The question I wrote on their Target Poster for Literacy this week was "Can you tell a story without words?" The twins' initial reaction was, "NO!" lol 😂

First, we looked at a picture from one of their comprehension books and talked about what they thought was happening... Who is in the picture? What are they doing? Where are they? Why? How are they feeling? What time of day is it? What might happen next? etc. etc. After we'd talked in depth about the picture, I summarised their thoughts into a story structure... "It was the afternoon and everyone had gathered in the field for a big race. Poggo and Zap were going to race around the track and everyone was there to cheer them on. Poggo's hat blew off because he was going so fast! But Zap was the winner, crossing the finish line just before Poggo. Zap was really happy he won! Poggo was upset he lost but happy for his friend." Then we talked about how we understood a whole story just from looking carefully at one picture - the picture was able to tell a story without words!

Next, we read the story of Little Red Riding Hood in storyboard format. When we were done, we talked about how this version of the fairytale was different to other versions they'd read or heard... Then we "read" through the story again, but this time just using the pictures as prompts.

Finally, we talked about how pictures can summarise a lot of words; remember how in the first picture we looked at, we were able to get a whole story out of just one picture? And when we looked at the storyboard, how many words were written underneath each picture? Then we chose a fairytale to summarise ourselves - reminding the girls of a story structure (split into three parts: beginning, middle and ending) and which were the main parts...

The girls both wanted to do The Gingerbread Man. They summarised it as:
1) Someone baked The Gingerbread Man.
2) The Gingerbread Man ran away from everyone: people and animals.
3) The Gingerbread Man was eaten by a fox.

Then they drew corresponding pictures into a pre-made template:

After they were done, I asked them to tell the story using the pictures they'd drawn. One of them ended up changing the story's ending so The Gingerbread Man wasn't eaten by the fox! I said that was fine, since fairytales can be told any way we want to... That's part of what makes them a fairytale. 😁😁

You can download our simple template here.

How long is a day?

Yr1 NC Science target: Observe and describe how day length varies

I decided to have the girls look outside at the same time every morning and evening for a couple of weeks, so they could see if the sky always looks the same - either day or night or in between - or if it changes as time passes... With the time of year being as it is, 7am and 7pm fit in perfectly as sunrise and sunset are both due to cross over the 7 o' clock mark over the next couple of weeks. This will not only let them see the daytime span shorten for themselves, but it reinforces their ability to tell the time and teaches them diligence in remembering to keep their record twice daily! They're waking up themselves around 6:30am and their bedtime is just after 7pm, so the timings work out well for us too - to do it last thing before bed and leave it out ready to fill in in the morning.

After explaining to them what the investigation was going to be, we used our Science wall display to help write a prediction. First, with some prompting, they told me all the information they already knew. Then they used this to predict what they thought would happen. Even though Twin 2's response was a lot wordier lol, they both thought the same thing - that the day length is related to the temperature! So once we have our results, this will lead on nicely to looking at seasonal changes in terms of the Earth's orbit and how we get day and night in the first place, insha'Allah. 😂

You can download our worksheet here.

Allah made everything

Back to basics with the beginning of the story of Prophet Adam (AS)!

We made this picture around two years ago, when we were first learning about Allah and how He created the world - so when the twins were almost 4. I stuck down green and blue paper to represent the land and sea on dark blue A3 sugar paper (dark blue as it could be either day or night!) and drew some pictures of natural things created by Allah (this was before we owned a printer!). I tried to choose things which would be useful to know in Arabic. We spoke about how Allah created everything from nothing and how we were grateful to Him. Then I gave them the pictures to colour in and cut them out when they were done. Finally, I helped them glue the pictures in appropriate places on the A3 background.

After a break (as they were still only young!) we recapped what we had made and why (a picture to show some of the things Allah made from nothing). Then we continued the story of Prophet Adam (AS) - how Allah created the first man and taught him the names of each thing - and I labelled each picture in English as the girls told me what they were. We spoke about how the angels didn't know what each thing was called because Allah hadn't taught them. I asked the girls how they thought it felt not to know that the sun was called the sun and they laughed! So I asked them what the sun was in Arabic, which of course they couldn't do. 😏 Then we went through each thing on the picture and I told them what it was in Arabic:

the sun: ash-shamsu اَلشَّمْسُ

the cloud: al-ghaymatu اَلْغَيْمَةُ

the moon: al-qamaru اَلْقَمَرُ

the star: an-najmu اَلنَّجْمُ

the sky: as-samaa'u اَلسَّمَاءُ

the sea: al-bahru اَلْبَحْرُ

the grass: al-‘ushbu اَلْعُشْبُ

the mountain: al-jabalu اَلْجَبَلُ

the tree: ash-shajaratu اَلشَّجَرَةُ

the flower: az-zahratu اَلزَّهْرَةُ

the lion: al-asadu اَلْأَسَدُ

the horse: al-hisaanu اَلْحِصَانُ

the dog: al-kalbu اَلْكَلْبُ

the bird: at-tayru اَلطَّيْرُ

the fish: as-samakatu اَلسَّمَكَةُ

We stuck with the definite form for everything so as to not get confused with grammar, but my husband felt it was important to introduce the idea of word endings from the start (rather than e.g. just saying "shams" for sun).

The idea was to write out labels in Arabic for the girls to glue next to the correct picture, but we never got round to it and the project went forgotten until now. 🙈

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Fast-forward to today and our current work on the Prophet Adam (AS). I dug out this old poster for them and we recapped again about how Allah created everything from nothing and how everything in the world is only here because Allah allowed it to exist, e.g. who made the paper we were looking at? Did Allah make the paper Himself? No, people made it... But how did people make paper? They made it out of trees. And where did the trees come from? Allah made them! So the girls understood that everything in the world was either created by Allah or made out of something Allah had created. We also talked about the trees we can see today - did Allah create this particular tree in our garden? No, he created the first trees a long long long time ago which made seeds, which grew into more trees, which made seeds, which grew into more trees, which made seeds, and so on and so on until we get to today. Just like how Allah made us, not because He created us himself (they know about babies being in their mummy's tummy) but because Allah made the first man (and woman) and they're like our great great great great (too many "great"s to say!) grandparents!

Then we checked we could still name all the things in Arabic, using the definite/"the" form and then changing to the indefinite/"a" form.

The story of Prophet Adam (AS)

The girls are already familiar with the Prophet Adam (AS) from their children books, but I just wanted to go through it myself to make sure they understood that being sent to Earth was NOT a punishment - unlike what Christians believe - as is told in the Quran how Allah told the angels He was going to create people and put them on Earth. I also wanted to make sure they were able to recall the main parts of the story themselves from memory.

I wrote the story in language suitable for 4-5 year olds, while still retaining as much meaning/original translations from the Quran as possible, after making notes from a variety of sources (including Tafsir Ibn Kathir and lectures from speakers such as Mufti Menk and Nouman Ali Khan).

PROPHET ADAM (AS)

A long, long time ago, Allah created the world. He created the sun, the moon and the stars. He created the seas and the mountains. He created the trees and the flowers. He created the fish, the birds and the animals. Allah created everything.

Up, up, high above the sky in the heavens are the gardens of paradise: Jannah. In Jannah you never feel hungry, thirsty or tired. You have no reason to feel pain or sadness. In Jannah, Allah spoke to the angels. He told them He was going to create humans and put them on Earth to live and look after it. The angels praised Allah day and night; they always obeyed Allah but they didn’t understand why Allah wanted to make humans. The angels were worried humans would fight with each other and spoil the Earth. The angels worshipped Allah so much they didn’t understand why people were needed to worship Allah too! But Allah simply said to them, “I know what you do not know.”

Allah created the first man, Adam, from a handful of clay gathered from all the Earth: this is why humankind is all different colours and with all different personalities, just as the mud from around the world is different. Some people are kind and generous, some are selfish and mean, some are in between. Some are evil, some are good and some are in between.

Allah created Adam with his hands and blew his soul into him. When the life entered Adam’s head, he sneezed and the angels told Adam to say, “Alhamdulillah.” When he did, Allah replied, “Yarhamukhallah.” This is what we should say when we sneeze and reply when someone else sneezes.

When Adam was sent to greet a group of angels, he said to them, “As salaamu ‘alaikum,” and the angels replied to Adam, “Wa ‘alaikum as salaamu wa rahmatullah.” This is the way we should greet and reply to people we meet.

Allah taught Adam the names of all kinds of things, such as trees, mountains, the sea, camel. Allah showed these things to the angels and asked them to name them, but the angels could not. They said to Allah, “We only know what you have taught us.” Allah then told Adam to tell the angels the names of all the things. When Adam finished, Allah said to the angels, “Did I not tell you I know the secrets of the heavens and the earth, and I know what you show and what you hide?”

Amongst the angels, there was one Jinn who had been raised to a special rank in the heavens. His name was Iblis. When Allah told the angels to bow down to Adam, they all obeyed except for Iblis.

Iblis was too proud and arrogant. He said to Allah, “Why should I bow down to him when I’m better than him? You made me from fire and him just from clay!”

Allah said to Iblis, “Then get out from here. You are rejected and cursed. The curse shall be upon you until the Day of Judgement.” Allah threw Iblis out from the gardens of Jannah.

Iblis said to Allah, “If you let me go until the Day of Judgement, then I will lead his children to the wrong path – all of them but a few!” Allah let Iblis go and told him that any people who follow Iblis’ evil whispers will be sent to the hellfire… But Allah also told him that Muslims who worship Allah and do good things can never be led wrong by Iblis.

Prophet Adam was sent to live in Jannah but because he was the only human he began to feel lonely. While Adam was sleeping, Allah created the first woman, Hawwa (or Eve) from Adam’s rib. When Adam woke up he was surprised to see her sitting beside him, but he was also happy to have another person for company.

Allah told Adam and Hawwa they could eat and enjoy anything they wanted from the gardens of paradise - all except from the fruit from one particular tree. If they ate the fruit from that tree, Allah warned something bad would happen to them.

Allah told them that Iblis was Adam and Hawwa’s enemy. Iblis didn’t want Adam and Hawwa to stay in Jannah. In Jannah, you will never feel hungry or thirsty, too hot or too cold. Iblis was jealous of Adam and Hawwa.

Iblis whispered lies to Adam and Hawwa, to trick them into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree. Iblis told them he was their friend. He lied and said, “If you eat from the tree, you can become angels and live forever.”

Adam and Hawwa ate from the tree. As soon as they did, they felt ashamed and naked. They quickly hid themselves behind fig leaves to cover their shame.

Allah asked Adam and Hawwa, “Didn’t I tell you not to eat from the tree and that Shaytaan is your enemy?” Adam and Hawwa admitted their mistake and asked Allah for forgiveness. They made tawbah. Allah is most merciful and kind.

Allah sent Adam and Hawwa down to live on Earth, along with Iblis. Iblis wants to lead us away from remembering Allah, but Allah has promised us if we worship Him and do good deeds then one day we will be able to return to Jannah.

You can download the above story as a MS Word file here.

After reading the story to the girls (in an interactive way, asking questions and letting them ask questions), I asked them what they thought the main points were - just what they could remember regardless of where it came. I wrote these as a spider diagram on A4 coloured paper. Once they had them all, with some prompting, I asked the girls to put the points in chronological order by numbering each one.

***find photo***

I then gave them a storyboard with the story summarised into six sections and told them that a summary is when we don't give the whole story, or every single bit of information, but just tell the most important points - like how they summarised it in the spider diagram. We read through the storyboard together, then I asked them what they thought might go in the big empty boxes? Pictures! But are there some things we aren't allowed to draw? Can we draw Allah, or the angels, or Shaytaan or Adam (AS) and Hawwa (RA)? So we talked about what they could draw in each box which wasn't any of those things, e.g. Allah's creations, clay, fire to represent jinn, gardens, a tree, Earth.

Finally, I asked them if they thought the story needed a little bit more detail - then we worked through each box in turn so they could add something extra, using the notes from the spider diagram to help. I decided to let them try spelling everything themselves then showed them any corrections once they'd done.

MashaAllah, I was pleased they clearly understood that being sent to Earth was planned from the beginning, in one of the twins' words: "It wasn't a punishment because Allah already said He was going to put them on Earth even before he made Prophet Adam! And they said sorry!" 💕

We did this whole lesson over a couple of days.

You can download our storyboard template here.

Seasons-Weather Match

Our next Science topic is Seasonal Changes. They've covered many of the NC targets for Year 1 naturally just through everyday conversations, so now it's just a case of filling in the gaps.

Today's target was to "observe and describe weather associated with the seasons."

I began by simply asking the twins how many different types of weather they could think of and wrote these on the whiteboard as they said them. Next, I gave them each a sheet of paper with pictures (found from Google) to represent 9 different weather patterns on it:

I asked them which weathers on the sheet were missing from our list and gave them clues for the ones they struggled with - namely the middle one and the last two! The pictures show: sunny, raining, snowing, windy, overcast, cloudy, stormy, fog, hailing. So by the end we had all 9 words on the whiteboard. They didn't know what hail was at all, so we found some videos on YouTube to watch before continuing. The others they'd either experienced or read about in books (they remembered this Biff & Chip book from last year!).

Next, I gave them a template so they could match the weather to the season they think it happens in the most, e.g. it can be sunny all year round, but which season do they think has the most days of sunny weather? Summer! And sometimes it can snow in Spring, but which season has the most snow? Winter! So they glued the pictures in the boxes, explaining to me why they thought they went where... e.g. I told them storms are made when there's hot air so they decided to match stormy to Summer, and I told them fog is cold air so they matched it to Winter... Windy they put in Autumn because it made them think of leaves blowing around and the leaves fall off the trees in Autumn!

We also took this opportunity to revise some of the Arabic we've learnt, i.e. the season names which are on the worksheet and weather patterns which we did verbally ("the weather is good/hot/sunny/cold", "rain", "snow", "wind", "I feel hot/cold") ***EDIT TO ADD ARABIC TEXT***

You can download our worksheet here.

Typing practise...

In half an hour (timed using our sand timer), the girls managed to type:

This was their first time trying to type on the laptop, aside from the odd word here and there for a Google search, and it was copied from the descriptive writing they had done earlier so they could concentrate on the typing as opposed to needing to think what to write too.

It's funny how teaching things like this reminds you of how you take basic things for granted - such as needing to press the space bar in between each word! - and how everything is new for them at this age... Even using the mouse was a challenge! The spacial awareness and physically moving something on a horizontal plane to control a cursor on a vertical plane... Again, something we really take for granted being so used to it!

To prepare them for eventually (insha'Allah!) being able to touch type, I encouraged them to use both hands to type: the left hand for the left side of the keyboard and the right hand for the right side. They were also free to use whichever fingers felt most comfortable for whichever key. 👌

Fairytales

We're going to use fairytales as the scaffold for our next few Literacy targets, as is common for children of this age!

To build up to this topic, we've been reading in books and watching on YouTube a variety of different fairytales and also different versions of the same story. So for our first task, I gave them some pictures with characters from the fairytales the girls are familiar with...

I asked them which stories they were from... What were the stories' titles? I asked them who the main characters were and if they had anything in common. They noticed the characters were often animals and that the animals could do things animals can't really do, such as speak! There were also made up creatures such as witches, giants and trolls.

What was the setting for each story? Where did it take place? They said it was usually a forest, not in a big city. When was the setting - nowadays, in modern times, or in the past? They realised they all took place in the past, before things we have nowadays such as TVs and computers. Why might that be? Because the stories were all written in the past!

So because a common setting was a forest, on a piece of A3 sugar paper the girls had a go at painting a forest background - we played this video on YouTube as inspiration and for background sound. The 2 year old joined in too! I only gave them red, blue, yellow, green and white paint - so they needed to mix any other colours/shades they wanted.

While waiting for their paintings to dry, they coloured in and cut out the fairytale characters from before. Then they stuck these down on top using PVA glue. Finally, the twins wrote the word "fairytales" somewhere in their forest using glitter gel pens.

You can download the pictures we used (from http://images.google.com) here.