Arabic update

The twins have completed Madinah Arabic Reader Book 1 with me and we've just started Book 2, mashaAllah.

Their understanding is pretty good, as we read through the first chapter together and they had no issues with the content.

Current targets:

1) To be able to read more fluently (just need more practise, ideally daily!)

2) To be able to write simple sentences (they can spell words but don't have the confidence to write, especially joined... I need to give them more opportunities to do so!)

One of the grammatical concepts in the current chapter is the idea of the object of a verb in a sentence needing a fatha (and revising the subject needs a dhamma), i.e. "Tuhibbu al-baqaratu al-kitaaba" means "The cow likes the book" [as opposed to "Tuhibbu al-baqarata al-kitaabu" meaning "The book likes the cow"]. So we did some work on the whiteboard to this effect, using different familiar verbs and objects and emphasising that the order of the sentence isn't important, but the meaning comes from the vowel sound on the words.

Then the girls (Z included!) drew and painted a picture of 5 foods they liked to eat (so we could practise the verbs eat, like and want). They painted them with cottonbuds and a dot effect (I'm trying to introduce them to different art techniques where I can within other subjects, as we don't really have a set "Art" time atm!)

Art & Design Targets

http://art-techniques.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Progression-of-skills-KS1-KS2.pdf

I was looking for a set of discrete targets to follow when it came to Art, since it's not a specialist subject of mine, to ensure I introduced the girls to a variety of skills and not just the ones I was familiar with! I came across the above in Google and will be using it as a basis, inshaAllah.

I prefer to do Art as a cross-curricular subject along a theme (e.g. within Science or Islamic Studies, etc.) so this is a good checklist for me as inspiration for our work.

I've printed off a set of targets for each child and will highlight the relevant boxes as we cover each thing.

[EDIT:] https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100607215842/http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes3/subjects/?view=get

An old link but still useful reference point for targets across (non-core) subjects.

Seerah timeline (1-5)

Over the years, the girls have built up a good general knowledge to do with the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) - they know who he is and some major events from his life - but we've never done any specific work about him, everything has just been picked up from reading books and everyday discussions. So now the twins have reached Year 2, I thought now would be a good time to create a basic timeline in their heads... They're young enough to absorb the information easily as a foundation for the rest of their lives yet old enough to understand and appreciate what they're learning.

I bought them the book 365 Days with the Prophet Muhammad as an eid gift, with the intention to read through a chapter here and there every other night or so. This didn't happen lol. So I'm using it now as a basis for them to create a timeline of the Prophet (SAW)'s life, which we'll do together over a couple of months as a large wall display, adding to it as we go. I split the Prophet (SAW)'s life into 12 key sections and we're looking at one per week:

1) Birth
2) Childhood
3) Young adult
4) Revelation
5) Secret preaching
6) Open preaching
7) Year of Sadness
8) Isra & Mi'raaj
9) Hijrah
10) Battles
11) Spread of Islam
12) Death

The hardest part of this for me is cutting out the detail... 🙈 Don't want to overwhelm them! The purpose of this exercise is to organise the key events in their heads and to relate them to set dates / the Prophet (SAW)'s age so they can appreciate the timescale between events. I'm sure more detail can be added over the years, insha'Allah!

This is what we have so far:

The format we're following is for me to read select chapters from the book over the first half of the week, then write some questions as prompts on the whiteboard (e.g. "What happened when he was 6?").


They then have to write a fact about that part of his life onto a mini post-it note and when they're done (meaning they've covered what I wanted them to!) the post-its are arranged onto the card strip (I used 4 different shades of green A4 card, split into thirds) and stuck on the wall.

This has been good in a Literacy sense too as we covered the difference between fact and opinion and have also honed our notetaking and summarising skills.

When our whole timeline is complete insha'Allah, I'd like them to revisit it from the start and illustrate each section using different art methods / mediums... So hopefully that will act as a way of revising the important information and help them to remember it better in the long run, rather than illustrating each piece as we go along.

Birth

We revisited the concept of family trees and the related vocabulary in Arabic. We also had a good discussion on milk siblings in Islam.

Childhood

Something which stood out for me this week was the part where Aminah died, all of us ended up with tears in our eyes. We talked about this afterwards and continued to talk about the meanings of the words sympathy and empathy.

Young Adult

We talked about the meaning of trustworthy. Were they trustworthy? I thought they were! So as an illustration of this, I left a big box of sweets open on the living room table and told them I trusted them all not to take any sweets. They could look (and even smell lol) but I trusted them not to eat any - my 6 1/2 year old twin and almost 4 year old girls. I said I wasn't even going to check because I trusted them so much... and besides, Allah would be watching and He would know if I was right or not. Come dinnertime, I asked if they had eaten any and they all said no (MashaAllah! And I'm confident they didn't either) so I gave them some after dinner as a reward for being so good. And, of course, the real reward is with Allah because all their good deeds are being recorded and helping them get closer to Jannah, insha'Allah!

When recounting the story of the black stone, we reenacted lifting something all together using a blanket and moving it from one place to another. This also served as a mini lesson on teamwork!

Revelation

We linked this to the tafseer of Surah Al-'Alaq and also the meaning behind the names of the surahs Al-Muzzammil and Al-Muddatthir as other names for Muhammad (SAW). We also had lots of hugs and talked about how being wrapped up makes us feel safe!

They drew in pencil and painted in watercolours a picture to show some of the things Allah has created - to help them reflect on our blessings similar to how Muhammad (SAW) would reflect on Allah's creation in the cave. Their pictures didn't need to make sense (I drew a panda on the beach! And the perspective didn't matter either) but it could only contain things from nature.

Secret Preaching

I don't think we did any particular activity with this, just lots of discussions on the different sahaba and some more focused work on summarising information, since there was so much covered they couldn't fit it all on one post-it per fact! 

Light & Dark - How do we see?

New science topic, taken from the Year 3 NC, and will inshaAllah carry us to the end of the year.

First, I replaced the batteries in some of their old light-up toys so they would have a range of light sources to talk about and play with over the coming weeks. I let them re-explore them again, asking questions like: "What happens to the light when you move your torch further away from the wall? What happens when you move it closer? What happens when you both shine your torches on the same spot?" etc.

I asked them what the word "source" means, to which the twins had an idea but weren't confident enough to turn into a definition... So we talked about where they've heard the word before: F said a water source and M said Allah's name was the Source of Peace. 💗

They came up with the definition of a light source as being somewhere light comes from.

I asked them to name some different light sources (F correctly said not the moon because that reflects the sun's light - if she hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have included that yet! So at that point I told them we see things because of light reflecting off them) then for them to tell me where the light sources in the room were... As they named each source, I turned it off (/closed the curtains!) until the room was dark.

I asked them if we needed light to see - it was harder to see the darker it became! But it still wasn't dark enough to not see completely; we couldn't get rid of all the light creeping in from the corners of the curtains and blinds... So I took out a big black blanket and covered us with it so it was completely dark underneath. "Can you see what face I'm making?" The girls laughed of course they couldn't... But M was sneaky and put her torch on. F then commented they could because they brought a light source with them! 😂

Next I helped them make a den under the table and we tried to block out as much light as we could... Then we read the first couple of pages from the "Light and Dark" book we have by torchlight.

As they shone their torches together under the table, I asked them how they thought light travelled. In straight lines only or does it spread out everywhere like water? A trick question lol. M said only straight lines and it can't go round corners. F said but it spreads out a bit because even when the torch was pointing straight you could still see a bit what was on the side, and when the light source is high like the lightbulb or the sun you can see everything! Something for them to think upon as we continue the topic, inshaAllah. 😏

Next, I told them I wanted them to draw a simple picture on A4 paper. It needed to have in it a drawing of themselves, a light source and 5 objects they could be looking at. I drew one as an example then left them to it while I put A to sleep. 😆

When they were done, I explained the last activity - to draw on how we see! First, I used a ribbon to represent the light. I lay it on top of my drawing coming from the sun and onto the cat, then folded the ribbon so it went into my eyes. I repeated this with the mountains and the tree, then asked M and F in turn to show what happens to the light, using the ribbon, so my drawing of me could see the flowers and birds. Next, I used a highlighter and ruler to draw the light rays coming from the sun and bouncing off an object into my eyes - emphasising we needed to use a ruler because light travels in straight lines. Finally, I put arrow heads on the lines to show the direction of travel.

Leaving my example on the table, the twins did the same on their drawings. Both understood the concept easily enough but I was surprised F needed a little help positioning her ruler - I suppose we haven't done any ruler work since the last time we covered measures in Numeracy!

Z joined in with all of the above, but when it came to labelling her drawing she did it without a ruler and with me narrating what was happening to the light as she chose each object to look at. I don't know how much of this she'll retain, but she seemed to enjoy playing in the den with the torches and drawing with us. 😁

Summer of Year 1 - Autumn of Year 2

A list of some of the things we've done over the last few months... No time for proper updates! SubhanAllah, my youngest brother was diagnosed with stage 4b lymphoma and things were a bit busy and a lot of going back and forth between Bristol, Birmingham and Ipswich. Alhamdulillah, he's finished his chemo course and seems to be doing well (and MashaAllah, the work we've done in Science recently on infection and the human body was really useful in the girls being able to understand pretty quickly why I was upset to hear the news and why we need to make lots of dua that Mamu gets better soon). Next time we visit will be next month, inshaAllah. 😄

So aside from the usual Literacy and Numeracy, guided by the Year 2 NC (going through the list and filling in all the gaps), we did the following:

1) Definition of habitats: research in non-fiction books, identify from fiction books, create a poster of a habitat of choice (including marking locations on a world map) which contained examples of plants and animals found in that habitat. Rehearse and give a presentation of their poster to each other, giving feedback on how to improve, then give an improved presentation to Papa. Convert their posters to PowerPoints (skills: typing, text boxes, inserting images, animations) and show this as a presentation to Papa.

2) Art trail around Ipswich, looking for Elmer statues. Map reading, walking, exploring, checking off a list, art appreciation & discussion... The girls then designed and named their own Elmers on pieces of scrap paper and compiled these into a booklet each. They tried to copy the art trail Elmers and came up with puns where they could!

3) Visit to a working water mill, where they grind their own flour and make their own bread - Tide Mill in Woodbridge. We took the train there with Nani, which was an experience in itself! The mill itself was really educational and child friendly. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area! The girls got to help start the water wheel by turning a handle and follow all the ropes and pulleys to the top of the mill. They were able to identify where the old pulleys should have been connected in the roof for the bags of flour to be lifted through the hatch, and also understood the mechanism behind the cogs turning and affecting each other. While there we also did some bird spotting from the lookout area and talked about how the mill was connected to the river. This led onto discussions to do with water sources and the sea, which inspired some more visits whilst in Ipswich...

4) We went to Felixstowe beach twice - once on the train with Nani during the daytime and another at sunset by car with Papa. Both experiences felt completely different despite being to the same place, which led to some good discussions. On our first trip they had fish & chips and ice-cream on the pier, played in the sand and F was brave enough to paddle in the sea. On the second trip we went for a short stroll on the beach and they played in the sand by the light of some coloured string lanterns hung across the promenade. It was interesting to watch the sunset on the horizon and see how the sky changed colour and then how the sea faded to black so it was impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began - the only clues the sea was there at all were a few lights from ships far in the distance. This led to talks about lighthouses and on how vast the sea is.

5) We walked down to Ipswich docks (only 5-10min from my parents' house!) and compared how the water was flowing to the river we saw at Woodbridge. Why? M had the idea that maybe both the water in the docks and the water from Tide Mill would end up in Felixstowe to meet the sea, so we checked on Google maps by zooming out and saw she was right! We didn't have time this visit to see, but I'd like to take them to Orwell Bridge so they can compare how the river looks there to how it was after the docks (and also to the little streams we saw in Holywells Park).

6) Which is the most popular car colour in Ipswich? The twins came up with a method of answering this question (watch the cars on the main road outside Nani's house) and keep a tally chart. We repeated this on two different days and compared the results (the same top three colours but not the same most popular colour on each day!) then turned these results into a bar chart (column addition practise to collate their results from both days). I helped them with this through prompts and questions and then wrote some simple questions about their data for them to answer.

7) We went to a free pizza making workshop at Pizza Express, organised by another home ed mum. The 3 eldest girls learnt a little about Italy and why a margarita has that name (the colours of the Italian flag represented by the toppings), tasted some pizza toppings then made their own margaritas on a pre-made base. The next week they wanted to make pizza at home from scratch, so I found a simple dough using Greek yoghurt and flour they could do independently. They made the dough themselves while I helped with the oven parts and making the sauce (tomato puree, oil & herbs). They put all the toppings on themselves and decided to make tuna, sweetcorn, mozzarella and cheddar.

8) Bake Off inspired baking: taking it in turns to bake cupcakes with me, one person each week. They designed their cupcake on paper first (sponge flavour & decorations) then baked with my guidance (they did measuring themselves for once!). After we all had a turn, we discussed which bake was our favourite and why. Mine was mint chocolate and my favourite lol - will need to post recipe soon inshaAllah!

9) First piece of extended writing in a while... We're currently reading the Famous Five series together and they're really enjoying them, so I used this as a basis for their writing. After a particularly eventful chapter, we did some hotseating on the characters' thoughts/feelings then I modelled writing a simple diary entry on A3 paper. Together, we discussed what the features of a diary entry might be and annotated them on the paper. Then the twins wrote their own diary entries as different characters from the book. When they thought they were finished, they referred to the poster and added to their work.

10) Bouncing ball investigation (as M asked why did the ball bounce higher in the kitchen compared to the sitting room?). Discussed in terms of energy (potential, kinetic) and energy being absorbed. Twins came up with ideas on how to test these factors (i.e. strength of throw, height dropped, floor surface) and how to measure - describe in words or use tape measure? Both ways difficult but tape measure was preferred option! One of the results didn't match our predictions, so we did some further investigations explore why. M came up with hypothesis 1 and F with hypothesis 2, with them both working together to think of how we could test each one. We put both ideas together to come up with a reason to explain why that one result didn't match.

Recipe: Firni (Asian rice pudding)

First attempt at making firni based on a family recipe... But scaled down a lot as my dad usually makes 8 pints of milk at a time! 😂 And he doesn't add any extras e.g. fruit or nuts.

Ingredients

1 cup rice
2 pints whole milk
200ml double cream
300g granulated sugar
Handful sultanas
2-3 cardamom pods

Handful flaked almonds

Method

1) Put everything except the almonds in a non-stick saucepan (cardamom and sultanas are optional).

2) Bring to the boil on a high heat while stirring continuously.

3) Reduce heat slightly to a simmer and keep stirring for at least half an hour until the firni has thickened to the desired consistency.

4) Take off heat and leave to cool.

5) Serve slightly warm or chilled from the fridge. Sprinkle flaked almonds on top.

Simple Spring/Summer Plant Projects

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we're taking a break from formal academic studies over Ramadaan so we can concentrate on our Arabic and Quran. But I don't mean we're going to stop learning altogether - that's impossible anyway! Just that we'll discuss things as they come up rather than do planned lessons (they'll still cover plenty of Literacy/Numeracy targets naturally through reading/everyday experiences/etc.), but I thought it made sense to keep a loose Science focus by getting all the books (both fiction and non) out for their book box for the month, since it's the season for growing things anyway!

So we've got a few projects on the go at the moment...

1) Tulips from Amsterdam

The ones my parents gifted us a few months ago have begun to bloom - some seem to have died! The second pot weren't buried deep enough, as when it rained the soil was compacted and so exposed them again, so I asked my husband to help the twins replant them while I was out one day... Still no success compared to the others, so I had a look myself and realised they'd been planted upside down! Replanted (so for the 3rd time lol) in an attempt to save them but it looks like it was unsuccessful... But still a good teaching point into why they didn't grow so nothing lost there!

The ones which have blossomed look beautiful though. 👍

2) Chinese beans

My sister brought some beans back from China (wish I'd remembered to take a photo of them before planting as they had Chinese characters written on them!) though she's not sure what species they are exactly. 😂 So we decorated some old glass honey jars with the girls' names and planted the beans in there. I'm hoping the glass means we'll be able to get a peek at some of the roots! These are on our kitchen windowsill so it's easy to remember to water them and easy to keep an eye on the different stages of growth. 😁

3) Sunflower investigation

A few years ago we grew some sunflowers in the back garden which grew to an impressive height, taller than the fence! When we grew them, I decided where to plant them based on where I thought would get the most sunlight... So this year, I suggested an investigation to see if the amount of sunlight really makes that much of a difference to how plants grow. So we planted a few on the side of the garden the original sunflowers went and a few on the opposite side of the garden, in the shade of the fence. No mention of soil quality at this age - we're making sure to water them both the same amount and assuming that the only factor being changed is amount of sunlight!

Unfortunately, our poor sunflower seedlings have had a rough start... One week, my husband forgot they were there and we lost a few to the lawnmower. 😑 But rather than give up, we replanted the ones which seemed mostly intact and Alhamdulillah a few survived! But then the next weekend it was incredibly windy (Storm Hannah I think it was called?) and from our survivors, there were a couple more casualties blown over or away completely! So now we have two strongish looking ones on each side, and maybe a couple of late sprouters which may end up growing to flower... Who knows! But again, some more interesting learning opportunities so no great loss. 😊

So for these, the girls need to remember to water them (usually when I'm putting out/taking in the laundry!) and also weed them when they look like they need it (why do they need weeding? So the other plants don't take their water and nutrients from the soil, so the sunflowers can grow bigger!). Maybe next year we can do another investigation where we only weed some sunflowers and leave the others to get overrun. 😀

4) Nature walks

The HE friend we went on the Clent Hills walk with is organising regular meet ups at similar locations for more long walks. We went to Clent Hills again on Sunday with my husband, to see how far Z could manage since some of the routes aren't pushchair accessible, and mashaAllah we were out for just over 2 hours (with stops!) and she was able to walk to the top and take the steeper route down again. The walks which are planned with our friend should be around 45min max, so inshaAllah we plan on joining them as they come up over the next few months.

Just being in nature sparked up lots of casual conversations and learning, e.g. what are pine cones for? How do trees breathe if they don't have lungs? Identifying different species of plants (daisies, dandelions, bluebells, buttercups, nettles, blackberry bushes, etc.), comparing the shapes and textures of leaves and petals, etc. etc.

The walks have also been great for building confidence (e.g. keeping balance when going down steeper, gravelly sections of path - thinking they can't do it then proving themselves wrong!), problem solving (looking for the sensible places to climb hills, i.e. less steep, not as muddy, good footholds, etc.) pushing past their comfort zones (they wanted to try climbing a bigger tree on Sunday and, with a little encouragement, managed to get higher than they have before!) and of course, building stamina and endurance. 💪