INDEPENDENT LEARNERS

'O Allah increase me in knowledge,
amin.'


Thursday 9 April 2009

Ancient Egypt and Fimo

Assalamu alaykum,
it has been a full week of learning.
We followed through with Calvert for A. and mind sprinting for S.
Since our new routine, no many activities squeezed in and little time at home, we are gaining more pleasure on spending time learning, reading and being crafty!

Time's flying and we are soon reaching the end of our 4th year homeschooling (officially-without counting the earlier years!). Mash'Allah wa alhamdulillah!

For the past two weeks we worked on a new project: Ancient Egypt. It has been a great journey for the kids and for me too. We used lots of different resources to build up a Unit Studies and made a lapbook out of it! A. and S. both worked on something and they enjoyed a visit to the British Museum too for the exhibition of 'Ancient Egypt'.

We talked about so many different aspects this very topic touching lots of subjects: geography, science, art, Islamic studies and of course history!

We used the Internet to download free worksheets, books we had at home to gather material to read and copy work (A. loves copy work) and to conclude we visited the Museum to give the kids a feel of what they studied.

For the Islamic part, we used various books including 'Stories of the Prophets' by Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi,'Prophet Musa' by Darussalam and 'Illustrated History of Islam' by Dr Abdur Rauf.
Since we started to talk about Prophet Musa (as) we decided to compile a separate lapbook as we did for Prophet Ibrahim (as). Only things I am struggling to find worksheets or any resource for the kids online.

It has been a week of art and craft too! We had painting and lots of colouring. Kids coloured pyramids, sarcophagus and decorated paper plates with spring motives, flowers, bees, butterflies etc.

I bought some fimo for the kids. Never used this material before and wanted to try. It is great fun, smells terrible but the result is great. The kids have used it to decorate two wooden, plain brown frames. The result? Well have a look see what you think!
That's one more ASDAN challenge completed for A. 'making something for the home! A decorated frame could do? Insh'Allah.

Today as we enter at home, after a day at the Museum, we found this 'Change for life'. Mash'Allah! I thought they forgot about it. I send back the colourful application they sent me months ago. It was kind of an 'assessment' to see if my kids get the right amount of good food. It is about change for life, eat healthy and lots of exercise. I think it is a great incentive for the kids and specially for the parents to start to live a healthier life.
The weekly planner will go in the kitchen and i will monitor the kids to see how much fruits and veggies they eat. I'll do it for fun but it's also a good reminder and also to check if I do always give them 5 a day!

I am off, kids have Qur'an lessons and I need my daily cup of caffeine.
For now
wa alaykum assalam
(in reverse order as I don't have time to put the pics right-sorry)

Ancient Egypt Lapbook cover

The inside of the lapbook, writing in hieroglyphic
The map of Egypt
A stickers book and Ancient Egypt wordsearch

S is enjoying painting outdoor!
The 'healthy' eating challenge
All the rest of the free goodies
Animals mummified
Painting of one of the Pharaoh
Mummy of a Pharaoh (no name mentioned)
Canopic jars containing the interior of the deceased
The outer of one sarcophagus
Mummy in the inner sarcophagus
One more sarcophagus
Just a pretty mat at the entrance of the Museum
The welcome hall in the Museum
S. decorated frame with fimo
Who's behind those scary masks?
A.'s decorated frame
Fimo needs to go into the oven for 30 minutes


3 comments:

Riaz said...

I have you ever visited Egypt?

A Muslimah - Another Stranger said...

Hello Riaz,
how are you? Long time!
No sadly we never visited Egypt but would love to one day...
Have you?
x

Riaz said...

I have visited Cairo and Luxor twice. There are loads of things to see in them and I can tell you more if you are interested. Cairo has many interesting mosques with different designs reflecting different periods such as Abbassid or Ottoman.