Spring is officially here!!

Assalamu alaykum,

spring has finally arrived! The air is warmer and sweeter, the sky is blue and colours are everywhere! Mind you, we have been mostly at home, ill! Hamdulillah.

For the last couple of weeks, our health has been tested, indeed Allah is the Most Powerfull; first it was me with a abdominal pain and I ended up in hospital because of it. I made another visit to the hospital just last week because I accidentally dislocated my little toe!! Then after it was the 'seasonal' bug in the stomach and another of my wisdom teeth is appearing making things more difficult! Hamdulillah Rabbi 'Alamin!!

Nevertheless I kept the boys busy, whatever we were able to do under the circumstances.

We started a new project called 'Ancient Egypt'. So far we read about ancient Egypt using one of the history book bought from the books people and collected all the materials we need for a new lapbook. A. worked on some worksheets related to the topic and S. followed with some colouring! Together we made a pyramid and read the story of Prophet Musa (as) and Firawun.

We also watched, again, the episode about Ancient Egypt from the Horrible History collection.

I managed to teach the kids for 4 days in a row!! I was surprised since we were not really with it. But hamdulillah it was so nice to go back to some sort of routine after spending 3 days in bed, and I mean in bed no moving an inch!!! :(

A. carried on with Calvert and he completed a new Asdan challenge (the garden project!). In Maths he still learning about fractions. He started to solve problems with fractions, you know the ones with the pie or the pizza slices!!!Hopefully this will take him slowly to the concept of decimals and percentages. Insh'Allah.

In English the new section about 'Family' looks so inspiring and gave me a chance to explain how important are family ties and how important it is to look after ones family and respect each other. We worked on new sounds and more on consonant clusters. A. used lots more the dictionary for words he didn't understand, and that was kind of exciting as he has never been keen on searching words in the big book of words!

Also this week, he started a new book, this one is a looong one! He chose it one morning that he was still not well and felt bored in bed! I have almost 'imposed' him to sleep but he said he wanted to read. So he chose one more book from Roald Dahl 'Danny, the champion of the world!' and he found lots of words that he didn't know. He is still reading this very book after 3 days and take the book anywhere! Mash'Allah tabarak'Allah! I think he said he is on page 138. How many pages are there!?!

In Science, we have revised 'Pull and Push forces'. Filled some worksheets and done couple of small experiments using the knowledge we acquired from the topic studied.

In History, A. read about the history of transportation and made a mobile to hang in his room with all different kind of transports new and old. We used the paper models in Calvert book 'Explore your world.'Of course, 'Ancient Egypt' was a big hit this past week, nothing to do with transportation but we did look into ways that Egyptians used to travel e.g. boats made out of papyrus leaves to cross the Nile from the West side to the East side!

Qur'an and Arabic progress as usual. A. is now learning the tajweed of Surah Al-Baqara. Mash'Allah!!Don't ask me why the tutor chose Surah Al-Baqara. Most probably he wants to test A. knowledge of Arabic!

S. has been busy with Maths, lots of Maths! In fact since mindspriting is back online, I printed off lots of worksheets, just in case we bump into some techie problems again.

He worked through tens and ones and this time he got it! He understood straight away without the help of the counters.

I have also left him with couple of worksheets full of additions and I was surprised when 10 minutes later he showed me his work! Well done! Mash'Allah.

In English, S. is learning new words as well as new sounds. He asked wht's a rod? And what's a 'mummy'? We have made good use of the worksheets found at parents in touch website and from mindsprinting. Also finished his second collection of Kipper and his friends (Oxford Tree Learning) collection! Mash'Allah!! I need to buy some more from the book people. Things is where do I store them!! My bookshelves are so full already.

Finally this week S. started Science and he filled some worksheets about plant's parts. He did not know the name except couples like petals and leaves. The rest were all new words to him. I must make sure he does Science at least twice a week as I can see he lacks of knowledge. I thought when I was doing lessons with A., S. would too listen and maybe record some notions but...maybe on other topics. Insh'Allah.


In Qur'an S. has started tajweed of the small surahs as his new teacher believes he should know the tajweed first and then the hifdh after. I agreed with him as I have experience with my kids and they both learnt first hifdh and had little knowledge of tajweed and felt they were only repeating like parrots without reading the Arabic.

Our weekly activities are changing again and it won't be the last time as more sports or activities are adding or leaving!

Kids won't be attending any longer the Thursdays and Fridays madrassa. I think I can do what the madrassa does. So there is no need for me to travel or spend money. Qur'an and Arabic is done at home by private tutor anyway. So all it's left is Islamic Studies. I will tackle that insh'Allah.

We also stopped attending the homework club. It just happened gradually, I guess I felt the boys really didn't need an homework club. In fact they can do their homework in the comfort of their home, mash'Allah wa hamdulillah.

Swimming is off for the next two weeks for half term but not wrestling. So it looks like we have plenty of time to study and maybe meet up with other sisters, insh'Allah.

Spring is here! The tree of the neighbour said so!!!

Our potatoes sprouts out.
Planting cherry tomatoes.
Some more potatoes and french dwarf beans

The Pyramid model completed

Almost finished

Need some sellotape and first part is almost over

The beginning some recycled materials

S. made the map of Egypt, you can see a palm tree (look carefully)

and the Nile (you cannot miss it!!)And btw the yellow colour is the sand