Unschooling

Assalamu alaykum,

it is not as simple as you think! Not at all. Unschooling is, in my view, the hardest part of teaching.

When unschooling, you go the opposite direction than secular schooling. When unschooling you choose to let kids learn in their own time, with their own wish and will. Of course creating opportunities for kids to learn is fundamental.

Creating the place where kids can learn, filled with resources such as books, art&craft ready to be use, maybe a blackboard and some chairs and a table.

Kids are aware of the environment they are in and if not push to learn, they will start their own activities and learn at their own pace. Mash'Allah.

Some time ago I bought a book called 'The Unschooling handbook' by Mary Griffith.

A well written book, full of real unschooling stories.

I enjoyed the reading and learnt so much more about unschooling.

How do bees make honey?

Kids love honey as much as they love to ask adults this question -- How do bees make honey?

'Mum, how do bees make honey?'- A. asked tonight.
So we read this lovely book for primary school years about Bees and how do they make the honey. Here it's the link to purchase this book and a set of other lovely books geared for school children http://www.ss-services.co.uk/
We also talked about the benefit of honey and since we are a bit under the weather I gave the boys a good spoon of honey before going to sleep!
Found this resource, very nice.
http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/fellows/Elrod/BeeQuest/ceindex.html

Muslimah trying to home edu

Our setting!

Assalamu alaykum,
we called it Al-Fatiha. The beginning. It's our homeschooling setting. As we don't have a spare room, we use the kids bedroom. Everything we need is in there. This is just part of the setting.
I set up everything as in real life school so that kids can fully enjoy their homeschooling experience.
Here are the pics of some of the resources available to them, mash'Allah!
From the top:

Pic1 all around useful school board!Bus with Phonics. Alphabet,numbers, shapes etc. Bucket o' play dough, about 4 kg of it!!!!

Pic2 Poster of Prophets Names and Places where they live and what they did! Mash'Allah!

Pic3 Till, kids learn so much about money and how to count the change. We also have a trolley, basket and a lots of useful goodies to go with it.

Pic4 Table and chairs for kids size. Montessori recommended!
Pic5 board for kids' works;
Pic6 kids library, not just books, but board games, educational toys etc
Pic7 Arabic Alphabet. it must be one of the best mat we ever had! Kids love it.

More pics soon to come....

More Art&Craft!

Our Seasons...well half of them anyway!

Autumn and Spring Time.

Wooden Spoons Craft

Assalamu alaykum,
I have not updated for a while because we have been not so well, hamdulillah.
While at home, not feeling too good, we have been crafting...again! :)
This time I felt very arty or crafty!
We bought 10 wooden spoons for £1 (GBP) and decorated them with bits and bobs we found inside our art&craft box.
We decorated the back of the spoons (it's easier than the front) with colored pens, stickers, colourful paper etc.
Just look at our finished products! Don't they look nice?
Next time we will work on dressing one wooden spoon with typical clothes form historical period as we are learning about History. E.g. cowboy, a Hawaiian, an ancient Egyptian, geisha etc.

Fanoos

Assalamu alaykum,
so we were eating chocalate! A. looked at all the lovely wrappers and said he wanted to collect them. 'Maybe we could make something out of it!'- I said.
So we did!
The plastic colorful wrappers were perfect for making some Fanoos (Egyptian Lanterns).
Here some lovely ones! Will post the pics of our own laterns later as I need to upload them from
my digital camera. insh'Allah

Qur'an Studies

Assalamu alaykum,
kids are back to evening madrassa, hamdulillah. They like going as it is the only 'formal' school they attend.
S.is just starting with the Juz Amma (30th part of the Qur'an). He loves repeating Qur'an and he will repeat the short surahs even when he is playing with his toy cars.
A. is finishing the Juz Amma. Few more surahs and he will start the 29th part of the Holy Qur'an. I cannot wait for it! Mash'Allah tabarak'Allah.
I regularly revise their madrassa work with them. So we do repeat Qur'an everyday and writing Arabic.
I find that it is more beneficial if we do it everyday as it brings them closer to their deen.

Illustrated History of Islam

Assalamu alaykum,

we bought this book from simplyislam.com today. It looks really good for our studying. Insh'Allah the kids will benefit from it.

We studied the Prophet Idris today but as we don't have enough resources to study further the period when each Prophet lived we have to wait for this book to arrive.

Insh'Allah will write down a review about it.

Wa alaykum assalam

Muslimah Trying to Home Edu