Squares and Rectangles lapbook

Assalamo aleykum,

Alhamdulillah we managed to wrap up some nice activities about squares and rectangles. I had originally thought of having a lapbook about quadrilaterals (with trapezoids, rhombuses and parallelograms too) but there wasn't going to be enough space to explore the difference between all of those shapes. So we stuck with the easier ones for the time being. It is very similar to our Triangles Lapbook, and again it all started with an Amazon box I had received a book in (alhamdulillah for saving them!):

 

 

The colour scheme is a little out there ... eh eh. Anyway, the first part is a collection of some creative bits and bobs: Yusef cut out and coloured his own cardboard shapes (and made some holes in them so they could breathe... bless him!) and then we built a robot using squares and rectangles (the base of the robot was one we had left from this build your own robot craft kit, but it can easily be recreated).

 

On the middle section we built the shapes with cut drinking straws, the straight parts for sides and the bendy bits to make angles, and we made a little flap inside each shapes under which we hid the answer to the questions:

 

 

 

(^^In the middle of the assembly work, Yusef decided he had to spell my name with sticky letters, so I included in the lapbook. Apparently my name is "Mommi", see above, bottom right <3 masha'Allah)

 

The third part is the one that is full of surprises. On the outer part of the horizontal flaps we stuck 3 minibook we had made, 2 of them are collections of geometrical puzzles - intended for much older people - but that I use to let Yusef practise his ability to identify the shapes (those that are more apparent of course) and to count them, within his ability of course:

 

 

 Unlike the similar minibook we made about triangles,most of these puzzles each featured more than one kind of shape, s he had to be careful to colour only the one that was relevant to the exercise:

 

 

 

The 3rd minibook features pictures of objects that can be either square or rectangular, labelled with the object name that Yusef traced, masha'Allah. I do realise all objects are 3D, so I tried to choose flat things, to make it less obvious to a 4 year old:

 

 

Under the flaps, we practised some "measuring in non conventional units". I simply printed out some grid paper (medium and large from here ) on white and coloured paper and drew some shapes for Yusef to fill in with squares, cut from coloured paper. He then counted how many squares were needed to make each shape and wrote the numbers. (Barak Allahu feek to Aisha, my sister in Islam and "home educator extraordinaire" - masha'Allah - for telling me about non conventional units of measure!!!... I had no idea)

 

 

During a recent conversation with my (birth) sister, I was reminded about PATTERNS and though "We haven't done patters in ages!!!" so we devoted the last bits of space left (under the horizontal flaps) to patters, made with squares cut out of the leftover card we had used:

 

 

 

This was good fun alhamdulillah :)

 

Everything can easily be found online/reproduced, however, if you want to save time, here is what I used (they are NOT looking very professional, please bear with me...):

 

How many rectangles can you see?

How many squares can you see?

Same object rectangular and square

Various labels (including blank speech bubbles to add to the finished work the best quotes from your child as he/she was making it)

 

 

Arabic sandpaper letters

Assalamo aleykum,

 

I FOUND MY SANDPAPER!!!! ALHAMDULILLAH!!! (I had been looking for it for a few days and had started to despair, after even my husband - who is masha'Allah an excellent finder - had said he was going to buy me another pack). Excited as I was to have been reunited with my never-used-before craft material, I put the boys down for a nap and started making Arabic sandpaper letters (I just wanted to clarify it was the children's naptime, I didn't just shift them so I could play!...).

 

This is one of the most iconic Montessori resources, and it is one that parents often have a go ad making themselves. You can find many blogs or websites that explain how to, but I really like this on a blog called  The Accidental Crafter. That was my main inspiration.

 

First thing you need some card, either coloured or you can paint it yourself. One colour for the consonants and a different one for the vowels. I chose to cut my cards size A6 but I could have gone bigger.

 

Then, you need to print out the letters in a very big font. For the Roman alphabet, you can dowload the Montessori font for free online, but here I was doing Arabic letters, so I used the large colouring alphabet available on Yemen Links, which is ideal masha'Allah not only because of the size, but also because it's in an outline font (using a font that is not hollow in that big a size means using a looooot of ink, especially given that all you need is the outline).

 

Next, turn over the papers where you printed your letters and, with a pencil, trace the letters on the back, to obtain their mirror image. Cut roughly around each letter and glue them on the back of the sandpaper, remember to put the glue on the printed side of the letters, not the one you traced, so you can have them mirror image up.

 

Then proceed to cut them out very carefully and precisely ... bismillah!...

 

 

 

Next, glue them on the cards you prepared (it helps if, after cutting out the main body of a letter, you use the sandpaper cutting to help you place the dots exactly where they were insha'Allah).

 

 

 

Finally, just spread them all out and bask in their coolness!!!!!!!!

 

...oh, yeah! the children...I forgot!... yeah, although my elder has already been able to recognise the Arabic letters (in isolation) for some time masha'Allah, and my younger is still too young (he would eat them), I will focus on how to write them, tpencil control, he movements he should do, where to start from etc. I might add it on to each card if I see that he struggles.

 

....OR, I can just keep them all for myself ... MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Rewards of home education

Assalamo aleykum.

Yesterday I taught Yusef the Arabic short vowels (fatha, kasra, dhamma), using some lovely resources available online (which I will post soon with picture of the end result of our efforts insha'Allah), all I wanted to share with you was the sudden thought I had while my son was reading "A...A...U...I...U...": I taught him this, by the will of Allah, and if Allah wills I will gain some rewards EVERY TIME my son - in the course of his life - will pick up a mushaf and read anything from it, as it was me who (by the will of Allah) shared and instilled in him the basic knowledge to enable him to carry out this wonderful act of love and devotion.

 

On top of the feeling of warmth and excitement I experience as I imagine my son that fluently reading the Book of Allah, it makes me extremely happy and it feels me with hope to imagine all my little rewards, millions and millions of them, piling up, jingling like little coins, or better still, immaculate diamonds on the scale of my good deeds. May Allah make it so, may He purufy my intentions and make me a good teacher for His sake. And al of you, of course.

Our first lapbook is finished! alhamdulillah

Assalamo aleykum,

Since researching a little about lapbooking, I have been really really excited about it. It seemed like a very interactive and very creative way to collect the various bits and bobs we would otherwise do and consolidate learning.

Let alone that it is totally up my street, craft-wise...*emanates hearts*

Given that I am still playing it by ear and that Yusef seems obsessed with shapes lately, I decided we'll start with a lapbook on triangles. It seemed like an obvious choice since it is the shape with the least sides.

Now this may seem an ordinary Amazon box to you...

But once opened...TA DAAAA!!!!

 

First thing first: I printed off 2 A4 sheets of (large triangle) isometric paper from here to work as background, you could print more and cover the whole thing, but I wanted to leave some white.

 

Then we started off counting sides and angles of the shape. Not a problem for Yusef since we have just introduced polygons masha'Allah... but how to represent it? We chose to cut up drinking straws and pick 3 straight segments to demonstrate the number of sides, and 3 of the bendy bits to represent the three angles:

 

 

Then we went on to speak about the different kinds of triangles. After thinking of the possible ways to categorise them, I decided to just do so according to their sides (and not angles) so we made 3 flaps, for equilateral, isosceles and scalene triangles. I let Yusef trace the adjectives and place them on the outside of the flaps, as well as an example of each triangle.

 

 

We used sticky starts to mark the sides that are the same. Inside he traced the definition of each kind of triangle (I also put it in print, for clarity's sake, as he can get carried away with the tracing and make it a little "obscure" masha'Allah). We added a few example of each.

 

The pictures of triangles are from math-salamanders.com (each printable also come in b/w for the child to colour, personally I thought Yusef already had enough colouring in, as you will soon see...).

 

The 2 orizontal flaps (on the right side of the box) were covered with green paper (since the isometric grid we printed was - randomly - green, I chose that as main colour). On the ouside of the lower flap, we stuck the mini book we made about triangle road signs.

 

I simply collected pictures of triangle road signs from the internet and wrote a simple description for Yusef to match. I picked signs that are quite self explanatory. If you want, I can spare you the search, here they are: Triangular road sign activity minibook

 

On the top flap we stuck a pocket (not a proper lapbook pocket, but an empty pack of blue-tack covered in green paper! ... I had lovely templates, but my printer didn't take the cardstock I have and I was impatient ...).

 

The pocket contains some really great colouring job Yusef did over the last couple of days, identifying all the triangles in the shapes I found online by googling "How many triangles can you see?"

 

 



I cut the pictures and mounted them on some cards, punched a whole (or a few, in some cases...oops!) and we secured them with some string. The pictures to colour in are here: How many triangles can you see? you could make into a minibook too.

Inside the flaps it's a collection of pictures of triangular things. Again, from the internet. I also printed labels in a tracing font for Yusef to trace the names of the objects. There's a lot of flying things, because he is very much into planes and similar things at the moment. Here are most of the pictures I used: Pictures of triangular things

Here we also included a minibook (the hexagonal one above) taken from Enchanted Learning, but instead of drawing the items mentioned (Yusef is not much for drawing), we cut out pictures.

(By the way, NEVER google an image with the word "underwear"... seriously, what immediately popped out was enough to turn my stomach...I might be naive but also people are sick out there!!!)

Here is our lapbook, we really enjoyed making it, although Yusef saw all the bits and pieces together so one second he was tracing, then the next he was colouring in and after another 2 seconds he was cutting...lol. I'll make sure I hid the material next time! Insha'Allah we'll make one also for other categories of shapes... watch this space!

Cooking with your child :))

 

Assalamo aleykum everybody.

I really believe that children should be taught to cook for many reasons, some of which are:

 

a) Because it makes them much better eaters (I have a fussy eater and his approach to lunch changes enormously if I let him add something to the pot, stir and taste the sauce!...).

 

b) It is a necessary life skill!!! (I have come to the UK from Italy aged 21 without having EVER so much as boiled an egg in my entire life. I cooked my first plate of pasta under the supervision of a friend, and always enjoyed cooking since).

 

c) I am (so far) a mother of boys only masha'Allah, and I want to make a point as strongly as possible, that boys should be taught to carry out every single household chore because they'll have to pull their weight in the house too when they are married insha'Allah, just like our beloved Prophet (saws) used to do!!!

 

d) Because I strongly believe children should be brought up to help in the house in a way that is appropriate for their age. Every morning, after having his bottle of milk snuggled on the sofa with me, my 18 months old trots with it to the kitchen and puts it near the sink masha'Allah, may Allah bless him and make him even better <3

 

Which brings me to the book:

 

 

It was recommended by a sister on Facebook so I got it from Amazon (used, although it looked absolutely new, for 1p!!!!).

This is hands down the best baking book for children I have ever seen, in fact one of the best baking books in general! Every recipe, as weel as ingredients and tools necessary, are shown in clear pictures so that even a child that doesn't read can follow the procedures. There are basic recipes and many great way to create variations on them. It is such an inspired concept!

 

I bought "Baking with tots blah blah blah" books before, and they use many hundreds words to explain to you how your child can do this and that "point 34c of recipe: now you can let your child mix"... the only child-friendly feature of the book was the decoration on the cakes pictured, which is absolutely too sofisticated and complicated not only for a child to do, but also for a grown up with a child in the kitchen!!!

 

This one is completely different: it is for children to use! My son liked it so much that used to "read it" a lot even when we were not baking.

 

A little while ago we went shortbread crazy with one of the recipes of this book.

This is the tray we baked (after "quality control"):

 

They were yummy masha'Allah, we also did lots of the chocolate variety.... <3

Family tree (you HAVE to make this)

Assalamo aleykum,

 

today I was talking with a friend of mine about keeping good relations with our non-Muslim families, a very popular topic of conversation among us Muslim "converts". As both me and my friend home educate, I suggested her this activity that I, in turn, came across thanks to a sister on Facebook (sometimes it can have a use!). Here it is: The Family Tree.

 

You simply HAVE TO make it for 4 reasons:

 

1) It is very easy, as it comes with its own templates that you can download here. If you don't have foam, then use card on a cardboard base, as I did (actually the base was the 2 large sides of a cereal box stuck together).

 

2) It is very interactive: my son couldn't get enough sticking leaves! we made extra ones and he asked me to cut out so many we also made another tree just for him to stick leaves on it to his heart's content. He also loved helping to cut the grass (this was quite a while ago so his scissors skills were not what they are today masha'Allah).

 

3) It can be a lovely present for your child's grandparents, as it sends out a message that is usually very close to their heart, i.e. that they are also part of that child that they love so much, despite the differences. It conveys the feeling that we do not outright reject their legacy, on the contrary we treasure what of it does not oppose our beliefs and care to transmit it to our children. (It is a little craft that says a lot indeed!!!)

 

4) It is rather beautiful ma sha' Allah. Here's ours. We used only coloured card and a nice matching  ribbon as a frame.

 

 Here it is hanging on the wall in grandma's house :)

Italian feast!

This is the activity that we have done today at "Italian Club" (which basically consists of my son and the daughter of a friend who is also Italian). The aim was to learn the expressions "I like..." and "I don't like..." and start introducing some food vocabulary.

This idea just popped inside my head this morning when I was lying in bed half awake, moments before getting up.

I took 2 large pieces of thick cardboard (they are a little smaller than A3 I would say) and covered them with brown wrapping paper, for neatness and to avoid paper cuts (I had cut them quite roughly...) and also to give them more the appearance of the surface of a table (a "woody" look).

I printed out labels that said "I like...<3" and "I don't like... :(" and started gluing the "I don't like" ones at the top right of the board. (I had to do some of the preliminary work myself, because Yusef and his friend really like to play together masha'Allah, so I have to keep the activity short and sweet or they might get a little restless...)

I remember I had a few scraps of this vintage re-claimed fabric (from the time I thought I was going to learn how to sew...) and I cut 2 rectangles, a little smaller than the boards, so each child could pick a table cloth for their table. I had them glue down only the left half of it, where the plate was going to sit.

Then I helped them stick the "I like ..." label on the inside edge of a plastic plate with hoops of tape at the back (if you have paper ones it's probably better, we had to use A LOT of glue to stick paper on the plastic ones!...).

Then I presented them with a lot of cut out pictures of food items (mainly fruit and vegetable and staples like pasta, rice, milk, etc.) for them to choose what foods they liked and stick them in their plate. Each time one would select a picture, I would prompt them with the name of the item in Italian and encourage them to say the whole sentence themselves: "Mi piace ... la pizza" and so on.

The children got very excited masha'Allah, and soon they were picking and sticking pictures faster than I could go through the 'ceremonial' phrase with them!... and they completely packed their plates.

It was actually hard to find something they disliked for the "I don't like..." section that was going to be hidden under the movable half of the table cloth: 2 good eaters masha'Allah!!!

Finally we glued the plate to the base (on the left), with some strong glue. Do allow some time to set before they proudly run to show it to daddy insha'Allah. It would be a nice touch to add a plastic fork (or to make one out of card and cover it with foil) or even a plastic glass! ... but I didn't have any, nevermind! here's the finished product masha'Allah:

Pillars of Home Education

My Pillars of Islam wall activity was the very first thing I planned as a home education activity (it was a trial). As it turns out, I started planning it and planning it, and I wrote pages about the first pillar, while jotting down ideas for the others as they popped into my head... with the result that I totally over planned it and I could only go trough half of the stuff I had planned for the first of the pillars!

... My over complication of things meant that the whole reality of these 5 entities being "a whole" was kind of lost, given that the activity was abandoned for months and has only recently been "resurrected".

One of the things that I love about home educating so far is that you learn by doing. And when you realise you have made a mistake, instead of beating myself up about it or questioning decision, I find myself excited about the discovery and start thinking of how I can implement what I have learned for the benefit of my son's learning experience.

The over complicated version of this activity featured, as well as pillars to be stuck on the wall and images that represent them, a home made book, which failed to capture my son's imagination (despite the fact I thought it was simply AWESOME) and was never opened again ...

What he finds really exciting was the painting of the pillars, the sticking on the wall, the fact he can remember a few things of what I (succinctly) explain to him to go and report it to his father, ma sha' Allah.

 

(Home education means you will never throw away a cardboard box ever again!!!)

 

This was in our old house, where the pillars were put up in the kitchen, so while sitting at the table, Yusef was asked about those things up there and soon he learned their names in English and in Arabic :)

Instead of worrying about the clarity and looks of the headings, now I know it would have been far more interactive if I had printed them out in a hollow font for him to colour in  (I downloaded some of my favorite hollow fonts from the internet, but fonts deserve a separate post: I love them!!!) , or if I had letters cut out of magazines or letter stickers for him to compose the words.

 

It's a steep learning curve for both.

 

The Zakah one was very interesting for Yusef, as we got to make a sadaqah box to reinforce the concept of giving to the less fortunate: that didn't need much planning at all :)

 

I will update when we finish the pillars in sha' Allah (still 2 to go).

Learning about pre-Maths skills...

I have always assumed that the basic notions of maths for a young child would be: a) learning to say the number in the correct order, b) counting objects, c) recognizing written numbers, and then you would just go on to add, subtract, etc.

 

When I had my first child (and after he got to an age that allowed me to) I did read something about my fellow Italian Maria Montessori, and learned that there's much more to early Maths, and that it is a lot "earlier" than I had envisaged.

 

The fact that Yusef was obsessed with pans and lids, with opening and closing tubs, filling them with things, taking everything out again ... was actually him practicing some of the skills that lay at the very foundation of Mathematics and Geometry!

 

Recently I discovered other skills that I wouldn't necessarily have immediately associated with Maths before: patters and symmetry! So here we are a couple of months ago, takign a step back from counting things, learning about patterns with the 3 bears family counters (we actually bought the tub of bears, the sorting bowls and the pattern cards separately off ebay, it was slightly cheaper. It is a little expensive but we used them for various things so far masha'Allah)

 

Some online games that involve patterns and symmetry can be found on the Starfall website although if I remember correctly you need to register for them. Yusef loves them masha'Allah.

 

...I need to think about something creative to implement symmetry... watch this space in sha'Allah!

Easy felt flowers

Yusef and I made these for his grandmother, I had found some nice ideas online on how to make felt flowers, but this is a much more basic technique, that a young child will have no problem with in sha' Allah.

We started off with colorful flat buttons and my awesome bag of felt scraps that I bought off ebay (the listing is still here it is a cheap way to get a lot of different colours!)

 

I cut the felt in strips about 10 cm (3in) long and as thick as a finger to be the petals. You need 3 strips for each flower. Have the child put a drop of glue in the middle of one of the strips, and teach him how to glue a second one on it to make the shape of an "X"

 

 

Then have him glue the third to make the shape of a star:

 

At this point, if you want, you can cut out (or have your child do it if he can) either a circle or a small flower shape on a contrasting colour, and glue it in the center of the flower. It's not essential but adds colour and detail.

 

And finally choose a button for the middle (and trim the petals if needed)

 

 

Leave the glue to dry and...TA DA!!!!

 

 

 

We glued our flower on a piece of cardboard cut in the shape of a heart (remember to make holes for it to be hung before you start sticking). As added decoration, we inserted pieces of ribbon between the flowers and the base.

 

Yusef really enjoyed himself and grandma was well impressed :)

 



Dar at-Ta... WHAT?

 Dar at-Tawhid is the name that I have chosen for our "home school" :) It means "house of Tawhid", Tawhid being the purest monotheism, the affirmation of unity and uniqueness of God.

 

This is THE single most important thing to grasp and live by, in sha' Allah, so I thought, what name better than this? May Allah keep us upon it always ...

 

^^ This post reminded me about a wonderful forum where extremely talented sisters (ma sha'Allah) share their beautiful graphics http://www.easelandink.com/t935-names-of-allah-for-coloring. My favorites are these series about the names of Allah to colour in. We are aiming to create a band going alla around the kitchen with them, coloured and decorated with glitter.

Assalamo aleykum and Welcome!

Assalamo aleykum everybody,

Alhamdulillah, finally I managed to get this blog started!

 

Given all the inspiration that I have got - and always get - from the blogs of other Muslim home educators (that are very talented masha'Allah!) I decided to share the highlights of my journey as a mother and homeschooler, just to pass around some ideas.

 

I have only recently started home educating, as my elder is only 4 1/2, but I have already learned a couple of important lessons, the first of which is: to be a good home educator you don't need formal teaching qualifications or experience, you need a strong motivation.

 

My motivation, as it is probably true for most Muslim home educators, is that I simply don't want my children to attend state schools. This decision is not motivated by personal experience: as a child growing up in Italy, I loved school and, despite feeling that my eagerness to learn and creativity were somewhat constricted by its rigidity, I thrived in the school environment.

 

It is not the academic side of things that I distrust in the UK education system (I don't know much about it anyway), as much as the ethical side of it. I want my children to be brought up with a distinctivly religious education. In the hours spent on the internet researching about home education, I have come across a number of blogs and websites of practicing Christian parents that had gone the same route for the same reason.

 

While I want my children to discover, enjoy and benefit from what is good in this society, I do not want them to feel "different", a "minority", those who don't celebrate birthdays, those that cannot eat such and such meat product, those who cannot get undressed in front of the other children, those who cannot take part in the nativity play, ... the list goes on.

 

I want my children to learn that God doesn't just say "No." In fact, He has said "Yes" to most things!!!  but, how would a child know, when everything around them screams hedonism and carelessness about God's commands? What I want to instill in my children is the Islamic perspective on things, the perspective that God meant for everybody to have in order to be successful, satisfied and happy.

 

Hence, the foundation of their education, as of that of every Muslim, must be the Qur'an and the Sunnah, according to the understanding of no other than the Prophet himself (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and his Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all).

 

I hope that this blog may give some useful ideas to all parents, whether they home educate or not, about activity that can be enjoyed with their children.

 

And may Allah the Most High bless, guide and facilitate all parents in educating their children to Islamic standards, it is He who grants every success.