BRINGING BACK THE ESSENCE OF HOMESCHOOLING
Homeschooling is a strange thing....it bundles up so many emotions within it. Subhanallah! Everyday brings it's own challenges, joys, stress and not to forget the frustrations. You always want to be on top of everything but it's very easy to loose track of things. And that could be because of anything.....toddler interruptions, mood swings, tantrums (kids or moms!), delayed cooking, headaches, runny noses or just about anything. With that if you add your social commitments, house guests, pre-guests prepapration, scrambling to handle homeschooling with live in guests and then hoping to get everybody back on schedule once the guests leave. No to mention the weekly lesson planning, regular house chores.......Oh I could go on. But I am sure you all get the gist of it :)
If you all are wondering why I babbling about the obvious, well because in all the chaos I felt I had lost my kids interests (which for me is a red flag in homeschooling). I realized I had lost myself somewhere in all the above mentioned chaos. I am not sure exactly when it started to happen but everything had started to slip out of my hands and I wasn't getting back in control. So in the process of resurfacing with our homeschooling, I found inspiration from a new homeschoolers blog Mashallah. Her blog made me realize and remember my own zeal and wonderful ideas I used to have and implement.
So finally today I hoped to start with a new spirit with Allah's help. Only today I learnt 2 beautiful duas and now want to start our regular Homeschooling dua with it Inshallah. Here I am adding the translation of the duas....hope to add the Arabic too soon.
Dua 1
We have entered a new morning and also all creation in Allah's dominion, Lord of the worlds, have entered the morning. O Allah, I ask You for the good of this day, for its victory and its help, for its light and its blessings, and its guidance. I seek refuge in You from the evil of this (day) and the evil that follows it.
Dua 2
We have entered a new morning and so too the entire kingdom of Allah has entered a new morning. Praise be to Allah. There is no God but Allah, Alone. He has no partner. To Him belongs sovereignty and praise and He is upon all things All-Powerful. My Lord I ask You for the good of this day and that which follows it, and I seek refuge in You from the evil of this day and that which follows it. My Lord, I seek refuge in You from laziness and helpless old age. My Lord, I seek refuge in You from the punishment of Hell-fire, and from the punishment of the grave.
What a wonderful reminder. It is He who has provided for us all that we need it is we who forget. La haula wala quwwata illa billah.
SO WHAT DID I DO?
STEP 1
First of all while the kids were in the process of burning out their morning energy I tried to prepare for today. I made a poster for the door. When my kids saw it they asked "Who is this for?" my reply was "For all of us". Honestly speaking, I haven't been very happy with myself these days cause I let all the stresses and frustrations get the better of me. I missed the fun loving, energetic, upsy daisy Umm Umamah. So today even though I had to be stern at some points I remembered to be calm and gentle. ALHUMDOLILLAH! If you are wondering what the poster was thatt made me do it look below.
You can download it for your classroom too if you like.
STEP 2
I made sure I didn't let either of the 2 Lil Muallims slip out of the study mode. Sat with them and kept them engaged together. Alhumdolillah. They also got to see that with just a little adjustment we could do multilevel studies together without effecting the other. Mashallah! The ultimate goals: Both get free time at the same time so the other doesn't feel " I am studying while ..... is having fun!"
STEP 3
Did an art activity together at the end of the lesson... a wonderful way to relax after some GOOD hardwork. even though it was basically a toddler activity all the kids really enjoyed even Lil Muallim # ! Mashallah! It was so much fun that I pointed out to my kids that if we get our morning lessons done on time we could make an art activity at the end to chill out! :)
Check out our today's activity:
I took a long strip of paper, taped it onto the floor, put some blobs of paint onto it, gave them toy trucks with textured wheels and let teh sound effects begin..... hahaha!!!!!
To my wonderful surprise Lil Muallim #1 who is quite older than the others not only wanted to do it, but enjoyed the activity immensely. Not only did we have an encore performance on strip # 2.
It was almost therapeutic for them and a reawakening moment for me....Now it's upto me to maintain it with Allah's help Inshallah
I owe this to Allah who brought me to the inspiring blog Mashallah.....infact her Blogroll gave me so many more ideas Subhanallah! May allah reward her Ameen. Check her blog out:
Homeschooling is a strange thing....it bundles up so many emotions within it. Subhanallah! Everyday brings it's own challenges, joys, stress and not to forget the frustrations. You always want to be on top of everything but it's very easy to loose track of things. And that could be because of anything.....toddler interruptions, mood swings, tantrums (kids or moms!), delayed cooking, headaches, runny noses or just about anything. With that if you add your social commitments, house guests, pre-guests prepapration, scrambling to handle homeschooling with live in guests and then hoping to get everybody back on schedule once the guests leave. No to mention the weekly lesson planning, regular house chores.......Oh I could go on. But I am sure you all get the gist of it :)
