Pine Cone Experiment

WELL I NEVER.......

There are some things that just leave you awestruck and excited and then you want to share and tell anyone and everyone who would care to listen, because you know they will surely try it too. After all "Seeing is Believing"

I saw this one on a Montessori Blog but can't remember which one. I  will link up if I find it again.

Take different kinds of pine cones.

We found the soft and hard ones........

Put them in water........

SURPRISE!!!!!!

Now I didn't know that could happen... Did you ?

It took about 30 minutes + for ours to close.

Next we left them to dry out. 
In a few days they open up all over again. 
Then we soaked them again only to dry them again and start all over again..... :):)

I hope to add more/better pictures soon

Here's an explanation and a related activity for older kids.

Pine Cone Weather 

I am linking up to

Color Swirls in Water 2

UPSIDE DOWN FIREWORKS 

I got so excited when I saw this idea on Homeschool Den, especially because that's exactly what we have been doing that past few days....play with food coloring. (See post on Color Swirls in Water and Color Wheel Activity 1) 

You can their explanation of the experiment here.

You need:

• a glass or vase full of water
• few drops of food coloring
• oil in another bowl (the quantity of oil should be enough to make a cm thick layer for it to work well)
• a toothpick to break down the drops of food coloring in the oil
• a spoon to fully scrape off the oil and food coloring droplets 

And see how ours looked like !

In comparison to our previous color swirls activity, the tiny droplets came down slower than they came down through the shaving cream. The effect was simply gorgeous ! Subhanallah !

My kids pointed out "Mama look at the top too, it looks so cool from the top. Take a picture, take a picture"

We want to do this again with a light behind to see how it glows !

What do you think ?

Scare the Pepper

EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF EXPERIMENTS

A friend gave us this lil experiment kit, with simple easy to do experiments. The other day I made Lil Muallimah to do this, right after breakfast.

Here's what you need

• Black pepper powder
• Dish liquid soap
• a bowl
• a utensil to pour water
• a toothpick

We used utensils from our kit

Pour water in the bowl and sprinkle lots of black pepper powder over it

Finally dip a toothpick tip covered with dish washing liquid in the middle of the bowl and watch the pepper closely........

.............it rushes to the sides! Subhanallah! She repeated this experiment and tried out a few other things, while her brothers gave their own guesses. What's your guess ? WHy don't you try and find out ?

Red Chillie Pepper

Whole black pepper

                                                                     

She also tried salt and sugar. What else can you suggest ?

Colors Lapbook

ALLAH MADE COLORS

This post is about our very first lapbook :) almost 4 years ago. It was a very basic and simple lapbook as at that time I was still learning how to do them. I made a simple fold lapbook with a single manila folder. To make it attractive I made Lil Muallim # 2 color the pallet and covered the inside with marbled construction paper.

For flaps I took 4 strips of same colors each a bit longer than the other. On the cover I drew a brush stroke of color which Lil Muallaim # 2 colored himself. .

The next strip had the spelling of the color which he traced with glitter pen. 

Next I asked him his favorite thing that was that color eg his favorite yellow thing. 

 Finally on the last strip he stuck something that Allah made of that color

We did the same for each color and this personalizing feature really clicked with Lil Muallim # 2 Alhumdolillah ! He loved making it,  looking through it again and again and showing it to others Mashallah. 

  This simple format lapbook really took my fear away from the concept of lapbooking. The sense of ownership children get over it really takes their learning up quite a few notches Mashallah.

 Over the years we have made quite a few lapbooks which the kids have enjoyed. Others are still incomplete but are waiting to be finished. Qadrallah :) I hope to post about all of them one day Beidhnillah.

Fractions # 4 Measuring Water

MEASURING WATER 

WITH MEASURING CUPS

Honestly! This post has been in drafts for the longest time. My apologies. This was a very simple and effective way to reinforce our previous fraction lessons. I got 4 small, 1 cup measuring cups and 1 big, 4 cup measuring cup from the $ store.

This is how we did this activity

1. Fill 2 cups of water in the big measuring cup
2. Pour water in one of the small measuring cups upto the 1 cup mark
3. Look into the big cup and see how much water is left. Make the child observe. (Answer =1 cup, 2-1=1)
4. Now pour water in the 2nd small measuring cup upto the 1/2 cup mark
5. Again, look into the big cup and see how much water is left. Make the child observe. (Answer =1/2 cup, 1-1/2=1/2)
6. Next pour water in the 3rd small measuring cup upto the 1/4 cup mark
7.  Once again look into the big cup and see how much water is left now. Make the child observe. (Answer =1/4 cup, 1/2-1/4=1/4)
8. Lastly let the child pour water back and fourth to all measuring marks and discuss what they observe

 I let Lil Muallim # 2 then play around with the cups pouring back and forth. I let him do it just visually till he really got it ! 

Now playing with water is fun any time.... and then when Ummi not only let's you play with it in the study room, but actually set's up a tray for you to do it. rest assured they will come back to it again and again Alhumdolillah

Finally once I felt he saw the relation in his measuring and fractions, I made him write do it and then write in it his Math Notebook.

His observations......

A lesson well learnt Alhumdolillah !

Pink Tower Broad Stair Extensions Part 1

THE BEAUTY OF MONTESSORI MATERIALS AND METHOD

I am simply loving what I am learning with Montessori approach. We as mothers do some things intuitively but t times in our own excitement take away from the moment of the child. It has been a refreshing reminder going through so many wonderful Montessori blogs.

Two days ago Lil Muallimah wanted to work her Pink Towers and Broad Stairs. Usually she works with them by herself and calls me too look at her creations. But that day she wanted me beside her today. Alhumdolillah I stayed with her and got a chance to enjoy her light bulb moment :)
She brought each piece one by one and then asked me what she should do. I started to make a pattern asking her of she would like to do something like that. Mashallah with every pattern we made at that time she quickly cried out.. "I know what you are doing. I want to do it myslef !"

Alhumdillah !  I, then left  it for her to continue. It was so wonderful to see her seriously thinking when the pieces didn't match up or the pattern didn't continue. She asked me and I just said just look at it. I DID NOT say any of the no no's like "mmm! mmmmmmm! "Somethings not riiiiiiight." "Are you sure that goes there ?" We do tend to make these mistakes with our in our zeal but don't realize that it takes away from the childs' own thinking and problem solving. Patience is the key and jumping in and making decisions for them or giving instant solutions effects their learning. Now if I could always do this with my older ones, which I tend to forget at times in the pressure of homeschoooling 3 varied grade levels and life!

I would love to hear from more Montessori Moms about this.

Well coming back to Lil Muallimahs moment of glory. She has done most of the following before but today was differemt. I hope you enjoy her progression as I did.

She made the following Extension and said with an amazed look..... "They match !"

Here's a side view of the same. Balancing the last two on the carpet was tricky and she asked for help.

Then she asked "What should I do now?" So I quietly started to make another pattern and she immediately took over saying, "I know what you are doing!"

Next she asked the same thing, and as soon as I started she said "I know what you are doing. I want to do it myslef !"

Then, came this.............

Once she was done she had a big smile on her face and said " Look Mama ! It looks like it is Pink Stairs and Brown Tower!"

She made the connection !!!!!!!!!!!! She was so pleased with herselfat making her very own discovery. Once we shared that with her brothers. She said...`"Ok what do we make now?" 

Here it is.......Front View

Back View

 It is so cute how she likes sit proudly beside her work and wants a bit of herself in the picture. That's her way of showing it's her work.

After this I had to leave the the room to tend to something else and told her she could make what she wanted. After a few minutes she came running to me saying........... 

"You have to come. You have to see. Take a picture"

"Look I made a helicopter!"

  
 Now what do you say !!!!!!!!! 

Teaching Quran from Conception to 2 years

TEACHING QURAN PART 1

Assalamo alaikum warahamatullahi wabarakatuhu,

Teaching Quran is a new series of posts I have been intending to start on my blog. I got the final push from this post by Basbusa's Mama on Sugar Cake Diary. Alhumdolillah ! This and the following posts will be part of the Blog Hop: How Do You Teach Quran? she is hosting...Mashallah. I am looking forward to learning new ideas and improving our method where we are lacking Beidhnillah.

Well my journey of teaching my kids Quran started well before they were born....literally! I thank Allah for giving me the right knowledge at the right time...... Subhanallah.

But before I can start talking about what I did... I have to tell how I came about to do that. So please bare with me.

Going through the pregnancy guide book, during my 1st pregnancy I learnt that at 20 weeks (5 months) the unborn fetus can hear sounds from within the mothers body and outside. A new born also recognizes his parents voices and responds to them more than voices of others after birth, as well as other familiar sounds.

Then came a shocking new trend......

What am I talking about...........?

THIS!!!!!!!!!

 Astaghfirullah !

I was shocked to see a picture similar to this in the news paper.   This became the new fad. Making babies listen to classical music in the pretext that it increased their IQ etc. Some hospitals around the world actually started doing this in their nurseries as a rule !!!!!!

Then came Baby Einstein Mozart and many other gadgets fooling innocent new parents into buying them with statements like....

"BABIES can remember melodies they heard in the womb, according to a study."

These notions were backed by different studies and researches done in universities. These researchers discussed how they organized an experiment on several pregnant moms and asked them to listen to a certain type of music during their pregnancy. They were told to stop listening to any music after the babies were born. Then after a month they asked the mothers to bring the babies in for the final test. They exposed each child to the different kinds of musics they had asked the volunteer moms to listen for this experiment to the babies one by one. While the babies showed no interest in other types of music,  their behavior showed a marked difference when THE music THEIR mother had been listening to was played. They showed signs of excitement, happines, calmness and more responsive.

As a Mulsim, there was only one lesson to be taken from this......... the fact that babies hearing starts developing in the womb and they can recognize or respond to more familiar sounds made me think.

Why not Quran ? Why not try and bring about a love for the Quran from before birth. If I deliberately expose my child to any sounds what can be more beautiful than the Quran.

That set me out on my own personal quest Alhumdolillah !

What did I do ?

I started reciting out loud to my babies in pregnancy and after they were born.

Reciting what ?

• the Kalimah 1st thing in the morning
• the daily adhkar
• daily Salat slightly out loud
• the suar (surahs) I knew by heart while I was doing work around the house......

Alhumdolillah :) I tried to do this diligently with my first two at different times of the day, while washing dishses, folding laundry etc. With my other two all this became more automatic as I would remind my older Lil Muallims to do their daily recitations and adhkar.

Did this help ?...... Oh yes it did Alhumdolillah. It did help immensely. Especially to calm my children down when they were crying, got hurt and when trying to go to sleep.

Further on, by continuing this practice, helped my children to actually learn and recite the daily adhkar, suar (surahs) and Salat...... it was more like fill in the blanks Subhanallah !

Over the years, one after the other Allah put so many related articles, news pieces and presentations from Islamic perspective in front of me which I have benefited from.

It has been a wonderful journey full of surprises which I intend to share in the coming posts Beidhnillah !