Bead Art

When Science and Art come together.....

After a lesson in parts of a plant Lil Muallimah wanted to do some arts and crafts.......

The result was quite surprising and cute..... Mashallah !

Stitching the continents

STITCH AWAY

Looking through my drawers I came across these Africa dot to dot printouts that had come out on cardstock by mistake instead of regular paper. It hadn't occurred to me at that time but this time round I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them :):):)

Have my Lil Muallims stitch them...................! How cool is that ? Looks I will end up printing the other continents too on card stock. And to stitch them we will ofcourse keep up with our Montessori color theme yaaayyyy!!!

Sometimes I wonder do my kids really get as excited as myself ? Well I guess at least this time they will.......... hehe

I am going off to prepare the material let's see how they'll react....

They loved it .....

ALHUMDOLILLAH!!!!!

Sorry for the poor images..... will try and redo.

Us on Pinterest

Umamah Learning Academy is now on

Hope you'll find some useful pins while browsing through our favorite pins......

Static Electricity # 1

Fun with Static Electricity

You have to see the video to understand and enjoy the Experiment

paper punch outs from a 3 hole puncher going WILD !!!

Tracing Maps

IMPROVISING MAP MAKING

Lil Muallim has been working with maps in Geography. Recently he's been making physical and political maps for different countries for each continent.  

I'm sure many have done this before but it was the first time in our house......What you may ask.......placing the sheets on top of each other and sticking them onto a window with removable tape!

EUREKA 

A pain staking activity just became a breeze! Alhumdolillah

What do we Waste ?

TOP 10 THINGS WE WASTE

Recently I made a chart for my kids inspired by an entry in our planner by Busy Homeschool Mom Planners. There are other versions online to, but I liked her Islamic version. I am sharing it here with permission with the hopes that others can benefit too.

Most of it is quite obvious, but some may have you scratch your head

So here's the list:

1. Knowledge
2. Action
3. Speech
4. Body
5. Love (and we do love so many things)
6. Heart
7. Intelligence
8. Wealth
9. Time
10. Service

Beidhnillah I will add links to each  of the above listed titles as we do detailed lessons for each.

  

Feel free to download the Poster, the explanatory Notes  and Worksheet for kids to do their own write up.

For now we are working only on the first three. So during the day whenever any of the kids show wastage of Knowledge, Action or Speech I gently ask or remind them what they are wasting........In a house of young children waste of speech and actions towards siblings is quite common.

BUT the best part is that to implement this I have to be as CONCIOUS of myself too !

Oh Allah Make us steadfast in this endeavor and help us improve ourselves to become better human beings and even better Muslims.

If you use this idea please share ideas on how you applied it in your home. 

  

Pre Ramadan Planning

MAKING A CONSCIOUS EFFORT

I've noticed a pattern in my blogging... It's usually most active during and around Ramadan. So without further ado, here's what we are trying to do this year.

Every year I found myself planning and working with the kids right before Ramadan or during it. But I really want to spend my Ramadan with less planning and organizing and more achieving in the sense of Ibadah and organized learning and Ramadan themed activities with kids. I've been wanting to start early and vowed not to let time pass away this time. This is exactly what I told my kids.

I also told them that Inshallah we will all try and work together to raise our level of Eiman BEFORE Ramadan so we can enjoy the best RAMADAN we've ever had in terms of perfection of Ibadah and in making conscious efforts in gaining extra Hasanat.

So here's what we did. May Allah bless our efforts Ameen.

I sat down with the kids with calendar pages from March to June  printed from worksheetworks.com and asked them to mark Ramadan and Eid. Then we counted how many days we have left for Ramadan starting from March 2nd.

You can get these from our PDF link here

 So we've got approximately 108 days........ Now what can we do make the most of these days to increase our levels of Eimaan. What areas do you think we need to work in.... let's Brain storm.

Here's what we came up with between Lil Muallim 1, 2 and Lil Muallimah.....

1. Improving Salah
2. Regularity in Quran Reading
3. Understanding Quran
4. Improving Duas
5. Improving Dhikr habit
6. Charity: monetary and through doing EXTRA good deeds
7. Learning Hadith and Sunnah

Alhumdolillah the brainstorming was fruitful and by the Mercy and Grace of Allah the kids came up with all the aspects I was hoping for.

Next up we brainstormed on what we had to do to achieve what we want in each area. You can also download a sample of our table or an empty template to work on your own

Finally we marked what we wanted to start out with first. I told the kids we will ease into those slowly making sure our progress is constant cause if we get into it full  force ahead we might loose our steam and then not be able to achieve what we are hoping for. 

We would like to move slowly but surely gaining momentum and Istiqamah Inshallah 

Will try and post our progress as we move along with our plan..... First off kids are attending a Halaqah every week where they work Basic Islamic Concepts, Surah Translations, Duas and more through mini lapbooks and other wonderful resources graciously shared by Muslim Homeschool Moms.

Ya Ar Rasheed....The Guide the Righteous teacher....please help us achieve our goal this year and let it not be just a plan....

Moon Phase Unit Study

Planning a Moon Phase Unit Study

I found this interesting Moon phases Unit Study which I hope to take inspiration from for our this years Lunar Calendar study. 

Every year before Ramadan we try and do a review of Moon Phases with respect to the Islamic Lunar Calendar.... The excitement of looking for the new moon for Ramadan and Eid are just priceless........As exciting these special occasions are the homeschool mom in me cant help but help my kids appreciate the design and mathematics in Allah's creation. Subhanallah....!

Every year as the kids grow they are able to absorb more and more details, which is great!!!

MOON UNIT STUDY by Susan Evans

And while were at this....... One just can't help but LOVE this adorable  Moon Phases video :

How to do a Unit Study

UNIT STUDIES HERE WE COME

I simply love the concept of unit studies. but that only happened when I played around with the idea and indulged in it. That's when I realized I had actually done mini unit studies before without ever realizing it. 

I have to admit our Egg Unit study was the very first official and comprehensive one. More followed but unfortunately haven't had a chance to grace the blog. Where time flies is simply beyond me...........!

As much as I like to be organized I am fully comfortable with doing things at the spur of the moment. All I need is a sudden light bulb moment, a new concept I discovered or a questions asked by the kids. Next thing I know I find my fingers tapping away on the keyboard and searching the cyber space. There are endless resources online, over the years I have learnt to skim through them find what I want Alhumdolillah.

We have done Unit Studies with  the following:

1. a story
2. a documentary
3. history topic
4. a science topic especially animal study

Once we figure we are doing a unit study, we indulge in research through our personal book collection, local library resources and ofcourse pinterest, homeschool blogs, search engines for ideas, printables, textual material pictures and videos etc.....

Next we may choose to indulge in it thoroughly and make a lapbook or notebooking..... or we really may just do it as a research project based on the questions that come up in the kids mind, where we may just look up the info for ourselves without actually making an organized written unit study.

VALUABLE UNIT STUDY RESOURCES:

This one has an EXCELLENT and MUST SEE intro into easing in into Unit Studies featured by one of the Participants of Unit Study WEBINAR on google Hangouts

Unit Study Video Hangout featured by Heidi Ciravola of Starts at Eight

The Joy and Ease of Learning through Child led Unit Studies by Best Homeschooling

How to plan a Unit Study by Our Journey Westward

How to create a Unit Study by the Happy House wife

Unit Study.com by Amanda Bennett

Should you Use Unit Study and How to Create a unit study by Living Montessori now.

WATER....... EVERY DROP COUNTS

WARNING: Please screen before showing these to your children as all family dynamics and children's comprehension and maturity 

levels vary. 

We found the following documentary not only quite an eye opener but also a strong tool for introducing the plight of others for things that we take for granted..... life cannot be imagined without water.... yet we find ourselves wasting it away while the many in the world are fighting for their rights, for one of thee MOST BASIC necessities of life.......

WATER

Words cannot describe on how many levels this documentary hits you....... I am trying to build a unit study around this documentary. I will share it as soon as we are done.

As add ons I found another list of documentaries on WATER.......

10 must see documentaries that give insight to future water crisis

Best Toddler Qoutes

Toddlers are just like men.... Can't live with them can't live without them !

Here are my favourite Toddler qoutes................

Do you feel the same way at times...... what do you do.... ?

Best Housework Qoutes

Warming up to make a return

It's been a long time and I have been missing blogging a lot........ here are a few qoutes that have humored me and see the lighter side of the never ending housework......

Love the last one...........that's deep......... What  do you in your such moments.......

Busy life

TODAYS REMINDER

Rewards in Jannah

WHAT WILL WE HAVE IN JANNAH ?

In league with our lesson yesterday on Bab ur Rayyan... Lil Muallimah was aksing me questions about Jannah. I told her some of the things Allah will grant His blessed people in Jannah, like palaces and fruits and rivers of sweet drink. The most amazing thing my kids always find is the fact that hot will not feel hot and cold will not feel cold made them exclaim with the biggest smile and eyes popping out..."So we'll be able to play with snow without mittens and without snow jackets and snow pants!"  Also, not only will the people of Jannah have rivers of water, milk, honey and non intoxicating wine but will even be able to tell their river to go wherever they want. They be able to grab whatever fruit they want to eat from apples o strawberries all growing on the same tree, without having to climb the tree Subhanallah !

I also found these amazing printables on rewards in Jannah  at Tasheel Tadrees . There also have many other creatively made resources there Mashallah!

A few days back Lil Muallimah had 
made a picture of things she would like to have in Dunya (home) and in Jannah :) May she be able to strive hard in Allah's way to get much more than she can imagine Ameen

I also did an activity with my older Mullims. We all made a list of things we would like to have in Dunya and the things we would like to have in Akhirah. The point of the activity was to see which of the things that we wanted in Dunya would lead us to the things we want in Akhirah the eternal abode.

We got the printable for this Ramadan Planner

Along with all this the middle ones continued another of our family tradition which I will post about in another post. 

Number Sense and Numeration 1

Math: Number Sense

(In an attempt to re organize my posts this one is being re posted as a separate post)

We are working on number recognition for numbers 1,2 and 3. 

Number Sense Tub # 1

 Lil Muallimah spreads out the cards and then matches the foam letters with the number shape on the card. She loves getting it right and see how they match. We are still working on the order of the numbers :) 

The beads at the bottom of the card help in counting. 

Hoping to have her correspond with items at the back of the cards soon. Inshallah

Number Sense Tub # 2

This is our FAVOURITE one. Got the idea from another blog. So again Lil Muallimah spreads out the card but this time matches the corresponding "pom pom balls" on to the card. There are only the exact number of balls for each number with it's corresponding colour so she can't get it wrong.......very encouraging! :) As you will notice I have used the small sized pom pom balls for this activity.

You can find the post and the printable here.

PLEASE READ: A dear friend did point one thing out to me about the following activity. It is EXTREMELY important if you are dealing with younger children and/or  ones who are not strong with their colors. 

" If we were to look at it from the Montessori perspective, there is room for improvement. If I were to ask you a simple question as to what would you do if a child matches 3 pompoms with no.3, but he does not match the right colors? if u try to tell the child that the colors need to be matched as well , he may be offended because he might only be interested in numbers and not colors. A montessori activity concentrates only on 1 basic concept or idea. This is called isolation. 

Similarly in teaching quantity and number symbols, the quantity/object should be the same, e.g. all pompoms should be the same color and size, the symbol should be the same color and size. the control of error should be in accordance with the concept. In this case it would be 6 pompoms because matching 1 quantity wrong will leave more or less pompoms in the end."

May Allah reward her for pointing it out.

As pointed out above, this would be a concern for a very young child, who is still learning numeration, colors etc. Any confusion may put them if and it is important that our children don't feel discouraged while learning.

I had intention to remake this activity fur Lil Muallimah but I didn't as she didn't show any signs of  confusion. She knew her colors too well and had a reasonable sense on numeration too.

So I guess in our case the remake will wait for Lil Muallim # 3

because 

learning.

 

 Still have to laminate the cards. I did add my own touch to cards (only not to waste the index card and for future learning! :)) once I cut and pasted the numbers onto the index card I used the remaining portion to spell out the number. I don't refer to it at all now. It;s just there. Later when we are working on sight words I will start pointing onto the number in words too.