Written numbers in word form....Montessori style!

This is quite a nice lesson to help give an understanding of numbers in words, as well as understanding decimal place.

Some time ago I printed from Montessori Print Shop place value cards for the Golden Beads. These are cards which come in sets of 3, depicting a value in its number form, written word form and an image showing the beads representing that amount.

For anyone who doesn't use the Montessori beads, these could easily be substituted for something similar such as base ten blocks, and you can find websites to print the large number cards I'm sure for free.

Anyway, here is what we did.....

1.) I gave K the value card in words.

2.) K then brought the corresponding bead material.

3.) I gave K the picture card to check she was correct.

4.) I then asked K to bring the correct value number cards...........

...........which she had to put together to show the correct number

5.) Finally, I gave K the number card so she could check she was correct.

My home school planning.....

I have been burying my head in the sand for some months, trying to hide away from thinking about what I am going to do for our next school year (which is little over a week away as I am writing this!).
It got to the point where I told myself, if I don't face up to it, sit down and think, the next year will be as wishy-washy as our previous year and we will accomplish little!

So far we haven't been taking any set breaks, rather just went with the flow, taking days (or weeks....or months!) as we needed it....and we have wasted alot of time! This year, I want to be organised inshallah. I have toyed with the idea of unschooling so much, telling myself we will just go with the flow and take each day as it comes, but when I pinch myself and take a reality check, I know I need structure. So the only way to get a bit of structure, would be to plan!

Thinking about planning a whole year seems hugely daunting....I don't know at what rate the kids will progress at, what they will be interested in, or what our situation will be in another 6 months! I don't want to spend so much time planning now, only to discover my planning was not relevant, or the kids had not reached that level, or indeed had far overtaken a level!

So how can I plan a whole year, without really planning a whoooole year? ....well, this is what I have decided to do, and I thought I would share how I have done things...

1. Work out school-time dates

After skimming through a few blogs to get an idea of how others do their planning, the first thing I did was to decide when our school year will start and end, before dividing into into 6 weeks blocks, with 1 week break between.

I like the idea of having a school year from Ramadan to Ramadan....so that our big break will be at the end of the year throughout Ramadan. So we will start just after E'id and end a few days before Ramadan next year inshallah.

I printed off a school calendar from Donna Young and got out my highlighter pens, marking off school time and break time.



Yellow marks school time, and the green break time!

I have to tell you,  just doing this exercise seemed to make planning the school year so much easier, as I can clearly see defined blocks! I have 6 six week blocks and 1 with just 5 weeks.
Straight away, this made the idea of planning so much easier alhamdulillah, as the year is broken down into smaller sections.

 I also think taking scheduled breaks will be great for me and the kids inshallah....knowing at the end of 6 weeks, we will be taking time out to re-energise inshallah!










2. A rough plan 6 weeks ahead

I worked out what subjects I want to go through with the kids, and marked them out, showing how many times a week we would do them inshallah.
I've tried to be a bit more realistic this year, and not plan to over-do-it with too much every day! I'll try this schedule and tweak it if necessary as we go along. This is K's subject plan....

3. Organise Subjects

So after working out what subjects I want to go through, I then put together a subject lesson guide, going through what each lesson will cover inshallah and detail any resources which need preparing...which I then prepared ready!

4. Prepare resources

So once I had a general lesson guide, I prepared the resources, worksheets, lapbook segments etc and placed inside a file folder, with each file section containing 1 subject.
So all I have to do (in theory) when we start school next week inshallah, is pull out from the front of each subject section the work for the day put them in the workboxes.

So there you go, thats how I have planned this year round! I have 6 weeks of lessons planned ahead alhamdulillah....although still have a couple of things I still need to finish off inshallah. But I hope that it will mean I won't have to be searching the computer, making or printing resources as we go along, and instead spend more time with the children inshallah! We'll see how it goes.....!

Madina Arabic Reader lapbook lesson 1!

Some time back last year we started going through Madina Arabic Reader, however didn't get very far! I've decided to start again from lesson 1, and have made a lapbook corrisponding to the Madina Arabic reader lesson 1. We haven't finished it yet, but here are a few pics of what K has done so far...

Vocab mini book

Picture - word match game

Question vocab flaps

Sentence building cards K enjoyed using these cards as a game with me ...we would take it in turns to select a picture and ask the question "is this....", she would find it amusing if I picked a picture and asked if it was the wrong thing!

K still needs to complete the lapbook inshallah as still a few more mini-books / cards to add. Its helped K to remember alot of the vocab alhamdulillah because I have repeated alot through different activities.....May Allah facilitate her to remember it all long term (and me too!)

Its available for download inshallah HERE!

This years Ramadan Good Deed Tree!

A few days latter than planned, but we got there alhamdulillah! Finally got round to making this years Good Deed chart for Ramadan!
The past couple of years I have made a tree picture for the girls to add leaves for each good deed they do. I like to write on the leaf what it was the girls did or said.
Its nice because it makes me focus and recognise their good behaviour....which often gets overlooked! So from the smallest kind word to doing big actions to please Allah, it will be recorded and stuck up on the tree inshaAllah!

This year, I've made a big tree to stick up on the wall, about 1m tall from opening up a box. The kids added some glitter, and I punched heart shapes for the leaves! (thought would be cute!)

Heart number flashcards / book 0-10

Z made some heart shaped number cards which she coloured (with Mama's help because she insisted it was too much work to do by herself!) and then we turned them over to add red glitter before laminating to make into cards.

When I put the file together for this project, I intended to staple them together at the side to produce a small book, but I figured laminating into cards might have more future use inshallah.

I've uploaded the file  (pictured below) and can be downloaded inshallah HERE!

Noun Poster

I find that the more approaches we can use to learn or revise a concept, the easier it is for K to understand and retain information alhamdulillah, especially if something is a little more hands-on and visual.
Today we put together an A4 poster showing some noun examples, using the Montessori noun symbol above each word as revision.
Inshallah we will complete a poster for each of the grammar rules as we learn them and perhaps bind them together to form a booklet.

K decided to turn the poster into a spider diagram connecting lines to the centre title mashAllah! Its nice to see her developing her own work ta barakAllah.

A couple of days ago K also completed a couple of these noun worksheets available HERE!

How a child can become corrupted.....

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said

"How many people have caused misery to their own children, the apples of their eyes, in this world and in the Hereafter, by neglecting them, not disciplining them, encouraging them to follow their whims and desires, thinking that they were honouring them when they were in fact humiliating them, that they were being merciful to them when in fact they were wronging them. They have not benefited from having a child, and they have made the child lose his share in this world and in the Hereafter. If you think about the corruption of children you will see that in most cases it is because of the parents.”

Tuhfat al-Mawdood

Controlling Anger children's workbook

I've been wanting to do something with the kids for a while on the topic of anger, and show them how important it is to control it inshalla

So here is a printable colouring workbook,  is available for download inshallah HERE!

***edit 28/05/2012 - forgot to mention that the ahadith references are all from the English Translations published Darussalam

French Bean update...

Alhamdulillah K's beans are growing alhamdulillah! Today we finally got round to making the cover for the bean diary (to go into the lapbook)!

French beans grow so fast SubhanAllah!

A quick update on K's French Bean jar! We haven't been quite so consistent in checking daily as we should have....a couple of days we have not been home so didn't think about observation!

SubhanAllah these beans grow fast! We "planted" 2 beans in the jar, and they sprouted I think on day 3. (the day we didn't check it!...we checked day 2, and day 4!)
And this morning, after not checking for a couple of days, one of the beans had grown a stem and leaf, and the second was just starting.....but this is the amazing thing subhanAllah, the 2nd bean which this morning was just shouting its stem (I have to learn all the scientific names!) in the space of about 3-4 hours, its grew I'd guess, about 4cm subhanAllah ta barakAllah!

The sad thing is, K is not here to see it! She is at a friends house so I feel really sad she has missed the excitement!

.....note to self.....make sure EVERY day K checks the beans inshallah! lol.

I really recommend this experiment, the kids get sooo excited seeing their little bean grow subhanAllah!