MIA

sorry weve been mia lately.  my husband went to malaysia for two weeks and weve had a bit of a difficult time without him around [weve never been away from him before].  both boys were quite sick with fevers n coughs... and yusufs behavior has been totally off [he resembles a child taken from the show super nanny!]. we spent a few days at my parents house which helped. but its gonna take a while for things to get settled down again. inshallah he arrives tomorrow night, and im sure well all go through a bit of an adjustment period.
keep us in your prayers!

Bullatin Board

Yusuf got a new Bullatin Board. Im excited :)

Eye Chart

We made our own eye chart [I googled it]. :)

Hooked on Phonics

MashaAllah Yusuf is showing alot of interest in reading these days. Alhamdulillah he is able to read 3 letter words. I bought this Emaan book series from Sound Vision [where his arabic classes are] and hes enjoying them. My sister in law also lent us her hooked on phonics set which we started yesterday and alhamdulilah hes doing really well. I think its so amazing to watch a child [especially your own] grow and acquire new skills such as reading. SubhanaAllah its a miracle how Allah has created us and giving us the ability to learn. May Allah always increase our children in beneficial knowledge, Ameen.

Climbing

I went to the resource center yesterday and picked up these for Ibby to help him strengthen his legs inshaAllah. So far hes loving it. He climbs up the ramp and pulls himself up to stand. But hes afraid to go through the tunnel. And it goes without saying that Yusuf is enjoying them as well :)

[sorry I dunno why but Im having issues rotating pics]

Basketball Cake

Today is the last day of Yusuf's kidsport class. He has been going once a week for about three months now. MashaAllah he has come a long way. The first few classes he had major seperation anxiety (it was his first unparented class), but mashaAllah he really improved each week. In celebration of his achievement we made a cool basketball cake and and also, myself, Baba and Pops will be attending his class to watch them play a hockey game = )

We had a lil science lesson with mixing yellow and red food coloring to make orange icing. Yusuf also broke the eggs and poured the ingredients into the mixing bowl.

Happiness is...

...a freshly organized storage room! = )

Alhamdulillah we have two good sized storage rooms. This one (the cold cellar) was full of Mahmood's aunt's stuff. So I moved all of her house to the furnace room which also has boxes of the boys clothes. And now, this room is our homeschooling storage room :) I got this idea last night while falling asleep and am super excited about it. I hate having all the boys toys out all at once, becasuse as you can see, they have a lot of things! I really like rotating their stuff so they get better use out of it and enjoy it more. After is been stored away for a while it feels like new once taken back out. Plus I have a weakness for buying educational things for them. But please do note that this is a collection that I started since before I was pregnant with Yusuf... and alot of stuff is from garage sales. One of my biggest pet peeves is not taking proper care of toys/belongings so alhamduliah I have managed to keep everything in good condition.

Anyways, now that everything is accessible and organized, inshaAllah we will benefit more.

My Friends

Today at Deen class the kids learned that the word 'Sahabah' means the companions of the Prophet Muhammad SAW. They learned some names of the sahabah such as : Abu Bakr, Uthmaan, Ali, Umer, and Bilal. Then they did this cute activity where they each got their own bristol board and then went around the class asking their friends to trace their hand and write their name on the bristol board.

Fingerprint Art

Yesterday at playgroup we discussed the human body. We did this neat finger print craft to go along with the theme.

Paper Mache - Part III

The finished product - a decoration piece for Yusuf's dresser.

Public School Parents guide to Homeschooling Parents = )

click here = )

Labelling Body Parts

We traced Yusuf back in Ramadan to make a good deeds poster. It was hanging on his door but Ibby started ripping it any chance he could so we took it down n put it in the storage room. I took it out today and we labeled/decorated it. This is the start of our human body unit study inshaAllah.

Paper Mache - Part II

Ibby helping

painting it orange to make a basketball (did I really think hed choose to make it something other than a basketball??)

holding the balloon that we removed from the paper mache

Unit Studies: Human Body

I was privileged to take part in a meeting of homeschooling moms this weekend alhamdulilah.  It was awesome to meet and learn from these sisters.  Anyways, we discussed Unit Study as a form of homeschooling and I want to give it a try.  Basically you take a topic (ie. dinosaurs) and cover all subjects (math, science, art, language etc) by incorporating that specific theme. 

So Im gonna start of with the Human Body since mashallah Yusuf is really inquisitive about the way his body works.  He often makes comments such as "Momma, I wanna see my bone" or "Is my nail made of skin or glass?" :)


I have a few ideas floating around in my head that I jotted down but if anyone has any ideas/resources/links they would be appreciated.

I will keep you updated on how it goes inshaAllah.

My ideas so far:

art: make a life sized tracing of yusuf n then decorate/label body parts
language: head n shoulders song (learn in arabic as well)
sounding out body part words
science: learning about 5 senses
why do we sweat (he has a facination with sweating)
different injuries (he talks alot about how bones break)
deen: why Allah made us (to worship Him) Allah made man out of clay, angels of light, jin of fire
different things we do with our body to worship Allah (fasting, praying, dhikr, tasbeeh)

Seerah Mobile

Today in deen class, it was my turn to be the the teacher. The topic was the children of the Prophet SAW... so we made a mobile with different shapes n colors that had the names of the children on them: Abdullah, AlQasim, Ibraheem, Ruqayyah, Fatimah, Umm Kulthum and Zaynab. On one side we wrote the name in Arabic and on the other side we wrote in English.

Must Read!

mashaAllah I love this sisters blog....
shes an amazing writer with an amazing story to tell...
may Allah swt bless her and her family in this life and the next...
check out this recent post :
click here