Igloo

Snowman Puppets

Yesterday we had a friend over and made snowman puppets out of cotton balls and paper bags.

Playgroup: Winter

Today we went to playgroup. MashaAllah it was a lot of fun. It started with our usual circle time (surahs and songs) but for the first time we had the kids do show n tell which was cute. Ibby took a ball, and Yusuf took one of his new cars along with a Malaysian Twin Towers figurine that Baba brought back from his trip. Inshaallah we will continue to have show n tell apart of our regular circle time.
We then read the same book which we read at preschool class yesterday [The Mitten] and the all the kids brought their mittens, put it on a sheet, and used the sheet as a parachute and tried to bounce off the mittens and see which one lasted the longest. The kids had lots of fun!
After that we played with ice. The Mom whose house it was at froze a bunch of different ice shapes, including a big ball of ice made by freezing a water balloon, and different ice cubes, some of which had food coloring in it. The kids used water to stick the ice together to make buildings. It was a great playgroup.. and you can check out some of the pictures here and here (sorry Im having issues uploading pictures)

Preschool Time: The Mitten

The book that was read (which I found to be pretty cute)

The activity that was done after the story (as you can tell, Yusuf doesn't like to colour!)

Yesterday I took Yusuf and his friend to the Ontario Early Years close to our house. I planned on just going for drop in but they had space open in their preschool time program so I registered them. The class had calendar / circle time, songs, a story, a craft and snacks. InshaAllah I plan on taking both Yusuf and his friend every week as long as they continue to enjoy it. Its one hour and once a week.

Ice!

I saw this idea on a blog a few months ago but forget where.
Anyways, we collected some stuff from our front yard (leaves, sticks, flowers, stones) then put them in a margarine container n filled it with water. We then put it in the freezer and waited for it to freeze [we had to check the progress every 15 minutes].
The next day I put it on a baking sheet for Yusuf to play with. He slid it around, played hockey with it [as you can see in the bottom pic, hes scoring], we put salt on it n watched it melt and then put it back in the freezer since it was time for bed. Well probably take it out again tomorrow.

Playgroup: Winter

It was our turn to host playgroup today. For January we are doing a unit study on winter inshaallah. We read this book called "Snow."
We also watched a time lapse of the four seasons. To watch, click here
We passed a ball around our circle and each child said what their favorite season was.
We looked at what snow flakes look like up close. I cant find the link we used but heres similaar one. Click here.
And then we made snowflakes using these instructions. Click here


Then the kids drew a picture on construction paper and then used a q-tip and white paint to make snow. Alhamduliah it went well today. = )

Eye Chart

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

Fingerprint Art

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

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.

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)