Arabic Progress!

I think I did not post anything for this year on our Arabic Studies.

We are using the Iqra Books to learn to Read along with the Word Flow. Reading is going on well Alhamdulillaah and Maimoonah has completed upto Book 3. She is able to recognize all letters in their different forms and knows the rules as far as she has learnt. I make her read each page everyday from the Iqra Book.

I use the Gateway to Arabic Book 1 mainly for writing and she is practising writing three letter words now. The progress is slow. Need to continue practising.

I am doing the Madeenah Arabic Book 1 with Maimoonah and I could not find any age appropriate worksheet to go along with the book. So I started doing the worksheets for each lesson. So far we have completed 3 lessons and the worksheets we did can be downloaded below:

Madeenah Arabic Worksheet 1
Madeenah Arabic Worksheet 2
Madeenah Arabic Worksheet 3

Inshaa Allaah as and when we do the next lessons we will share with you those worksheets as well. We also learn the Conversational Arabic from here

Fo more Arabic Resources please check these links
http://ummmaimoonahrecords.blogspot.com/2012/01/arabic-something-more.html
http://ummmaimoonahrecords.blogspot.com/2012/03/arabic-drilling.html

Pen Pals!

Alhamdulillaah sister Umm Suhailah at Mariam Poppins  was busy enough to organize a pen pal club with kids participating from around the world! The goal for this was to connect the hearts of the Muslim community throughout the world starting at an early age. Also to get kids to write and practice their writing skills! A fun and stress free way to get the not so enthusiastic writers to write.

At every age and stage kids get into a phase where they just refuse to write and get bored with writing and most of the time its frustrating to us to get the work done. But the solution I think and I found productive is not to nag but to let go and use other ways and means to get them to write, when they love to write something, they really write with lot of effort put into it. If you give them to do some writing in a workbook its always a tug of war if they are experiencing this phase of not willing to write.

Maimoonah too was going through this stage where she was making excuses not to write, and at that time Umm Suhailah came up with this Pen Pals idea and Alhamdulillaah it worked really well. Maimoonah got two pen pals from UK and the US.

She took lot of effort and wrote the letters, decorated them and also made some Thank You cards for them for being her pen pals.

We used our Writing Resource Book and I first explained to her how we write a letter. Stressed the fact that we follow the suunah of the Messenger of Allaah (writing the basmalah and addressing it and informing from who the letter is) in writing letters, spoke about how the Messenger of All used to instruct to write letters to his scribes that were sent to many kings calling them to Islaam.

Since we were also in Colombo at that time, she was able to visit a Post Office and see around what happens there. She stood in line got the stamps, pasted and saw the letters she wrote going into the post box. And she was thrilled when she knew her pen pals have received her letters and she was thrilled to receive letters from them too.

What she received from her pen pal from UK

 

Another way to make kids write is also to provide them with materials that are interesting like beads, stickers, notebooks with interesting pictures and stencils. I gave these stuff to Maimoonah and she uses all of this and draws and writes something or the other when she is bored. This one below is some things about Sri Lanka...

After writing letters to pen pals she actually got out of the phase of not willing to write. Writing became nicer and the process of writing was not as bad as before, by the Mercy of Allaah. And I know she will go through this stage again and we have to keep finding interesting ways and means to get her out of it from it Inshaa Allaah! The struggle continues..... :  )

Art Classes!

While we were in Colombo Maimoonah managed to attend a few Art Classes. My sister in law, an Arts and Crafts Teacher and a very talented one too Maashaa Allaah offered these classes for Maimoonah and we hope to continue through skype as well in the future Inshaa Allaah.

She taught Maimoonah some Brush Techniques (basic intro), Vegetable Stamping, Stencil Painting and Foil Technique. Inshaa Allaah many more to learn. It was a great experience to me as well. I have seen her teaching these to students many years ago but never really sat with her to learn! Now I am learning with Maimoonah!!! Here are some of her work and as we learn we will share with you the techniques as well Inshaa Allaah. I could not take some of the art work she did and those are left behind. When I am able to get them to my hand will add the pics Inshaa Allaah.


Brush Techniques

Art with Potatoes

Stencils

Foiling

This is artwork belongs to my sister in law!

Still around!

Assalaamu Alaikum to the old and new readers!

Alhamdulillaah we are still around, we have relocated again and settling right now. Maimoonah is doing well Maashaa Allaah and is grown too! We have also started homeschooling again after a break and with productivity by the Grace and Mercy of Allaah. Alhamdulillaah each situation and circumstances that Allaah puts us into is always a blessing and a great learning experience. This time we are left with minimum resources and space and we are exploring as to to how well we can learn the maximum, Alhamudlillaah.

So our journey continues and we will update and share our journey as always and will try to be consistent in blogging starting from next week Inshaa Allaah.

Jazzakumullaah Khayr for all the sisters who were concerned about our absence and for all your support and duas as always. Baarakallaah Feekum.

Good Finds!

Here are some of the new Resources I have found online to be useful. Hope this would benefit others as well Inshaa Allaah.

Hadeeth Snippets

Wonderful site for kids as well as adults to learn Hadeeth in Arabic and English with the audio. It also has colouring sheets for kids. Very beneficail Alhamdulillaah. May Allaah reward the brothers and sisters for their efforts. Aameen.

Taalib.com

This is a very beneficial site for all ages. You have to register to use the site and registration is free. This site owners are a family of students of ilm who have lived in Yemen and studied under the Ulama for several  years. Alhamdulillaah. They also have children's publications. Check it out! Some parts of the site is under maintenance. 

Ash Shariah

You can download Islaamic E Books and Colouring Books for kids, here. I downloaded one the books  and it was nice. The images are disfigured (I would have prefered if they did not have any facial images at all, but they are still disfigured Alhamdulillaah). They will be putting out more books for kids in the future so look out for them Inshaa Allaah.

Mariam Poppins

This is a site for Muslimahs to get out of their own ways as the blogger says it. You get beneficial tips, reminders, support and encouragement to be a better Muslimah, home maker, wife, mother and teacher. This is done by our dear sister Umm Suhailah. She also has a facebook page. Check out her new blog.

Learn Arabic
Free Interactive Arabic Learning Online Program. Register and learn online. I have not gone through the whole program, but what I did go through seems very nice and easy Alhamdulillaah.

Easel and Ink

This is a wonderful art garden for Muslim sisters. Check out and get many graphics, stories, duas and activities for little kids for free. The Home School Corner has many wonderful resources.

Getting back to home-schooling... Issues....

So after about 2 months break we resumed our formal homeschooling. This post is to remind myself and help others handle issues that I faced resuming work with a 5 year old after a complete break of couple of months or more. We learn from our mistakes when we are put into such situations and Alhamdulillaah we do overcome them by the grace and Mercy of Allaah through dua, learning, listening, calming and being patient. So I thought it would help me and others to write about what I went through this time.

We had a nice set up for homeschooling at our home for the last 3 years, minimum distractions, to yourself lifestyle, when the doors are closed you really do not know what is happening outside and a very routine based learning. Work Box system made things interesting as well and everything went as smooth as possible Alhamdulillaah.

Changes happened, relocation preparations were going on, and needed to have a long break due to circumstances. Except for listening to the Qur'aan Maimoonah was only engaged in play during the long break. When we started formal school she liked it, but was dragging her feet to finish work, even though she was determined to finish all the work boxes for the day, she had issues. I knew she needed help to get back to normal, but at times I too was feeling frustrated with her attitude, which was wrong really! So what was her problem.

•  I realised that she has forgotten to write certain numbers and letters even though her reading was normal. She has lost touch and writing was a big issue. This has made her loose her self confidence.  This was one problem. 
• The next was the environment. Change of the settings were effecting her.
• Mind was occupied with play
• Even with fun activities and with topics that she usually gets excited about she was feeling so lethargic to do as the mind was not settled.
• She has plenty of other things to do here so her mind was thinking of that..and every small distraction troubled..
• Since she was not so interested in doing work she used to purposely tell me the wrong answer, something like if I ask her what is this colour pointing to black she would say blue just to annoy me.
• Makes some silly excuses like, my mind is telling not to write, something wrong with the pencil it keeps falling down, my hand is telling me cannot write.... lol

Now, I need to find solutions. 

• Made lots of Duas
• I realized she is still young and I do not have to worry too much, and the curriculum I am following is such that I can continue it even next year. And we have already covered more stuff for her age So I can go slow.
• She needs help with writing. So need to go slow and help her with it. I started showing her how to write when she was taking time and reduced the writing at the beginning.
• Even though the lessons we do are usually short, I made them even shorter so that she does not feel stressed. 
• I started talking a lot more than I usually do, for each lesson and explaining more and more so that she gets interested. Indeed by talking they do learn a lot.
• Gave breaks in between each lesson, just asked her to go out to the garden and have a look, play a bit or just sit and watch outside. 
• Took her out to a place where she has not gone before. A multi storied book shop, she enjoyed the visit and picked up some books for herself. This refreshes the mind.
• Broke the sessions of learning into two some days  morning and afternoon so that she can take sometime and the workload will look not so bad. This way she also realised if she finishes the work in the morning the whole of evening she has time to play.
• Sent her to her Abi for a pep talk on her attitude. He explained to her nicely and in a way that she gets effected that learning is something that is going to make her successful first to worship Allaah properly and then to make her an intelligent human being.
• Consistency, even if she does only one minute of work, I made it a point that we follow the routine continuously. This gives her self satisfaction and she feels good about completing and removes the feeling of failure. 
• Change my attitude. Swallow up all the frustrations and anger and try to give more praise even for a tiny thing, ignore things that could be ignored and carry on with firmness but use lot of flexibility. Need a great deal of patience for this subhanallaah! 
• Incentives, in other words bribe a little. We have told her if she does all the work with interest and complete then she can look forward for a trip to the zoo or some play area, etc etc

These are some of the solutions that we are implementing and the struggle is continuing still but becoming much better and easier Alhamdulillaah. With time it will be normal again Inshaa Allaah. These problems and solutions are based on Maimoonah's personality and our learning environment  as I always say each child is unique and you need to deploy your tactics accordingly. The above listed are very specific for our household but I presume it could be the same to another household as well. And it could help others generally to overcome similar issues Inshaa Allaah.

Please do share your experiences by commenting so that all of us can benefit too Inshaa Allaah.

Resuming........

It has been pretty long since I blogged over here. Qadarallaah maashaa Allaah we had to go through a flow of events here. All part and parcel of getting used to the environment and adjusting ourselves by the grace and mercy of Allaah.

Since our temporary relocation we are still on a break from formal homeschooling. In fact we have only completed six weeks of school work for this school year, subhanallaah. But for us homeschoolers every little change that happens in our lives are moments of learning alhamdulillaah. So we have been learning everyday. We have learnt how to cope with continuous sickness, how to live in other than our home, how to patiently blend with family with all ups and downs we are still learning and carrying on by the grace and mercy of Allaah.

Homeschooling for me has been my life actually and being without it had caused depression at times especially being out of home and routine, and I have got through this feeling only by making lots of dua and of course with the help of my faithful companion in this world and the hereafter inshaa Allaah my zawj. I would not say that I was fully successful in dealing such depressed feelings but Allaah guided me towards getting out of it alhamdulillaah. My plans and hopes were that I would be able to engage Maimoonah in different activities here and make her learn different skills and explore this country until my things arrive and we could start homeschooling. But it did not happen as things were so different here and we had to deal with issues like, rainy weather, sickness, transport and proper Islamic places to learn different skills and delay of getting my books down. So Allaah had different plans and we are contend with it.

Now after almost two months we are hoping to start our formal homeschooling with work boxes in few days inshaa Allaah and the thought of it is energizing me alhamdulillaah.


During this long break we were upto at least few things. Maimoonah was busy with her grandma and she has been listening to stories all day and night. She enjoys her company.

 

She has been exposed to all kinds of bugs and insects and have been a keen observer. Most of them she has seen for the first time in her life.

She got together with my mum and cooked in small traditional clay pots and pans and served us a good lunch.


She also had her first ever train ride to the hills. The train ride was comfortable with Expo Rail, where they serve breakfast, snacks and the whole tour is with air condition. Indeed the train travel is redefined in Sri Lanka by them.


We just went on a trip to the central part of Sri Lanka where everything is green and nice. The hotel was simple and nice! We had some visitors there too, guess who? Monkeys!!! Maimoonah was thrilled!

Visited the botanical gardens in Kandy. Such a wonderful experience there. Maimoonah was so happy that she finally had an opportunity to walk in the woods!


Also she walked on the suspension bridge over there! I thought she would be scared but she loved it and went on it the second time too!

She also went on a horse ride at the Victoria Golf Course! We could also view the Victoria Dam one of the largest reservoirs. It was such a breath taking view from top of the hills.

We had taken some lovely pictures but the sizes are very big to upload, so it needs editing. as soon as it is done will upload them Inshaa Allaah.