black history month

we went to learn about black history at our local library, there were a presentations, historical objects on display, pictures and books to look at, it sparked the kids' curiosity, and with curiosity come questions, a lot of questions!

it has led us nicely to our next project!

the good old days....

there is absolutely no doubt about the fact that times have changed. we are now living in a time where there is plenty of everything, food, clothes, bags, shoes, computers, tv's you name it we have! it's even come to the point where we are over loading our children with the latest of everything that comes on the market, and the kids just want more, more, more it's crazy. but when i think back to when i was a child, it wasn't like that for me, we didn't have the latest clothes, shoes or toys, we had to make the most of what we had, sometimes that would mean making a swing in the backyard instead of having a beautiful ready made one fitted in or finding a piece of rope and making it into a skipping rope instead of having one that lights up, plays music and counts how many skips you have done (trust me they exist). looking back now i'm truly happy i didn't have it all (seriously, i'm not lying), it's because i didn't have it all, that i had a chance to use my imagination, i obtained the vision to make something out of nothing, the ability to make trash into treasure. i just hope my kids get that opportunity too!

so here's what we did....

:: leaf rubbings ::

:: scrap booking ::

:: and this one has to be my favourite, the idea was taken from here
http://mysocalledlifeandotherlies.blogspot.com/, its like a sensory table, we've made a display in the kids bedroom with all the items that we collected, i love the way it has turned out, and the best thing is we can keep adding to it by collecting things every time we go out ::

something tells me this is just the beginning inshallah

nature detectives

autumn is one of those times of the year when we can truly reconnect with nature, there is so much going on all around us, literally the world is changing, right in font of our very eyes, it's a beautiful time and we should make the most of it! this week we went out with our home schooling group, our goal was to discover the signs of autumn. so with our wellies on, our clip boards in hand and our magnifying glasses at the ready, off we went, to one of the sisters allotments, it was a secluded and peaceful place where the kids could run around freely, there were loads of tree's (so plenty of leaves to collect), it was a really nice outing.

(willow weaving)

these are the treasures that we came home with!

what are we going to do with all that? watch this space!

:: this moment ::

Mr Skeleton

the project we've been working on for the last week started off as 'the human skeleton' for my daughter and 'the five senses' for my son, but we've had to extend it to 'major organs in the body and their functions' as well, one goes with the other, so everything had to be covered. as part of our project we made this skeleton (with our old cereal boxes) and labeled the bones, but that wasn't the fun part, oh no, the fun part was.....

scaring people with him

and dancing with him

and simply juust chilling out with him

the world is your....TV?

when us mummies need a five minute break, when we just need to get on with the cooking, or the laundry, or we need to give our other children a bath, or we need to sit down and listen to them read, the tv can be a life saver! if not always, then occasionally it can be a blessing in disguise. But more often than not (not just with this one, with the others as well) i find myself feeling guilty, feeling that i am neglecting them or filling their heads with rubbish. So i have found myself a solution! when a particular situation needs my extra attention, i put the highchair as close as i can to a window, remove the curtain and voila i have guilt free entertainment! my little one stayed excited long enough for me to get all my jobs done.

every time a car, person, a dog or absolutely anything that moves went by he laughed, chatted, reached out, waved his arms, he loved it! (can you see the bulldozer? that had him squealing with joy).

no nudity, no foul language, no advertisements, no magic, what more can you ask for?

:: weekending ::

our weekend started off with having a sleepover, which then led to....

a scavenger hunt...

a lot of playing.....

some homemade apple crumble.....

more playing....

and a little bit of quiet time for mummy

oh yeah and i forgot to mention all the moaning, crying, tantrums, arguing, moodiness, noise, messing up the whole house, all part of the parcel! alhamdulillah

how was your weekend?

today we....

:: read stories to each other

:: practiced our timetables

:: the kids wrote letters to their dad who is away at the moment

:: baked bread (as you can see below)


:: played a senses games, the kids were blind folded and i gave them things to touch, smell and taste (this went down very well, especially the tasting part)

:: had cheese sandwiches for lunch

:: played round and round the kaa'ba.....and tickled each other silly

:: made pumpkin soup and ate it with our bread for dinner


:: kissed and hugged each other

:: went to bed feeling happy

thank you Allah for the countless blessings you have bestowed on this family.

continents

we have done a continents project in the last week, we managed to complete it today alhamdulillah, our week consisted of discussions about which continents we live in, the types of food, clothes, animals, landmarks and whether that you may find in the different continents, i found this printable book for my son, so my daughter decided to bind all her worksheets together and make it into a book as well.

i made a game for them where i write a lot of different names of landmarks, food, animals etc and they have to place the piece of paper on the correct continent

we we're going to have a quiz which we didn't get round to, maybe we'll do it over the weekend.