On teachers, that is! I visit forums for teachers regularly, like at The Teacher’s Corner (it’s free to register). The teachers on this forum are very generous and offer lots of advice on many topics.
There are many others out there, just use Google search!
I found some lapbook resources at homeschoolshare.com. Some are bible based but there are some valuable secular ones. Next, InshaALLAH, we might do the addition and subtraction lap books.
This week in science, we are discussing how the human body changes over time. My daughter wrote the sentences to accompany my drawings of her. She was given no spelling help as it’s just a free writing exercise. By the way, this is the next to last chapter in the science book.
I have to say, I really like the McGraw-Hill Science series but I might go here to supplement with some unit studies. It is worth it to register with the site, even if you don’t purchase anything, there are usually free unit studies offered each month.
Here is a book list that I found. It lists books from kindergarten to sixth grade and possibly higher.
This is the link to the list of books that I have for the new book case. There are still a lot of books here and there but this is the bulk of books from recent purchases. My daughter likes to scatter books all over the house so I think this will be a good solution, InshaALLAH.
I haven’t added any Islamic story books yet, they are all in my daughter’s room but I think we will be bringing them down soon. As books are added, they should update on the link, InshaALLAH.
We finally started making a few changes in the classroom this weekend. My husband had bookshelves along the wall that always got in the way and really made the room look dark, so we moved them to the back wall next to the gym equipment. I then moved the dividers in front of his shelves and along the empty wall for our daily calendar exercises.
We also got an Ikea Expedit bookcase via craigslist and saved about $25. It really makes a difference in the space.
I now have to organize the books and I found a free download called Libra (short for library). It is vista compatible and it enables you to enter the books via ISBN or by title and it links to Amazon. I exported it in spreadsheet form and printed it so that I could put the books on the shelf alphabetically (it will only organize by title or first name of book author).
I think InshaALLAH, I will be getting the Expedit Desk also, because I need ample storage space for my teacher’s manuals and a place to store things that should be out of reach of little one’s hands. Right now, I am using the small table that the kids usually use for art to hold my books.
This little baby stayed in the same position the whole session, so the ultrasound technician could not determine the gender.
AlhamduLILLAH! I was just talking to my husband the other day about finding a proper copy work book for my daughter to develop her penmanship and introduce hadith to her. I have been searching the net here and there this week and finally through Cynthia Sulaiman’s Creative Outlet have found it! There is a pdf sample here. This book is for grades 2 and 3 and the next book is for grades 3 through 5.
And how could The Muslim Homeschooler not like this?
I went to Home Depot with my daughter the other day and we browsed the garden center. Of course, I forgot all about the sunflower mishap (they blew away)and she quickly reminded me that I said we could plant something else. So we looked around and found this:
It’s a simple greenhouse and some mint. I hope it grows into something useful because we’ve done this before but I think we over-watered the seedlings. This time, InshaALLAH we will be more vigilant.
The most exciting part for her was adding the water and watching the disks of soil get plump.
Last night my daughter and I stayed up way too late making sweet potato pies. She really had a good time mashing the potatoes and pouring in the ingredients.
By the time we finished, we were too tired to taste them, especially since you have to wait for them to cool. My mother-in-law had a taste and said they were good. I got the recipe from here. Like others who rated the recipe, we used 1/2 the amount of sugar and for the other 1/2, we used brown sugar. Also, to make the pie mixture a little thicker, I added two tablespoons of flour.
We finished our chapter on ponds today by talking about the food chain of pond animals. We made another page for our science journal too.
Here is an interactive food chain activity that you can try.
Not bad for a four year old, eh? She couldn’t read the word “enormous” without help, but everything else was fine, AlhamduLILLAH.
