So there’s not much to talk about this week….
For those of you in the Toronto area – check out the Journey Conference link.
I haven’t gone to these yet – I’m just putting it here for you.
And enjoy the sunshine.
Don’t you just love this answer?
This is from the Pathway Readers phonics program. I am teaching my daughter the concept of respect and love for her brothers and sisters, so that they in turn will practice it.
As Muslims, our “Golden Rule” is perfected in An-Nawawi’s 40 Hadith, specifically number 13:
“None of you truly believes (in Allah and in His religion) until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself”
[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]
My daughter went to her first mental math competition this weekend, via UCMAS. We attended the morning competition and I must say that I was truly impressed with the efficiency and organization of such a large event.
There were about 140 students in her age group and about 400 students altogether. There was a second competition of older kids two hours later with just as many competitors. My daughter’s group of competitors used the abacus to solve their math problems. They had eight minutes to complete 100 numbers. She told me that she completed about sixty and I heard that one child finished the whole thing in four minutes!
The tests are being graded this week and the results will be announced next week, InshaALLAH.She did well, mashaALLAH, since this was her first competition and we had a goal of completing about sixty numbers of mixed addition and subtraction.
There were about one thousand parents in the waiting area – no exaggeration!
We were in and out in about an hour and there were some serious smiles on all the faces of the children – except one but that’s because he wasn’t competing and he wanted a mug, lol.
My daughter is so innocent, mashaALLAH. She’s been speaking regularly to my grandmother on the phone and she told her that she was in a math competition and that she won and received a medal and everyone else did too.
Here is our first Lil’ Muslimah.
You can see that she is planning to travel and is studying her atlas in her finest clothes.
She is our little bald prototype, lol. By the time we thought about hair, we were too tired to do anything about it.
I haven’t started the lapbook but we did spend a bit of time discussing what hijab means for boys and girls and it’s requirements.
Go over and visit Umm Abdul Basir‘s blog. She has some great printables and lap book ideas.
I remember when I read Roots by Alex Haley. I have to say that I found it to be thought-provoking and inspiring. It’s worth a read and if I weren’t so stubborn about re-reading, I would read it again. Instead, I’m reading The Book of Negroes and so far it is a heart-wrenching page-turner.
I joined ancestry.com recently and I was so excited and intrigued when I got started and stayed awake late into the night researching old census records. I’ve been burning myself out while trying to expand my family tree and it has been so hard to wake up at a decent hour lately. It is important to me to know from where I came and who my people were, so it is an endeavor for which I am willing to suffer (within reason, of course). After a few days of this, I took a break and just started looking again yesterday.
I called my second cousin yesterday and she told me a little about my great great grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. Apparently, he was born a slave in 1847 in Mississippi. He and his four brothers escaped via the Mississippi River (swimming along it, SubhanALLAH) and made their way to Louisiana and then to Texas.
He later married my great great grandmother Anna who was born about 1868 in Texas. She was of Native American heritage – most likely Cherokee but we’re not 100% yet.
My cousin was also wanting to get in touch with my great Aunt Ruthie Lee but SubhanALLAH – she passed away a couple of hours after we talked on the phone.
I am thinking about having my heritage traced via DNA testing at African Ancestry but I need to save up since it’s so pricey.
There are free worksheets and a membership is also available at Home Education Resources (H.E.R.).
books by Kate Blocher
When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher told us to bring a notebook to use as a journal. We took fifteen minutes out of each day to write whatever we pleased, ignoring grammatical errors. There was no specific instruction, just quiet writing.
At the end of the session, she would collect them all and read them. The only comments she ever made were “good job” or “keep it up” so that we were encouraged to write more. Once, she did single me out and ask me to read aloud. That was a moment of immense pride.
I try to encourage my little ones to write something each day, even if it is just simple numbers or letters, although most of the time they prefer to color.
