I’ve been all over the web scouring blog after blog to figure out how to better organize the school and our lives. I finally found www.donnayoung.org – run by a homeschool master! She has documents for just about everything you can imagine and I am so thankful that I found her site. She even has useful tips for the different subjects, including art. There are drawing exercises with evaluations every few lessons that will aid your child with mastering the basic shapes and lines in handwriting.

I saved the documents and now I have my very own lesson planning binder, complete with attendance and grade sheets. There’s also plenty of writing space for extras like unit studies, Arabic, Islamic studies (like this 52-week one), etc.

We’re still working on counting with money and I’m trying to organize my thoughts for the direction of the homeschool – including the addition of my son in a “formal” or should I say guided preschool curriculum. There are some things that we can all do together, like recitations of the Qur’an, listening to www.reciter.org and our read aloud sessions. He’s doing really well with his potty training too so I will have to keep his needs in mind by scheduling regular washroom breaks and such.

I don’t want to overwhelm him but I do want to make sure his day is full of useful activities and that he isn’t a distraction to his big sister – I anticipate his little sister as the biggest distraction/challenge, so if I can keep him busy there will be only the little one to appease.

InshaALLAH I will try to post a schedule soon, to give an idea of how we spend our time in the classroom but for now it’s still pretty rough. Hopefully, in the next week or so this will be done. It’s a lot of work and I have to say, teachers deserve much more applause than they receive.

Newest smart toys are from ToysrUs, courtesy of Granny!

These puzzles come four in a pack for $3.98CDN and they have everything from planets and maps to animals, alphabet and numbers! My little ones love puzzles so I will have to introduce new ones little by little or according to our studies.

One unit study/lapbook I would like to do is on nutrition. These should be handy for that:

We also got tons of Play-Doh to occupy us.
Granny is so gracious, we love her!