It has been so busy behind the scenes this week – my husband is working weird hours so by the time I think about it, blogging is on the back burner. Still, I’m just now realizing that it’s Thursday?!

The good news is that the boy can read now! He’s getting more confident each day, alhamduLILLAH. He read one books that we kept from our Calvert days, and then I read Goodnight Moon to him and he completed the workbook page for it.

Next, I opened the pack of Saxon Math 1 workbooks and started it with him. I like Singapore Math too but I still had this extra pack sitting around and didn’t want to waste it.He gets a kick out of coloring in the blocks anyway.

While he didn’t mind reading and he really likes the math, he absolutely detests writing. It’s the most stressful part of his day because he is still struggling to hold his pencil properly. He does much better with a fat pencil or a pencil that is super short.

Oh, and to his penpal: InshaALLAH this weekend he is getting his letter ready for you! He’s very excited.

My daughter is doing well and she’s moving right along with her studies. She finished her phonics book so I had to think about what to do. She reads all the time on her own – she’s finished her 28th chapter book so I owe her an ice cream this weekend, InshaALLAH.

I started reading Black Beauty to her last night and we’re using a unit study from Currclick. We’re also doing animal classification for science, specifically mammals, so horses fit in nicely with that. There is a curriculum called History of the Horse that I am thinking about using. It is a literature-based program and I think my daughter might like it. I don’t know, maybe; I have to think about it a bit.

She’s also practicing her Arabic by reading from this book:

Right now, we’re just combining short vowels and tanwin with each letter.

I’m trying to strengthen her math skills by doing extra work outside of the Singapore Math curriculum. Today, we focused on place value. I think it makes more of an impact on the mind to see the numbers, so she simply wrote the numbers in the table and we placed it in her math binder. She was surprised by all the zeros, but I think the exercise helped her mind to absorb it.

For spelling/geography, we focused on Canada. I gave her a stack of index cards with the names of the ten provinces and she looked them over for a few minutes.

Then, I tested her and she got six out of four right.

Today, I had her spell them out loud and she got them all right, MashaALLAH.

The kids got out into the back yard again to see what wonders lay under the snow. They brought back a goody bag of leaves for us to dry, pressed between some cardboard squares.

And lastly, my daughter wanted to make a sandwich for me yesterday. Can you see the tuna? Neither could I, lol, but still a sweet gesture.