This is ideal weather for a woman who wears niqab. It’s not cold, so my glasses don’t fog up. I’m not stifled by the humidity, so my glasses don’t fog up, lol. Now that the trees are blooming and the insects are crawling out from their hiding places, my little scientists are spending time in the field as well as the lab.

My son is much too young for most of the lessons that we cover in science but he’s very hands on so being outdoors is great for him. They get very excited when they find interesting goodies:

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It looks like we need some magnifying glasses.

I think a big challenge for us is fitting in some extracurricular activities that don’t interfere with the main bulk of our instruction time. Math and phonics take up the bulk of the day – especially with all of the coding in phonics:

and the math worksheets/homework sheets:

Qur’an is first and then each of these subjects is forty-five minutes to an hour. We go through them both one right after the other and then slow way down. Depending on the mood of my youngest (she alternates between myself and my mother-in-law), we either alternate the rest of the subjects throughout the week, or we combine lessons where we can. For example, when we studied trees, I used as many Arabic words as I could in a mini lesson so that my daughter is exposed to the language.

We are currently studying communities in social studies and the jobs that people in the neighborhood hold. The most visible of course, is the postal worker who comes by every day.

And the superintendent/maintenance workers of our neighborhood. We’ve also had a chance to see firefighters in the neighborhood.

In other news,my son is still resisting his potty training, even though I got him a shiny red potty from Ikea.

I thought he would like it since he is fond of bright colors but he hates it worse than the other one! I even have the potty rings that go on the toilet seat but he protests every time. He does his pee but won’t do poo. Oh well, we have to stick with it or we will have three kids in diapers at the end of the year – yikes! My daughter was much easier to potty train, perhaps because we used cloth diapers with her. I went from cloth to pull ups for a short time and then put her in underwear. She didn’t want to get it wet so she learned quickly. This did not work with him.

I hope to fit in some more interesting activities over the few weeks. Since we are studying the sky, I hope to get a telescope for the children. Or perhaps a really strong pair of binoculars. I need to research this more, InshaALLAH. Also, I thought this was cute:

They use a night light in their room so this would be a good alternative.