Very Last First Time (FIAR)

 

 Eva's journey is a very special one. Today, she will walk on the bottom of the sea alone. She will go into the cave that is under the ice when the tide is out. She will search for mussels as her people have done for centuries. She will find herself in darkness. She will find too she has brought what she needs with her. She will come again into the light (Source Amazon). 

Geography:

For geography we worked on the flag of Canada, coloring the country, and putting our Canadian flag on our passport. The boys and I also read about Canada in Beginners World Atlas pg 24.

Language:

O worked on some writing practice from write shop. I love when I can incorporate his FIAR with his daily lessons. He wrote about "Winter Animals.

A and I played a rhyme game to help him practice his All about Reading Pre K lessons.

Social Studies:

 We watched some short videos on Inuit life from here. For additional information about Inuit/Eskimo life we used this website . It has tones of information/activities/crafts you can do with your kids.

The boys and I also read this  mini book called "My book about an Inuit family". O and A colored the pictures together and we assembled the book. This mini book is easy for the kids to read and uses simple language to introduce the subject.

Craft:

Paper Mache Igloo and Safari Arctic Toob

"Eskimo" 

Field Trip:

Toronto Zoo Inuit exhibition.  The boys got to go in a tent and look at Inuit art.

Toronto Zoo Arctic Tundra. O and A got to go inside a fox hole to see what it felt like. 

Sources:

Geography: Expedition Earth Confessions of a homeschooler
Eskimo Sight word here

 Linked with:
We Made That 
Delightful learning

IKEA Expedit Shelf turnd Bench

I think I am very late on this wonderful idea but I have become obessessed. Am talking about the IKEA Expedit shelf turned bench tutorials all over pinterest. Finally I've decided to make one for my homeschool, after gathering all necessary material reading tones of tutorials online I got started.

I haven't finished the whole thing yet its missing the legs and some pillows that I have to make for it. But I am so happy with the end result it was worth all those trips to Micheals and IKEA.

Here is what it looks like so far....

Here are the tutorials I followed here and here for upholstering the bench. And the fabric I chose for the bench is also from IKEA.

Thanks to the hubby one project down (almost) and a bunch more to go. If your also in Toronto message me and I can tell you were I got all my material.

Stay tuned for updated pictures :)

Its been a while since I made this bench for the school room. Its only missing extra pillows and the baskets but here's what it  looks like with legs and two pillows I made for it.

**UPDATE** #SewCrazyChallenge  I purchased some bedding from IKEA to use for the boys room a while back. After our move I changed up the theme/style of the room and this bedding didn't work with it anymore. I decided to use the pillow covers to make a envelope style throw pillow for the school room. I added black pipping it really goes well with everything. :) Oh by the way the bedding is called EIVOR ORD Duvet cover and Pillow case.

 Book Shelves

Bench

Art Wall

Cushions

Map

Science Center

Science Center wall gallery

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

It finally snowed here we had 15 cm of snow this weekend. My boys were so excited and wanted to play in the snow. So this was the perfect time to row this simple book.

Language:

We found a reading of the book on youtube here. I played that for the boys and it had images of snow covered trees it was a really nice video. 

We discussed what a poem is and talked about how we can write our own poem. I read "Bugs" by Margeret Wise Brown and talked about what kind of a poem it is. 

In this poem she uses a lot of adjectives to describe the bugs. O and I wrote a list poem about winter since that was the theme of the book.  We used our white board to write all the things he knew about winter and I typed it up for him. He decorated it using felt snow flake stickers.

Crafts:

Winter wonderland trees. We were inspired but all the snow/icy trees in our neighborhood.

Shivery puffy paint snow man idea from Growing A Jeweled Rose

This was a really cool art activity that I found on Deep space sparkle its a multi media winter birch trees.

Animal foot tracks: 

We worked on a booklet that I put together about animal foot prints. I placed some cards around the room and gave the boys their binoculars. They went off finding different foot prints to record in their booklet. The animal foot print cards came from here the cards are under Zoology.

O is wearing his Dubai shirt that his aunt recently brought for him. Thanks aunty Amal :) 

Animal footprints using white play dough and Safari Toob arctic animals

Animal Poem:

Animals in the story:

I had O find all the different animals in the story and write all their names in the match books.

Sid the Science Kid Sorting Snowflake Game:

For a fun activity I let the kids play a game on pbs website Snowflake sorting.





Sources:

Activity Ideas from Delightful Learning
Animals in the story Homeschool Share

Linked up with:
Crayon Box Chronicles
Delightful Learning

Homeschool Room

Sneak Peek

I've always wanted a separate school room for my boys (okay mainly for me). With our last house we didn't have the space for a school room. That was fine we still got all our work done and were still comfortable. But its been something I've been dreaming about and pinning ideas for my own future school room :).

The time has come biithnillah (by the permission of Allah)  that we have our very own space. We recently moved in to a new house that has a separate family room. I've been working on this room since we moved in to turn it into our my dream home school room but on a budget of course.

This is a little sneak peek that am giving you guys am so excited I just couldn't wait until it was all done. 

I've read so many post about rain gutter bookshelves that I wanted one of my very own. But am not handy and it involved way to many cutting and measuring for my test. So I decided to use the Ikea picture ledge, it turned out really well.

I hang some pictures that I order from Little Wings Gallery using some Ribba Frames that I purchased from IKEA for $9.99.

Stay tuned for a full room reveal. 

Arabic

الحرف الباء

Letter Baa

"A" and I will be working on the Arabic alphabet along with the English. He knows the letters but he doesn't recognize all of them. The first letter were starting with is Baa. The reason why am I am doing it out of order is to make sure he isn't just memorizing it. But that he is able to recognize all the letters and all there different forms. 

All the worksheets are from Syraj Arabic Printable. 

The letter Baa worksheets are free on their website here.

بطة

Colour the baa according to the colour of its dot. Big brother helped him with this activity. This activity encourages alphabet recognition and the Arabic colours.  

   

letter baa tracing and penguin craft (بطرق)

The boys and I made a nest for our بطة (duck) using string, paint, and glue. This was a really fun craft.

Arabic vocabulary practice. I gave "A" cards with pictures of things that start with harf baa. He matched the picture to the object and repeated the name of each object after me.

A Pair of Red Clogs (FIAR)

Islamic Studies:

In the story Mako wanted to lie to her mother so she could get a new pair of clogs. After thinking about it she decided that it was not a good idea to lie. I discussed with the boys about being honest and the virtues of honesty. 

For Islamic studies we memorized a hadeeth of the Prophet (sallahu 'alaihi wa salam);

Abdullah narrated: The Prophet (SAW) said, "Indeed truthfulness leads to righteousness and righteousness leads to paradise. (Tarmidah 2406).

To help the boys memorize the hadeeth I put a poster up on the wall with the hadeeth in both English and Arabic. 

I also made a booklet for "O" to trace each word of the hadeeth. He also used the white board to write the hadeeth to practice his penmanship.

The word we focused on most was the Arabic word for truth الصدق.

I included a disc from my box of Manners from Learning Roots

"O" practicing with the white board. 

I also had "O" track the weather for the week. But I had him tell me in Arabic what the weather is. This was a good practice since his working on weather and seasons in his Arabic class. 

كيف حال جوّ؟

Geography:

After we read the story we discussed the setting. We located Japan on our globe. Coloured in the flag/map of Japan. And put our flag sticker on the boys passports.The map/flag of China are from Confessions of a homeschooler Expedition Earth.

We talked about what people wear and eat in Japan. We also learned had to say hello in Japanese (Kon'nichiwa).

Language:

We discussed what onomatopoeia words mean. We found the sound words in the book and highlighted them using our highlighter tape. 

Copy work from homeschool Share

Craft:

Kimono doll bookmark here

Science:


Since this book had a weather theme I decided to do a making rain science experiment with the boys.

Linked up with:
Delightful Learning