Home-school Geography and Map drawing.

Hi guys, today I wanted to share with you how we incorporate map drawing/study into our home-school day.  Every year we make a goal as a family to learn to draw and label one continent. This year we have been working on Europe to go with our WWII study. The boys will spend 15-20 minutes drawing and reviewing on the white board. By the end of the year they will have mastered that continent and will make a final copy colored and labelled to store into their notebooks.

Here is my 10 year old with his completed map of Europe. He was so proud of himself and I was too. I find that small bite size chunks daily has really helped him achieve this goal.

We love this Draw (Europe, USA, Canada, etc.) books. They have funny little information and descriptions for drawing out each country. I see the boys sometimes giggling while they're drawing, which is always a plus.

So far we've covered Canada, United States and Europe, Central America, and South America. My plan is for us to practice Africa next. I'm not going in any particular order. We will go along with our history theme.

Along with map drawing we do lots of reading using living books. We also play professor noggin geography trivia games and do a lot of puzzles. Once a week they will do a map drill with me, where  I hand them a blank map and they must label as many countries as they can. That's about all the geography we do in our home-school and it's been working so far.

How do you guys incorporate geography into your home-school?

Preschool Fall Activities

Hi guys! I can't believe it's already October. Today I wanted to share with you some of the fall themed activities my preschooler has been loving.

Literacy

Pumpkin seed letter formation. For this activity I gave him our Abeka

letter cards, a piece of orange felt (so that the seeds didn't move around) and 

some pumpkin seeds.

Beginning sound sensory bin. I filled our sensory bin with seeds, acorns,

pine cones, leaves, and apple beginning sound cards.He hunted for the picture that 

matched the sound on the apple baskets. 

This activity doesn't have a fall theme, but we worked on

rhyming words.

Letter formation with play dough and pony beads.

Math

Apple 1:1 correspondence. To add some fine motor practice I gave

him a bottle cap so that he could make round apples. 

Number bead stringing. I gave him number cards that had

pipe cleaners attached and some beads (yellow, red, and green). 

He would string the corresponding number of beads for each 

number.

Fall picture puzzle.

Fall leaf color sorting.

These were just some of the math and literacy activities I captured. I hope you guys are having a happy fall. :)

Preschool Space Theme

Hi guys! This week for our preschool at home we had a space theme. Here are some of the activities we worked on.

Books

Sensory

He loved dressing up like an astronaut and playing with his 

sensory bin. In the sensory bin I put black and white 

kinetic sand and an astronaut toob.

Craft

Star stamping 

We made this cute rocket ship countdown craft

Math

ten frame counting using large number cards

and space marbles. 

He also worked on his guided math. We read How Do 

Dinosaurs Count to Ten. 

Phonics

He worked on some letter and beginning sound recognition in his interactive notebook, but here are two hands on activities I manage to capture. 

Sand letter tracing. 

The black sand I purchased from Michael's a couple

of years ago. 

Name rocket ship. 

Science

Moon phases using play dough and printable from Montessori Print Shop.

That's it guys! We had a blast with this theme. We can't wait to do some fall activities.

Seerah Lesson 3-4

Hi guys! I've been working really hard to try to gather all the lessons we've done so far for you. Today I wanted to share with you lesson 3 and 4 in our Seerah series. You can go to this post to check out lesson 1 and 2.

These two lessons deal with the Prophet's time in the desert with Halima Sadia and his love of nature. I have suggested reading, book list, videos, nature reflection, and a nature collage.

Lesson 3

It was part of the Arab custom to send newborns to the desert to live with wet nurses. You and your kids will read and watch videos about the desert. You will also do a fun cactus directed drawing as well as write about what you have learned.


Lesson 4

The Prophet (SAW) loved being in nature and reflecting on the purpose of life. Many times in the Quran Allah commands us to ponder over his creation. You and your kids will go on a nature walk and reflect on the beauty around you. I have included some tips on how to reflect and bring it all back to the Quran. Once you complete your nature walk, the children will complete a nature collage.

I hope these lessons are of benefit to you.

Click on the image to purchase this lesson.

Islamic Studies Curriculum 2017-2018

Hi guys! Today I wanted to share with you what we will be using for our Islamic Studies for the 2017-2018 school year.

This year we will be covering the Seerah of the Prophet (SAW) from birth to Hijra. Here are some of the resources we will use.

These two books will be our main spine. When the moon split and My first Prophet 

Muhammad Storybook. I will be using when the Moon split as my own resource and I'll be reading from the second book to the boys. 

 As a hands on activity the boys will color and add to our timeline these cards. You can grab

this on my tpt store. 

once they are done coloring they will add to our timeline wall. 

As a supplement we will use this The Seerah Trail Puzzle from the Learning Roots. 

The boys will be using these binders to keep any note-booking pages, mapping activities, etc.

I am really looking forward to starting our school back up, how about you?

Homeschool Curriculum 2017-2018-Science and History

Hi guys! I can't believe we are wrapping up another homeschool year. This would make it our 4th year homeschooling :0. With the end of one school year brings the fun of choosing new curriculum. I don't know about you guys, but this is the most wonderful time of the year (q the music) haha. Today I wanted to share with you our history and science choices for next year. Links for where we purchased the curriculum will be at the bottom of this post.

History:

For history we will be studying about Canada's native groups before we study settlement history. I am so excited!!! This will cover half the school year, the last half we will learn all about Africa. I'll share the material for that in our geography curriculum post.

Read alouds 

Activity guides

Picture books. 

Science:

We went with Apologia exploring creation with chemistry and physics. We did human anatomy this year using Apologia and we fell in love with the layout and the material.

supplement material that I will pick things out of. This curriculum doesn't really need any added material but I can't help myself. 

Along with Canada's Native Peoples we will also be listening to Story of the World Vol 3/4. My eldest really loves the audio versions so I decided to through that in there.That's it guys! What will you be using for history and science?

Resource Links:

History

Science