Letter of the Week

P is for Panda

Big Panda Little Panda by Joan Stimson

"A" and I read Big Panda Little Panda by Joan Stimson. Along with the book I put out two panda bears, a panda puzzle, and a train set that we bought at the zoo. 

Panda Express train

Our trip to the Zoo to see the Giant Pandas

I took the boys to see the giant pandas at the Toronto Zoo. Both my boys are obsessed with pandas but "A" in particular is in love with them.

After the Zoo I did some activities as an extension.

Language:

Letter P stamping

P is for Panda Q-Tip painting

I typed sticky contact paper to the table and gave "A" some strips and circle blue paper. He practiced making the letter P with them.

Math:

Match the number

Craft:

Panda out of paper plates. We ran out of black paper so we used different colors for the hands and feet.

Using green tissue paper "A" made some bamboo strips for panda

Fine Motor:

 

Big brother helped "A" work on a panda puzzle.

Red Leaf Yellow Leaf

Red Leaf Yellow Leaf

 

here 

This is one of my favorite books to read to the boys before our leaf activities. It has some beautiful leaf pictures and the texture on the pages feel like real leafs.

Islamic Studies:

This idea came from O's Arabic teacher it was a craft that they did during one of our meetings together. I decided to do it with him at home since he didn't complete it in class. I had him trace the verse and decorate his paper with felt leaves. 

And not a leaf falls, but he knows it. Surah Al-An'am (59)

We recently went on a field trip to High Park. They have a program for the kids to explore different seasons. After reading some books about fall they took us on a nature walk. the weather was perfect for this walk, the children got o explore all the different leaves on the floor. They were also given a challenge to find which tree all the different leaves came from. 

 

After we came from our trip I had O write in his journal about his experience at high park. 

Science:

Using the leaves we collected I decided to do a science activity with they boys. I asked them how long they thought the leaves would take to become crunchy. I put the leaves in a zip lock bag and decided to observe them every day and record our findings in O's science notebook. 
 

I got this idea for the science activity here

 

Day 1

Day 2/3

It took a little over six days for the leaves to become crunchy. 

Language Arts:

"O" worked on a fall sight word booklet here he read the sentence colored in the leaves and highlighted the sight word using highlighter tape here. I love these highlighter tapes it is something different "O" can use to do his work. He also worked on two worksheets fill in the blanks and Fix the statement worksheet here

"A" worked on some fall worksheets here

List Poem about fall here

Fine Motor:

Leaf Origami here

Craft

leaf printing

I traced the boys hands to make the tree and made finger print leaves

Fall collage I used the clip art from here

Branch and button leaves

Sensory:

For sensory activity I had the boys explore the leaves they collected and we talked about what they felt, smelt, and looked like. 

There was one particular tree that we discovered during our walk. The stem of the leaves smelt like lemons. I cant remember the name of the tree. 

Math:

Roll and color fall worksheet

Dhul Hajj Activities

 Hajj activities to do with your kids!

This post is about some activities I did with the boys to teach them about Hajj and the importance of it.

#1:

The first activity I did with the boys is a map of Mecca. I had the boys color all the different places on the map. While they were coloring I discussed with them what Hajj is and what Muslims do during Hajj. We talked about all the different locations on the map (Makah,Muzdalifa, Mount Arafa, the Jamarat, etc..) 

 

here

After coloring in the map, I had the boys paint over the map with a mixture of tea and water. When the map dried I burnt the ends giving it an old look and feel.

#2

We talked about how Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam. The boys watched a video on the pillars of Islam here. After the video I had the boys do a craft. 

here

# 3:

We discussed where the Kaaba is, I told the boys a brief story about how the Kaaba was built. We also went on google earth, and looked at pictures of the Kaaba, Mount Arafa, Jamarat, etc. 

There dad went to hajj recently so we looked at pictures that he took while he was there.

We also made our own Kaaba using a small box. We covered the box with paper mache and then painted it with black paint. We added a yellow strip of construction paper around the Kaaba. This project was a lot of fun to do with the boys. 

#4:

The boys dressed up like Hujjaj and recited the talbiya.

Hajj postcard.

here 

#5:

We discussed the ritual sacrifice and made a craft to go along with it. 

 

Fall Activities

Pumpkins Pumpkins 

The Season of fall is upon us. I don't know about you but I love fall, the weather is cooler and the air smells of all those leaves. 

Instead of doing one long blog about fall activities I decided to break it down into smaller posts. To kick off our first day of fall activities we decided to start with some Pumpkin fun.

Science:

We did a sink and float experiment. First I asked the boys to predict whether the pumpkin would float or sink, than they got to test out their prediction. Then we cut open the pumpkin to take out the seeds. I wasn't expecting it to be that gooey and stringy. Luckily Ayayoo (grandma) was around to help take out some of the seeds. After taking out the seeds we also tested to see whether they would float or sink. 

Before and after our experiment we filled out a sheet to record all our findings. 

Color Mixing:

Before doing any crafts I decided to teach the boys what two colors made orange. This was really fun mixing the yellow and red together. They discovered the more yellow they used the lighter orange they were able to make.

After making our orange color we painted some pumpkins. To make the stem of the pumpkin we did hand prints using green. It turned out really good.

Sensory:

We made orange glow in the dark play dough. I put out some pumpkin, leaf, and apple cookie cutters. The boys had tones of fun making and playing with the play dough. It didn't give a good glow like I thought it would but they were still impressed with it. I think I'll try this play dough recipe again and see if I can get it to glow more :)

  Stay tuned for more fun fall activities in my next post.