Discovery Box

If I could afford it, I would probably get one of these. I think specimens like these are so interesting, but they can keep that scorpion, lol.

You could easily set up your own natural display. I've recently purchased my own natural shells from the sea via eBay (I'll show these in a little bit - they're stinky and I have to clean them).Of course, the best specimens are the ones you find for yourself!



To replace the box, try the Fira from Ikea. It can be decoupaged like these.

I love homeschooling! I love the thought of the children being exposed to the wonders of ALLAH, alhamduLILLAH. It seems that we took it easy on science this past term and I would like to dive into it soon, InshaALLAH. Read More...

Mini Solar System Complete

Here it is:



Lol, I know it looks crazy with all the paper clips but my daughter really likes it.

I didn't have dowels to hang the planets from so I went into the dark backyard (the bulb has blown and I didn't replace it), almost grabbed a big spider (wasn't wearing my glasses) and finally got two sticks off a pine tree.

We loosely followed the instructions from here.

We kept Pluto as a planet even though it's being called a "dwarf planet" now and we also included rings on all four planets that have them.

I think it looks better in black and white.

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Our Human Body

I made an outline of my daughter on brown paper and we filled the spaces with muscles, organs and bones from various places (scroll down). I couldn't find the proper-sized arms after searching for two days, so we used what we had. Read More...

Name Those Bones

I found some lapbook resources at homeschoolshare.com. Some are bible based but there are some valuable secular ones. Next, InshaALLAH, we might do the addition and subtraction lap books. Read More...

I Was Small, Now I'm Tall

This week in science, we are discussing how the human body changes over time. My daughter wrote the sentences to accompany my drawings of her. She was given no spelling help as it's just a free writing exercise. By the way, this is the next to last chapter in the science book.

I have to say, I really like the McGraw-Hill Science series but I might go here to supplement with some unit studies. It is worth it to register with the site, even if you don't purchase anything, there are usually free unit studies offered each month. Read More...

We Finally Planted Something

I went to Home Depot with my daughter the other day and we browsed the garden center. Of course, I forgot all about the sunflower mishap (they blew away)and she quickly reminded me that I said we could plant something else. So we looked around and found this:



It's a simple greenhouse and some mint. I hope it grows into something useful because we've done this before but I think we over-watered the seedlings. This time, InshaALLAH we will be more vigilant.

The most exciting part for her was adding the water and watching the disks of soil get plump.





Last night my daughter and I stayed up way too late making sweet potato pies. She really had a good time mashing the potatoes and pouring in the ingredients.



By the time we finished, we were too tired to taste them, especially since you have to wait for them to cool. My mother-in-law had a taste and said they were good. I got the recipe from here. Like others who rated the recipe, we used 1/2 the amount of sugar and for the other 1/2, we used brown sugar. Also, to make the pie mixture a little thicker, I added two tablespoons of flour.

We finished our chapter on ponds today by talking about the food chain of pond animals. We made another page for our science journal too.





Here is an interactive food chain activity that you can try. Read More...

Wrapping up Science

We are almost finished with our science book, AlhamudLILLAH. We have three chapters left and then we can focus on finishing our social studies, math and phonics, InshaALLAH. My goal is to complete this school year by the end of October, InshaALLAH. That way, we can focus on our new schedule and prepare for the baby, InshaALLAH.

Today we discussed ponds and learned some new vocabulary, (habitat, nonliving things, definition of a pond). We made a new page for our science journal to show the different inhabitants of a pond.



Now, I have to convince my husband to let us have an aquarium in the classroom and we'll really have some fun! Read More...

Keep it Balanced

Today was an interesting home school adventure. I had all three children in the classroom while my mother-in-law went to the library. We don't normally keep my youngest in the classroom because she likes to explore all of the areas that I haven't toddler-proofed. For instance, as soon as we got settled in the room, she grabbed paint and put it in her mouth, (we were painting while she napped and she came into the room before I could put it away). She's pretty quick but it's nontoxic paint, alhamduLILLAH. She really likes clay, so I let them make various things with it and they wanted to show it off:




We explored the concept of heavy versus light and used the balance. I put various foods into plastic sandwich bags and we compared them to one another. They liked this a lot and learned that bigger is not always heavier. We also discussed solids, liquids, and gases and whether or not we could measure their mass.




I finally laminated some numbers so that we could use them on the divider and make a large room calendar. Of course, I forgot to make one for the year and I didn't realize that the days of the week are on winter hats. Oh well. I also need to do an Arabic set for the Islamic calendar. The numbers are also a good way to help my son recognize them and to count them.





We are slowly changing the classroom around a bit to accommodate the addition of my son into our space and to give them ample room for books,projects, and whatever else we do. Teacher's manuals are pretty big sometimes, so I am bringing my desk downstairs, (okay, my husband will be doing that)so that I don't get in their way. Right now, everything is cramped because we have my husband's bookshelves on the wrong wall and we need shelves for the kid's library. We visited Value Village and got so many good books. If you buy four books, you get one free, so we really loaded up.



There were lots of games, especially the memory game and we bought them all. My daughter loves playing the memory game and I figured we better get whatever they had in case the cards start to go missing.



We also found this nice little plastic crayon bank for about twenty-five cents. We will use it for spare change and money that we find outside for zakat, InshaALLAH. My daughter is very concerned about the poor getting enough to eat, subhanALLAH.



One book that I really like is The Human Body book. It is a pop up book and it's so interesting to see all of the different parts. My daughter is particularly fascinated with it and spends lots of time looking at it. My mother-in-law was not too thrilled about it, she says it's a little scary, lol.



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