Hi Bengali folks! Apni kimon achin? hehe that is almost all the Bengali I know but I thought I'd share anyway.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
My Dreams for Him
So in an ideal world my son will know calculus by the time he is 19. He will be a great writer, full of imagination and skills. He will know basic programing at least, type way faster than I can, with out looking :P and speak Arabic near fluently. He will know how to set and reach goals effectively. Have a few hobbies, at least 1 of them being near free in cost and be looking for a wife. He will have a level head, knowing how to have fun, communicate well with others, and get a job done. He will make fajr at the masjid everyday and most other prayers as well. He will be reliable and have good pious friends. He will know how to cook and clean and how to grow food. He will have survival skills like how to make a fire and CPR. He will spend time regularly helping others and if he is living far away for college he will call me everyday, even if he is busy. He will eat well, get plenty of exorcise and have most if not all of the Quran memorized with its meaning. He will be an example to others on how to live. When he is angry or frustrated or just worn out he will know how to take care of himself in a way that will resolve the problem effectively.
When he is a little older he will have wisdom, and at minimum 4 children. His wife/wives will be beautiful and kind and good mothers. I will adore her/them. She/they will be the ideal fit for my son. She/they will be patient and understanding when money is tight.
When I am an old woman, and my husband can no longer take care of me, my son will. If one day I need to move in to a facility with 24 hour care, my son will come daily to spend time with me. He will have raised his children well and they will come to see me at least 1x a week if not daily. My son will be described as intellectual and open and generous and gentle. He will never get too fat nor ever too thin. He will maintain his beard with pride. He will proudly wear his thobe and will be consulted for advise in his old age. He will be an excelent grandfather to his many grandchildren.
And when he dies an old man his family will mourn him but he will have taught them well so that they will not be devastated but proud of him and looking forward to seeing him again in Paradise.
When he is a little older he will have wisdom, and at minimum 4 children. His wife/wives will be beautiful and kind and good mothers. I will adore her/them. She/they will be the ideal fit for my son. She/they will be patient and understanding when money is tight.
When I am an old woman, and my husband can no longer take care of me, my son will. If one day I need to move in to a facility with 24 hour care, my son will come daily to spend time with me. He will have raised his children well and they will come to see me at least 1x a week if not daily. My son will be described as intellectual and open and generous and gentle. He will never get too fat nor ever too thin. He will maintain his beard with pride. He will proudly wear his thobe and will be consulted for advise in his old age. He will be an excelent grandfather to his many grandchildren.
And when he dies an old man his family will mourn him but he will have taught them well so that they will not be devastated but proud of him and looking forward to seeing him again in Paradise.
Time to Rearrange the School Room Furniture
Fact: My son needs me to be in the same room 99% of the time in order for him to focus on required tasks
Fact: I tend to resent this. (I want the freedom of going to the bathroom or unloading the dishwasher while he is working on something)
Fact: If I am doing the same thing he is, his focus is better
Fact: I could benefit from some academic review
Fact: I don't like doing the same thing everyday
Fact: I feel a lot of pressure to show my son is doing as well or better than his peers
Fact: When I feel a lot of pressure I am impatient
Fact: The better my attitude, the better my son's
Fact: This list is getting long LOL
Fact: My son focuses better in a quiet, unstimulating environment
Fact: I have big pimple under my skin on my chin and it hurts
Fact: I am frequently tempted to do laundry when my son is on task, thus creating a noisy environment for my son.
Conclusion: I need to simplify, simplify, simplify. I need to find a way to keep me in the the room, doing the same kind of thing my son is, with out getting bored or multitasking and making sure the environment is quiet, and with out much on the walls.
HMMMM
I could move my computer to the school room but this would be a bit arduous. (I just learned how to spell arduous :) The more i blog the better I spell! ) I could move his desk in to this room but then why do we have a school room? After all having a school room is the main reason we moved homes. I could make this room into the school room/study and use the little room for the TV, we basically never use it anyway. (Again arduous) We could continue to use the little folding table as a desk for him, having him sit next to me while I am at this computer. (Again why do we have a school room then?)
I am out of ideas lol
Fact: I tend to resent this. (I want the freedom of going to the bathroom or unloading the dishwasher while he is working on something)
Fact: If I am doing the same thing he is, his focus is better
Fact: I could benefit from some academic review
Fact: I don't like doing the same thing everyday
Fact: I feel a lot of pressure to show my son is doing as well or better than his peers
Fact: When I feel a lot of pressure I am impatient
Fact: The better my attitude, the better my son's
Fact: This list is getting long LOL
Fact: My son focuses better in a quiet, unstimulating environment
Fact: I have big pimple under my skin on my chin and it hurts
Fact: I am frequently tempted to do laundry when my son is on task, thus creating a noisy environment for my son.
Conclusion: I need to simplify, simplify, simplify. I need to find a way to keep me in the the room, doing the same kind of thing my son is, with out getting bored or multitasking and making sure the environment is quiet, and with out much on the walls.
HMMMM
I could move my computer to the school room but this would be a bit arduous. (I just learned how to spell arduous :) The more i blog the better I spell! ) I could move his desk in to this room but then why do we have a school room? After all having a school room is the main reason we moved homes. I could make this room into the school room/study and use the little room for the TV, we basically never use it anyway. (Again arduous) We could continue to use the little folding table as a desk for him, having him sit next to me while I am at this computer. (Again why do we have a school room then?)
I am out of ideas lol
Was a good but short week
Well it was a good but short week. My Little Man was picked up to go to his dad's house Wednesday night.
Anyway we do 4 things for school now, math, reading, writing and Arabic. Of course reading will really cover a multitude of subjects but for simplicity's sake we are calling it reading.
My Little Man's favorite thing to do for fun is read so why not base his education around that? He can read about history, geography, science, even math. Books have been written on virtually everything, and usually you can find a free ebook on the web on a given subject.
So the way I am setting it up is inspired by Robinson Curriculum or Self Teaching. The goal is for My Little Man to teach himself. So the day would eventually go like this, 2 hours math, then 2 hours reading, then an hour writing and working on an essay then an hour of Arabic.
The Robinson Curriculum is easily secularized but is Christian based. For math you have your child memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts, then once in rote memory they go to Saxon Math 4/5. I don't know that we will use that particular math book but I have decided to follow that basic plan.
You can find RC book lists on the web, and most of the books can be found for free on the web at places like Archive.org. Therefore (what a fun word) we are using some of those books.
I assigned some books, made sure he knew my expectations regarding them and let him dig in for 2 hours. Currently he has been assigned McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, How We Use Numbers, The Life of George Washington in Words of One Syllable , A Book of Nursery Rhymes, Usooluth Thalaathah, Al-FAWAID.
The only requirements I have are that he spend a little time on the first two i listed each day, do any activities suggested and that he spend 2 hours reading from the books assigned. He can pick which books he wants to read and for how long.
For the writing I just have him fill one page. The ruler is that it needs to be mostly writing. He can draw pictures to go with what ever he writes. Eventually I will require more than just filling up the page, but for now it is enough. I do not correct spelling, or punctuation or even grammar. The point is just to write. And blessedly we have had no problems so far. Of the three day's we have done school like this he has written a letter to me each time.
For Arabic I had not planned to change curriculum but ran into the perfect thing for us, for free, on the web. Arabic is Easy the guy teaching it makes it, well, easy. He has videos here. He has made very nice PDF books for each lesson here is the first book.
My son finds them less dull than the Madina books. So far the vocabulary is almost exactly the same. And really we are stuck until he learns the vocabulary. He just hasn't figured out how to learn second language vocabulary yet. I really need to learn the vocabulary so i can throw it in to our every day speech. I use kursi, kitab, shajara and this is occasionally but he needs to here them more, and other words.
I am also helping him keep a record of his work. I am pretty sure that this will be very beneficial so I am making it a priority.
I would like him to work on Quran daily as well but at this point I think just establishing those basics is more of a priority and the point is to keep it simple. If i could get him an Quran tutor then I think that would be easy to accommodate with out detracting from the other subjects. I just feel like since he doesn't speak Arabic and doesn't even really understand the translations it can wait until he does understand one or the other.
Anyway we do 4 things for school now, math, reading, writing and Arabic. Of course reading will really cover a multitude of subjects but for simplicity's sake we are calling it reading.
My Little Man's favorite thing to do for fun is read so why not base his education around that? He can read about history, geography, science, even math. Books have been written on virtually everything, and usually you can find a free ebook on the web on a given subject.
So the way I am setting it up is inspired by Robinson Curriculum or Self Teaching. The goal is for My Little Man to teach himself. So the day would eventually go like this, 2 hours math, then 2 hours reading, then an hour writing and working on an essay then an hour of Arabic.
The Robinson Curriculum is easily secularized but is Christian based. For math you have your child memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts, then once in rote memory they go to Saxon Math 4/5. I don't know that we will use that particular math book but I have decided to follow that basic plan.
You can find RC book lists on the web, and most of the books can be found for free on the web at places like Archive.org. Therefore (what a fun word) we are using some of those books.
I assigned some books, made sure he knew my expectations regarding them and let him dig in for 2 hours. Currently he has been assigned McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, How We Use Numbers, The Life of George Washington in Words of One Syllable , A Book of Nursery Rhymes, Usooluth Thalaathah, Al-FAWAID.
The only requirements I have are that he spend a little time on the first two i listed each day, do any activities suggested and that he spend 2 hours reading from the books assigned. He can pick which books he wants to read and for how long.
For the writing I just have him fill one page. The ruler is that it needs to be mostly writing. He can draw pictures to go with what ever he writes. Eventually I will require more than just filling up the page, but for now it is enough. I do not correct spelling, or punctuation or even grammar. The point is just to write. And blessedly we have had no problems so far. Of the three day's we have done school like this he has written a letter to me each time.
For Arabic I had not planned to change curriculum but ran into the perfect thing for us, for free, on the web. Arabic is Easy the guy teaching it makes it, well, easy. He has videos here. He has made very nice PDF books for each lesson here is the first book.
My son finds them less dull than the Madina books. So far the vocabulary is almost exactly the same. And really we are stuck until he learns the vocabulary. He just hasn't figured out how to learn second language vocabulary yet. I really need to learn the vocabulary so i can throw it in to our every day speech. I use kursi, kitab, shajara and this is occasionally but he needs to here them more, and other words.
I am also helping him keep a record of his work. I am pretty sure that this will be very beneficial so I am making it a priority.
I would like him to work on Quran daily as well but at this point I think just establishing those basics is more of a priority and the point is to keep it simple. If i could get him an Quran tutor then I think that would be easy to accommodate with out detracting from the other subjects. I just feel like since he doesn't speak Arabic and doesn't even really understand the translations it can wait until he does understand one or the other.
Monday, November 21, 2011
What We've Been Up To
Well for about a month we had been really butting heads. I didn't want every post to be negative to I didn't post. Well we took last week off, every single day! Today was our first day back to school work. With the exception of Eid's and a couple other days we had been going for 3 and 1/2 months strait.
We'll with only 1 minor blip we had a good day. We started after lunch and are wrapping up now.
My son spent 2 hours on math, much of the time day dreaming but eventually he got down and did the work. Either way he did a page of addition problems equaling 15 or less, and learned his +0 facts to 13. He has know how to add for quite some time. He was just hadn't realised that +0 is always the other adden. Anyway I am pretty condifant that he knows his +0's now by rote.
He read nursery rhymes, and lessons 1-5 in McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, even doing the cursive copy work. He did 2 pages from How We Use Numbers.
He did lesson 1 from Arabic is Easy with the video and we read the lesson in the book together. He still isn't solid in his vocab despite all but 1 of those words he has be "learning" since he was 4! Oh well
Right now he is writing me a letter. His task is to fill his page up. The page is ruled at about 1 inch so it's not an over the top request and he hasn't complained, even though I have sent him back 3 times saying. "This is very good. Now finish filling up the page." I told him he could draw picture but that I mostly wanted words.
We'll with only 1 minor blip we had a good day. We started after lunch and are wrapping up now.
My son spent 2 hours on math, much of the time day dreaming but eventually he got down and did the work. Either way he did a page of addition problems equaling 15 or less, and learned his +0 facts to 13. He has know how to add for quite some time. He was just hadn't realised that +0 is always the other adden. Anyway I am pretty condifant that he knows his +0's now by rote.
He read nursery rhymes, and lessons 1-5 in McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, even doing the cursive copy work. He did 2 pages from How We Use Numbers.
He did lesson 1 from Arabic is Easy with the video and we read the lesson in the book together. He still isn't solid in his vocab despite all but 1 of those words he has be "learning" since he was 4! Oh well
Right now he is writing me a letter. His task is to fill his page up. The page is ruled at about 1 inch so it's not an over the top request and he hasn't complained, even though I have sent him back 3 times saying. "This is very good. Now finish filling up the page." I told him he could draw picture but that I mostly wanted words.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Well today we have acomplished nothing achedemic
My son is in a "phase" at 7:30 we walked down stairs to the school room. I got out a workbook for my son to do a couple pages of review on long vowel sounds. He seemed excited and ready to work. It is now 11:30 and he has written nothing. literally not a single thing. These pages would take him about 3 minutes a pieces and there are 3 of them, I gave him his assignment cheerfully. I calmly reminded him to get back on task. Put him in time out and gave him opportunities to get his work done.
This most recent time I asked him if he would rather do his work or continue to sit in time out. He said he wanted to do his work. I warned him that if he lied to me about doing his work he would be grounded 2 days. I sent him to his desk with his work and gave him a few minutes. He did nothing.
He is now throwing a temper tantrum about being grounded.
At least I am not in a bad mood from all the troubles. He has made his bed now he is laying in it.
This most recent time I asked him if he would rather do his work or continue to sit in time out. He said he wanted to do his work. I warned him that if he lied to me about doing his work he would be grounded 2 days. I sent him to his desk with his work and gave him a few minutes. He did nothing.
He is now throwing a temper tantrum about being grounded.
At least I am not in a bad mood from all the troubles. He has made his bed now he is laying in it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Only Child Myth
But is there any science that makes the stereotype stick? "No," Newman said. "There have been hundreds and hundreds of research studies that show that only children are no different from their peers."
This is comforting because while i would like to have more children, I have yet to get pregnant a second time. Some of my worries about having only one is what about those times I didn't savor the moment, will I never get a chance again to try to enjoy pregnancy? How will my son be able to provide and care for us when we are old, with out siblings to help? Since we live so far from other family, will growing up in such a small family mean he misses out of so much that makes life beautiful? Will he as a result not value family? Will he only give me 1, grandchild? (I want at least 3 if not 10)
I want another person to share this genetic bond with, not just my son. (I was adopted so there is this special added bit to my feelings towards my son. Not only am I his mother and love him but physically, in his DNA he is part of me. )
On the other hand, having just one child means that he will probably do better academically than if he had 4 siblings. Also if I decide to spend money on clothes or gifts as a treat for my son all of that money can go towards him and not just a fraction of it. I do not have to worry about dividing myself in anyway amongst other children to be fair, unless I want to spend time with other children. I have time for all of me and all of my duties. There is no worry of sibling rivalry, favoritism or what ever. I can honestly say that my son is my FAVORITE child in the UNIVERSE! I can tell my son I love him more than any other child he has ever met, or will meet, or is in the world.
For my son, there aren't really any drawbacks for being an only child. For me there are drawbacks for only having one. So if we choose to get help getting pregnant, or adopt it would be for us, the parents and not for my son so much. Not to say he wouldn't have some advantages by having a sibling but not that many and I think it would even out with being an only child.
This is comforting because while i would like to have more children, I have yet to get pregnant a second time. Some of my worries about having only one is what about those times I didn't savor the moment, will I never get a chance again to try to enjoy pregnancy? How will my son be able to provide and care for us when we are old, with out siblings to help? Since we live so far from other family, will growing up in such a small family mean he misses out of so much that makes life beautiful? Will he as a result not value family? Will he only give me 1, grandchild? (I want at least 3 if not 10)
I want another person to share this genetic bond with, not just my son. (I was adopted so there is this special added bit to my feelings towards my son. Not only am I his mother and love him but physically, in his DNA he is part of me. )
On the other hand, having just one child means that he will probably do better academically than if he had 4 siblings. Also if I decide to spend money on clothes or gifts as a treat for my son all of that money can go towards him and not just a fraction of it. I do not have to worry about dividing myself in anyway amongst other children to be fair, unless I want to spend time with other children. I have time for all of me and all of my duties. There is no worry of sibling rivalry, favoritism or what ever. I can honestly say that my son is my FAVORITE child in the UNIVERSE! I can tell my son I love him more than any other child he has ever met, or will meet, or is in the world.
For my son, there aren't really any drawbacks for being an only child. For me there are drawbacks for only having one. So if we choose to get help getting pregnant, or adopt it would be for us, the parents and not for my son so much. Not to say he wouldn't have some advantages by having a sibling but not that many and I think it would even out with being an only child.
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