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.

What a week!

So we had a less than stellar day. It ended pretty good though. I wasn't actually planning on having school today but think about how little academically work we had done this week I decided that we would do a little.
While My Little Man was ok with updating his calendar he really didn't want to do anything else. ARG! We did science together which he did like but when it came time to doing a couple worksheets, in order to practice spelling, he decided he was done.
We had a long talk about choices to no end. Then I decided to pare everything down to the bare essentials and ask him how he wanted to accomplish those. That did the trick. I told him you HAVE to practice Arabic daily. You HAVE to learn something new in science each week. I and you need to show me that you have learned something new. I went down my list of 5 or 6 essentials and it clicked for him. He understood that they were essential.
I asked him how could he learn new things in science because I don't care how he does it as long as he can show me he has made some progress. He suggested playing web games for science and reading his favorite comic for English.
I told him I could work on the games thing but the comics would take a lot longer to happen. I also explained that he would HAVE to do some work alone, with out me. "I can not poop for you and I can not learn for you." He finally understood that he was going to have to do some stuff sitting down with a pencil in hand.
My point of view is, in the end he is going to have to do some writing by hand in order to be a better writer. He is going to have to practice spelling in order to be a better speller. I know he doesn't quite understand why he needs to know how to spell, despite my efforts to explain. On the other hand, frankly he hated the first lessons we had in reading but now he is the biggest book worm I know.
I am hoping he will do the same with writing. Maybe he will hate it now but in a month or 2 he will not be able to get enough of it.
I asked if he wanted to continue how we had school during Ramadan. Some lessons together them him alone doing work boxes. He said he did.
I would love to have lessons outside sometimes but i have the feeling that he would be overwhelmed by outside noises. Then again i don't know. Either way soon it will be cold and I do not want to go out in the cold. YES, I am a wimp. Hot, up to the mid 90's and I am fine. The cold, after 72 I start to complain.
LOL I am cold 3/4 of the year.
Anyway, Eid was nice, a bit quiet but nice. The past day or 2 the large family from down the block has been over to play. They are sweet little boys, wild but sweet. There is 1 child on the block that I no longer allow in my house or back yard due his discourteous and destructive behavior so i am glad my son has new little friends.
Today my Little Man was grounded due to poor choices the night before. I hated that he was grounded, especially the 10th time the kids came by, alhumdulillah I locked the front door so despite their trying they could not get in. I wanted to unground him so badly, but he had run off down to the end of the block around Isha with his little friend to his yard. He had been warned several time to stay in the back or in the house. So not only did he disobey by going out front again but he left the yard without asking and down to the end of the block where I can't see him even standing in the front yard but he did this after dark!
So Mom had to be strong and say no. When the neighbor kids came by the many many times they did I had to tell them over and over he was grounded. Actually I think by the end of the day My Little Man didn't mind as much as I did, lol. 

Back to School After Eid

Well we are back to school work today. Last week was a bit hectic so while we did some schooling we didn't get too much done academically. Although I do think our Arabic skill benefited quite a bit.
Tuesday was Eid and yesterday we also took the day off from school work for recuperation purposes.

So far to day we are in a pretty relaxed mode. We started an hour ago and began with our official math book. It has manipulatives that you punch out of the back of the book which is always fun. The lesson was basically just review of Kindergarten level math.
Currently he is making his invention from his English lesson. It goes with the book Tools by Ann Morris. It talks about tools giving examples from around the world. My Little Man drew a picture of a tool of his own invention and is now creating it using legos.
I would still like to cover Islamic studies, Arabic and science. As well as practice spelling and writing, both handwriting and composition. Like I said we are going about it very relaxed so if we don't get to them today I wont fret.

Eid Mubarak...yesterday

Eid Mubarak! Yesterday was Eid and we had a great day, mashallah. I decorated the night before and in the morning we got ready then I gave my son gifts. Next we walked to the masjid and it was lovely. My poor hubby carried the a box full of bags of candy for the kids. We had the prayer and khutbah and then the kids jumped on the moon bounce. We had a BBQ at the masjid then a kind brother gave us a ride home from the masjid mashallah.

We just chilled out for a bit, hubby too a nap, my son played with gifts, I did a bit of cleaning. As a special treat we ordered pizza and decided to invite some dear friends over. They are not muslim but know we celibrate Eid and were happy to join us. I showed my friend some funny youtube videos and she showed me some cool science videos. (Nurdrage) We said good night and hubby and I watched a show we both like. It was a good day mashallah.