We are running on time!

Well English took longer than i wanted but alhumdulillah we are finished on time! Well we are finishing on time that is. I wanted to be done with English by lunch. Out normal lunch time is in 15 minutes and he is writing a sentence in his journal Then we will do a quick wrap up and have lunch. Then some math and science and if we have time Arabic or IS.

Inshallah I do think next week we will be able to have English and math or science done by lunch each day. This I like.

Working Plan.....for now

So inshallah I think that we will be more efficient with our English curriculum in another week or two. The science used to take a long time until I got a good enough feel for it that I always was ready. The math is in a very regular format so it is easy to be prepared for. None the less I think, inshallah I will write out(copy) the lesson plans for each day in math and English so I can be prepared and because the amoeba that was My Little Man's computer has become a vegetable, lol (the Pentium 4 processor is broken).
The way our day has been going
Wake dress teeth
eat read the Morning Warm Up and start
Break and back to work
Lunch and small break then back to finish up English
break, then math,
long break then science
I am hoping that by next week we will be used to the new curriculum enough to get to math by lunch and may be even finished with it by lunch. 

Hmph

Well My Little Man was supposed to get 1 day's worth of school work over the 3 days at his dad's house. He did approximately 1/4th of his English lesson and that's it!
If he went to public school and needed to do 1 days worth of work at his dad's house each month it would get done. But nope.......ARG! drives me nuts!
Well Bob did apologise but this is absolutely not abnormal.
Bob offered to have Carter stay until lunch on Saturdays of the weekend My Little Man stays late so that he can get the work done for the most part at my house. I am ok with that except it means the poor guy will have school 6 days in a row the one week of the month then 4 the following week.
Oh well at least then I know he will get a fair amount done the one day.  Alhumdullilah. Well My Little Man got home at a little past 7 this evening and we started his school work at 8ish so he is wrapping up the last thing and its 12:30. We skipped 1 or 2 things and saved his math practice pages for tomorrow.
I really don't see what the problem is. I send all the lesson plans, printed out and customised for My Little Man. I print off all the materials necessary. I Send all the counters and manipulatives. I go over what the lessons will be with My Little Man the day before hand. I even go through the lessons with Bob before he leaves with My Little Man for the weekend. I am available to help.
I have suggested that My Little Man get dropped off in the morning for schooling and picked up afterward but somehow that offer is rejected each and every time.
I think Bob really just isn't thinking of My Little Man's needs at all. He thinks i am trying to steal his time but my son needs an education and he just doesn't respect me. Grr.

Mosaics

Well today we are learning about mosaics. I read a bit of information from the web to him about mosaics. Then he cut some construction paper into bits and started gluing them on to a paper. While he worked on that we watched these videos






Zillij tiles: Moorish tile - Moroccan tiles -... by sttropezboutiquellc
and he invited me to help him so I helped fill in some of the gaps. He just asked for a book about mosaics and if we had a car I would take him to get one at the library. Its just too cold for me.
I tried to explain that mosaics usually have patterns. I think after we eat lunch we will use pattern blocks.

What We've Been Up To

Right now My Little Man is using a calculator to create addition problems and then make up a math story involving the equation.
He worked on a Boating Safety booklet, reviewed Arabic letters and focused on dthal, thought up and started a science experiment to see if he could get too hot by drinking hot water with a straw so he could go outside with out a coat and not get cold. Next, inshallah he is going to read and test himself on comprehension. When he read a work he didn't know he wrote it down and studied it so he would recognize it in the future.

Oh when he was working on his dthal page he started experimenting with mixing colors. So lets see thats Arabic, art, science, math, vocabulary in English, and is getting a book now for reading.  4 hours of school work and no problems other than the occasional "Enough sound effects i can't concentrate!" coming from my end. not bad

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.

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.

Meeting Goals

So when you homeschool 2 kids, or at least these 2 you cover a LOT less material in the same amount of time, but I feel like we got a lot done this afternoon none the less.
I decided this week that I would just lay put the whole week for myself as a plan instead of daily plans. Today I kinda wish I had done the daily plan thing instead. On the other hand we covered Math for My Little Man, Science for both. Did some reading/science for B, Arabic for My Little Man, Social Studies for both and a little English for My Little Man. B also corrected has papers that I had checked, this morning.
Ideally we would cover English, Math and Science everyday and Social Studies a few times a week for B and once a week for My Little Man. Also covering Arabic and Islamic Studies daily for My Little Man. Health about once a week and making sure we use the computer each week as well, other than just reading our text books.
We will just have to see what happens tomorrow. Tomorrow is the play group day. At 11 we have the one that is just a few ladies from the neighborhood and at 3 we have the one that is for a homeschool group. Also B celebrates his birthday tomorrow.
B keeps coming a couple hours later than we planned and that bugs me. I talked to his mom about it today and told her it is just not worth it if he doesn't come when planned because it just throws off the whole day. Ideally I would like to start with My Little Man at about 8:30, B at 9:00 take breaks as necessary until 1 for a nice long lunch break and end the day by 4:00. This way we have plenty of time to take breaks, send one kid off with a break if necessary while I work with the other and still have plenty of times to do things together.
At least this afternoon was better than the morning. My school boys were in good moods.

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.

So Where are We? Choice curriculum/Getting back into the routine.

Well it looks like we have the Arabic picked out, Math, Science, and English picked out. This leaves handwriting, Islamic Studies, Social Studies, Arts and Health.
I have all but decided that we will learn Spencerian Penmanship because it will be an art as well as a tool for communication. I think I really need to spice things up for penmanship otherwise we'll be miserable.
Also I figure for arts just making sure we have various art projects going on regularly. I will just let it be mostly child directed inshallah.  Say we love reading Three Little Bikers, maybe we can make a puppet show of it, or are leaning about the food groups, painting a poster about it, or we write and learn a little nasheed about what good writers do. Things like that.
Also I am thinking that SS and Health do not need to be done every day. Ideas i have for them are teaching one subject, a few times a week and then when we have mastered the concepts and skills do the other.
We could have one week with one subject and one week with the other or One day with one subject and the other a day or 2 later.
As far as IS goes I think we will do Quraan everyday, and other subjects on certain days. Maybe Aqeeda on mondays, that kind of thing.

This brings me to Mondays. Mondays are the hardest day of our week because he is often tired coming home from a fun weekend at Dad's. It seems also to very important that with in the first few mins that he walks in the door that he gets started on school work. If he does not he has a hard time with the transition back to Mom's house all day. I tend to want to chat with his step mom about what he did on the week end and what not. I guess I will just have to give her a call later in the day. 

Addition facts

By the way we are currently working on addition facts, and again thrift store finds save the day! I  picked up Addition (ISBN 0-7696-4451-1) It has a CD with useful, but obnoxious songs to help the student.  The cover, really covers all the contents.
I also have the subtraction one. I paid a dollar a piece for them. It seems to be paying off, I ask him before he begins if he want to listen to the CD. He has +0 down and just about has +1, has a hard time remembering the name of 12.  I think in another week he will probably be more than ready for +3.  He has just been giving the answers orally. 

New goodies from the thrift store!

I picked up Mathematic in Action grade 1!  It is the pupil edition. (Just recently realized edition and is spelled with an "e" >< boy I feel dumb, lol.) It is of course an older publication but it really doesn't take much to tweek it into more advanced standards.
I also got Addison-Wesley Mathematics grade 2, The American Nation student text book. So now I am set to go as far as American history. (We won't be covering that for a bit yet inshallah.)
I got a nice calculator for school work as well.
I have so much fun doing this kind of stuff!

I found something wonderful!

This is a book I got at a used book store today. It is similar to Ray's Arithmetic or First Lessons in Arithmetic but uses modern language. It was published in 1934 and is titled How We Use Numbers: The Triangle Arithmetics A Second Grade Number Book. It was published by The John C. Winston Company Philadelphia. I am pretty sure this is a k-1st grade book. The first page has a picture of 3 children and a pig in a pen.

It reads

Ned, Betty and Dorothy

Ned is nine years old.

Betty is seven years old.

Little Dorothy is only four.

The children love their home on the farm.

They make pets of all the farm animals.

(This was very easy for my son to read. We talked about the picture then went to the next page.)
On page 2 there is a picture of a a girl tossing a ball in the air in front of a lovely house.
It reads:

Tossing a Ball

Betty can toss and catch her ball ten times

without missing.

She counts:

one two three four five six

  1      2       3       4      5    6

seven eight nine ten

    7       8        9    10

How many times can you toss and catch

your ball without missing?

Try to bounce your ball ten times without

missing.

How far can you count?

This is the cover

You can see what it is like. Very simple, straight forward and allows him to act very independently. It covers counting to 1000, writing numbers, making sets, addition and subtraction, greater than/less than skip counting, time, money,2 digit addition and subtraction, place value, measurement and more. There is a lot of built in review and many many hands on activities.

A randomly selected page

Another page

A review page

The back

His scratch is from a cat.

Passwords for various text books and links

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095303
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095304
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095381
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=82095505

English
	Languages of Literature Grade 6	http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr06/index.cfm?state=MD
	Languages of Literature Grade 7	http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr07/index.cfm?state=MD
	Languages of Literature Grade 8	http://www.classzone.com/books/language_of_lit_gr08/index.cfm?state=MD
Health
	Teen Health Course 1	http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078697603/student_view0/
	Teen Heath Course 2	http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078697611/student_view0/
	Teen Health Course 3	http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/007869762x/student_view0/
Spanish
	Realidades 1 Web Code jck-0001	http://www.phschool.com
	Realidades 2 Web code jdk-0001	http://www.phschool.com
	Realidades 3 Web code jek-0001	http://www.phschool.com
French
	Discovering French Bleu 1	http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/french_1/book_home.htm
	Discovering French Blanc 2	http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/french_2/book_home.htm
World Studies
	A Message of Ancient Days World Studies 6	http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/6/index.html
	Across the Centuries World Studies 7	http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/7/index.html
	Creating America World Studies 8	http://www.classzone.com/books/cas05/index.cfm?state=MD
Math
	Math 6	http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/mac/mac01/course1/
	Math 7	http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/mac/mac01/course3/
	IM	http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078738180/student_view0
	Algebra 1	http://www.glencoe.com/sec/math/algebra/algebra1/algebra1_05/
	Algebra 2	http://www.classzone.com/books/algebra_2/index.cfm?state=MD
	Geometry	http://go.hrw.com/gopages/ma/geo.html

This is a link to Math Expressions resources

http://www.iusd.org/student_resources/Mathematics.html There is the workbook, vocabulary and homework book.

Links to Free Math Books (1st grade)

I am on the great journey of selecting math curriculum. I know that I could buy something, or I could just kinda do an ad-hoc kind of thing but I want to do neither. I want it free, not counting the cost of printing and manipulatives. I want it to be very interested to my son and preferably scripted or at least very heavily outlined. I am not very comfortable with math and I want my son to love it and do well with it. (The opposite of me.)
There are actually quite a few options out there. We could use a very old fashioned text book like First Lessons in Arithmetic published originally by Brothers and Company. The Grammar of Math is a site that a private school teacher has made video lessons and supplemental materials to accompany the book. I think she uses the book in her class room. There are other similar books that I like. For example First Lessons in Numbers, Oral and Written by Benjamin Greenleaf, A.M. The problem with it is that it does not cover geometry or algebra. I covers measurement and somewhat covers money. There are other books that do cover these areas but the money part is out dated. Pictures of money from when I was a child are out dated so one can imagine.
There is the MEP program. It looks a little in appearance but it seems to be primarily activity based and would take quite a bit of preparation. They use it in Hungary and the UK. A similar program is CSMP.
And of course there is the typical school books. I will just list them rather than give much info as they are all kind of similar anyway.

• Go Math Florida TE (Intended for children that are either up to 2 years behind their peers or more than 2 years behind their peers.) This is the TE. Here is an index of many other resources that go with it. Take your time and explore.
• Go Math Florida Student edition. 
• Think Math TE
• Think Math Student addition
• Math Expressions
• Math Expressions TE A cool thing about this one is that you can access a lot of resources that go with each lesson by clicking the resources button. Tests and everything.
• HSP Math NC I don't like how this one id displayed, but NC is known for the best schools in the US.
• HSP Math NC TE It seems to be very similar to the Harcourt book we had.
• CA Mathematics McGraw ID camath01 password redwood Has a student handbook. This is a site that has mini lessons and games to accompany the book.  D6FFE73DD6 is the code to link and had the text book with audio available and occasionally links to the games page under the resource button.
• NCERT Mathmagic is made by a government agency in India I believe. Scroll down to Class 1, which is for 6 to 7 year olds.
• Georgia Math ID fcsfirst password fcsmath 
• Math Connects D6FFE73DD is the code. F765640977 or AEF03A3C25 for 2nd, A838535E8A or DA4F562186 for 3rd, CB77A58EB7 or E3488CCEF0 4th, A7B8EC5CE9 or E3F898A3AB 5th, A8FBM1C38F or F066E2B8F1 6th, A84CFF6287 7th.
• HM Georgia Math ID 1classdekalb Password dekalbstudent1 you can change the grade by changing the number

Links for Free Curriculum or Text Books For 1st Grade

So here is a list of links that could be useful for other young families.  BTW North Carolina is supposed to have the best schools in the country so I use their standards and pacing for guides.

• Used homeschool curriculum, and homeschool groups, events, and activities 
• Home - Rainbow Resource Center, Inc.  
• SCM Curriculum Guide – Simply Charlotte Mason 
• BCP Glossary Lesson Pathways Browse Categories 
• Free Homeschool Curriculum and Educational Resources - Homeschool Buyers Co-op 
• Curriculum Based Programs, Interpretation and Education, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior 
• TJEd Online.com: Your online resource for education, training and support for A Thomas Jefferson Education 
• Old Fashioned Education Freely Educate LeapingFromTheBox - Homeschooling and Unschooling Information and Educational Resources 
• كتب مباحث الصفوف الأساسية والثانوية 
• Classic Curriculum Scope and Sequence Grades 1 - 12 
• Pass Words For Georgia Text Books in Fulton
• Text Books 
• Ideal Muslimah and other books
• The Presidents Challenge (fitness) 
• Dictation lessons in drawing for primary grades
• Object Lessons 
• Pearson - Prentice Hall Social Studies 
• Grade 2 Science
• http://activities.macmillanmh.com/science/ca/grade2/index.html 2nd Grade Science
• FOSSweb - Air and Weather 
• http://msnucleus.org/curriculum/curriculum.html Free k-12 science curriculum!
• http://science.education.nih.gov/customers.nsf/ESDental.htm Dental unit for little ones
• Technology Curriculum k-6 
• The arithmetical primer. Underhill's new table-book; or, Tables of arithmetic made easier. By D. C. Underhill ... 
• 19th Century Schoolbooks Collection 
• First lessons in arithmetic on the inductive pl... 
• The Grammar of Math: First lessons of Arithmetic  This site has videos and many other resources to go with the previous link 
• California Mathematics - Grade 1 - Chapter 1
• http://ceure.buffalostate.edu/~csmp/  CSMP complete curriculum for math
• http://www.sfreading.com/ Has grammar book, and various other materials
• Language Arts: State Resources take some time and explore this one
• The gradual primer, or, Primary school enunciator: The child's first step, taken in the right place, Part I
• McGuffey's eclectic primer 
• The new Franklin primer and first reader
• For reading Assessment 
• Starfall's Learn to Read with phonics 
• http://www.harcourtschool.com/menus/harcourt_brace_spelling.html
• http://www.homespellingwords.com/1st-Grade-Spelling-Words.htm 
• Mrs. Perkins' Dolch Words
• http://www.k12reader.com/first-grade-spelling-words/ 
• http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/national/teachers/building-reading-writing-skills/supplementary-grammar-writing-activities
• http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/national/teachers/building-reading-writing-skills/supplementary-grammar-writing-activities 
• spelling assessment
• First lessons in language, or, Elements of English grammar
• The Grammar of English McGuff 
• McGraw-Hill | Grammar & Writing Activities »
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Products - Grade 1 - Zaner-Bloser Teachers' Store  free page maker
• Islamic Copywork
• Arabic primer 
• arabic primer audio
• Comprehensive List of Madinah Arabic Resources 
• Learn arbic: lesson 1
• Learn Quran 
• TJ Blog MY FAVORITE SITE IN THE WORLD! 
• The site Talibiddeen JR 

So I think I will follow a posting schedule. inshallah.
Monday: Cool Links!
Tuesday: Miscellaneous Lessons
Wednesday: Islamic Studies
Thursday: Arabic Studies
Friday: English Studies
Saturday: Mathematics
Sunday: Science

Subjects We're Studying

Hi world! Aslamulakum muslimeen!
So first thing is first we are studying Arabic, Aqeedah, Salat, Penmanship, Writing, English, Math, Science and what ever comes along ;). We informally study nutrition and health, along with other things.
Our current goals are as follows:
Arabic, increase vocabulary, an strengthen letter formation.
Aqeedah, Who is Your Lord?
Salat, perfecting physical positioning and meaning of the words
Penmanship, pencil grip, correct formation, leaving space between words
Writing, letter writing
English, spelling, thinking about what we have read
Math, review and assess
Science, Space and technology!
Other, Ireland!