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.

No Fighting! Yeah!

Well today was a pretty good day. My Little Man definitely got bored working on his math facts, but there was no yelling and arguing and what not. I let him do his reading before his math and after he had reviewed the facts for an hour he asked to do his How We Use Number's book. I said "Sure." And he was very happy, and when he finally figured out he could do as many pages as he wanted from the book he was even happier. I just reminded him that if it asks him to do an activity he does it.
He didn't really want to do his writing but he didn't give me too hard of a time about it. In the end he wrote about his new kitchen timer. I gave him the timer so he could time himself doing math facts.

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.

Plans for a week with B

So My Little Man is at his dad's house for the week. He will be home for a couple hours monday-friday in the mornings so we can do our Arabic and Islamic studies together. Other than that it will just be B and me.

So I am trying to figure out where he is academically. I know that his reading level is about the same as My Little Man's and that his vocabulary is a little low as well, probably as a result of the low reading level. His strongest subject is math right now, but from the assessment i gave him he is not at the same level as his peers. He seems to be behind generally in all subjects although he has nice handwriting and is certainly more mature than My Little Man. He is clearly light years ahead of My Little Man when it comes to writing.

I think B is just a bit of a late bloomer. He has a fair amount of life skills, now we just need to beef him up in academics so he will be ready for the world.

I am thinking this week he may act out a bit given it will be our second week together. Thats ok, he will probably just need to test the ground to see where he and I stand. Therefore I think i need to have a behavior plan.
If I really focus on reading, math, and writing with him I think that might be best. He said he wanted to learn about bugs so maybe having him do a lap book about bugs might be a good starting place. hmmmmm

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. 

4th Day of school

Today we really didn't have a whole lot of work to do. Unfortunately someone's focus is at the level of a fly on caffeine.  I was very excited to have a short day. But he is still at it. He needs to draw a picture of a party with as many details as he can, then write a sentence using a descriptive word. He after 2 and a half hours has nothing on his page, not one doodle or line.
The thing is I know he loves to draw. It took him half an hour on another assignment that should have taken him about 5 minutes, 10 at the most. I don't know what his deal is.

Inshallah our next day will be better. He knows as soon as he finishes he will be done and can play the rest of the day, with the exception of emptying the dishwasher. PS he is not fasting today so that is not why.

DAY 2

So today we started on time! At 9:02! Today I have learned that letting him play on the computer for break is not conducive to getting more school work done. He had a COW despite advance warning, when I told him it was time to get beck to school work.
Right now he is having PE with the Big Man. They are learning about food groups and then will do some physically active stuff.
We did our IS for the day and Arabic. That covered handwriting as well. After he takes a break when finished with PE he will then, inshallah have English then  preforming arts.
For PA we will just briefly identify good public speakers and discuss what makes them good speakers. I figure 5-10 min at most. After that work boxes.

English Curriculum

So until some other amazing thing comes along, which tends to happen but I dobt it will beat these choices, I decided we will use Scott Foresman Reading 2nd grade for the first 16 weeks, and then Harcourt Collects for the second 16 weeks. And since we homeschool year round to a greater or lesser extent I the remain 20 "official" days are easy to add in.

SF Reading includes, phonics, comprehension, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, web quests and test taking skills (I am not to worried about the test taking skill parts because while we probably will do the state tests occasionally we may not as they are optional.)

H Collections includes comprehension, grammar, spelling, writing, web quests, and phonics.

 As far as penmanship goes, this is a septate issue.

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 

Writing about snail

Just this moment my little guy came in and told me about a snail he found in the back yard. He is now drawing a picture and writing a sentence about it. Yeayh! I asked what he was going to write and asked what are some more details he could tell about.
I asked "Where were you."
He responded "Outside."
"Where outside? You were by the tree right?"
"I was by the back, back tree."
"Ok, yeah, add that to your picture. What other details could you add? Think about it"
He added the sun, grass, the "back, back tree" our house, and he is drawing up a storm now. How can I tell, sound effects, lol. O he added this room, our basement. it is so cute!

I just told him to do a really good job with his best hand writing so he could share it on the internet.

The little thing above the n on the ground is the snail. He is in front of a tree. The back porch has striped awnings and he shows the stairs in our house.  The text reads "A snail was on the bottom of my hand when I was outside. The snail was going to the top." His handwriting is very nice here, mashallah.
If I am right behind him prompting him to hold his pencil correctly, sit up and hold his paper this is what his handwriting looks like. Sometimes we "chomp" that is we will tap each finger to our thumbs to practice coordination. I need to look up some more ideas for small little things that we can occasionally do to increase hand strength and coordination. Both his hands and mine get tired easily.  I'll post my findings inshallah.

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!