Farm Life

Last weekend, our dear friend held a community clean-up on her 30 acre farm to prepare for the approaching winter. The boys and I were there from mid-morning Saturday until bedtime Sunday. The group of families cleaned the chicken coop, brooder, and goat pens. We weeded and cleared out sections of the garden, tilled, and spread manure. We mowed the lawns and trimmed the bushes.  I was too busy working to get too many pictures, but oh how I wish I had one of Yusuf with his chicken coop cleaning mask on — he wore it well after the work was done, like a trophy for a job well done. Here are some general farm scenes I’ve taken on our frequent trips. The farm is, after all, the place we spend the most time after our own house.

Zak and Snowball

A few of the 25 laying hens.

Yusuf's chicken feeder

Yusuf built this chicken feeder! We measured together, I used the circular saw to cut the pieces, and Yusuf put it together with the screw gun. I did the four screws that had to go through the PVC pipe, but he put in the other eight all on his own. Needless to say, he was a proud little guy, especially come Sunday morning when he got to spread the chicken feed in the trough that he built himself. The chickens had no complaints.

Introducing Wedventures – Week 1

Wednesday is the boys’ day off school, so usually we plan something special. It is fitting that our first documented Wedventure (Wednesday + adventure, get it?) was a trip to South Germantown Park’s Adventure Playground. The outing started with Mansoor slamming his sweet finger in the car door. He screamed, his fingernail turned purple, but all in all he handled it like the little man he is. Our trip ended with Yusuf accidentally kicking Mansoor smack in the fact while clumsily attempting to climb a ladder. Between Mansoor’s tears, Yusuf managed to fall off a four foot high seal statue and land (hard) on his face. Thankfully, the ground was sawdust rather than cement. Despite the absurd number of injuries (and two emergency trips to the bathroom), we had a great time. Really!

Scenes from Seattle, Part I

Mt. Rainier from the window seat

Mom!

Planning our zoo route

The new penguin exhibit

Yusuf's beloved jaguar, up close and personal

Mansoor is eating raspberries by the bowlful these days

Getting dirty at the beach

And oh the sunsets... Photos never do them justice (especially those taken with a camera phone)

Mama Hen and her Chicks

I admit it, I can’t draw. Really, I simply don’t know how to draw anything other than maybe a doodled flower while I’m supposed to be taking notes. So, when Yusuf and I sit around to draw together, I’m far from an inspiration for him. Our drawings tend to consist of geometric houses (you know, a triangle roof on top of a square house), stick people, grass and sky. We make great messes with paint and construct all sorts of cool 3D projects, but drawing has eluded us both. It was time for an intervention.

We finally purchased Draw, Write, Now last week, and this lovely book entered our school room yesterday. Today we have masterpieces! Behold Yusuf’s Mama Hen and Chicks:

Notice the big brother chick and the little brother chick

Yusuf decided that this one will go to our dear friend Zahirah as she is currently raising chickens. Tomorrow we will try to create another drawing, I’m hoping for (my) Grandma. This breakthrough is making the idea of making cards for relatives and pen-pals much more exciting!

RightStart Math is Brilliant

Witness:

Just another worksheet?

Yes, this looks like just another page of math sums. Watching Yusuf work them out however reveals the brilliance that is RightStart. Take 4+3 for example. Instead of starting with 4 and counting up 3 like most K/1 math programs teach, RightStart has taught Yusuf to mentally take one from the 3 and move it over to the 4 to make the problem 5+2. Similarly, 6+1 also becomes 5+2 and 4+4 becomes 5+3. The more math we do the more incredible I think RightStart is! The program spends a lot of time at the beginning teaching kids how to visualize numbers without counting, using their fingers, tally sticks (popsicle sticks used as tally marks), and the abacus.

RightStart's Standard Abacus

We do a multitude of activies and play many games in which Yusuf shows 7 fingers with one full hand and two others (5+2), builds 7 in tally sticks with a group of five and two others, and sees 7 on the abacus as 5+2. While other elementary math programs emphasize the decimal or base-ten system (Montessori, Math-U-See), I have never seen a program teach the base-five model like RightStart does. So many of the students I tutor use their fingers to “count up” when solving basic addition problems, and they’re upper elementary, middle, and even high school students! One of my biggest goals for homeschooling Yusuf is to give him a solid math foundation, it is so gratifying to watch him start to really understand.

In other math news, we have been having a lot of fun working with money (just dimes, nickels, and pennies of course, to reinforce the decimal and base-five systems), playing with mirrors (exploring symmetry and reflections), and using calendars. Yusuf counts to 100 pretty well now, and can count by twos and tens also. Mansoor can always name the current month before Yusuf can remember, but surprisingly (and thankfully), this doesn’t bother Yusuf in the slightest. From Mansoor’s perspective, I imagine it’s fun to finally have something he can do faster than his big brother.

Learning Spaces

Over the weekend, I did a massive restructuring of the school room. Here are some photos.

From the Doorway

The easle, finally up from the basement! That paper did not stay white for long.

One of the art shelves

Our nature table, in progress. Our jewelers loops are hanging on the left wall for up-close investigation.

The first stage of our workbox system. Eventually Yusuf will have 12 and Mansoor six. More on this later insha'Allah!

Checking in and out. How cute are those pirates?!

Making friends with Cuisenaire rods

Out of Habit

Blogging is a habit that must be developed. Whenever I sit down to post, I feel that I have to catch up with all I have ever intended to post before I most on to the post at hand. To appease myself, here are some of our recent excursions.

PlayWise Kids in Columbia, MD

I’m convinced this place is run by the church next door as a fund-raising venture, and it seems a bit pricey for the quality and quanity of the exhibits. Regardless, the kids have a blast each time we go. It was nice this time to meet up with other sisters there (and our masses of Muslim kids), it felt very homey with so many familiar faces running about. I didn’t get many photos of Yusuf because he was too busy running around with the big kids.

Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin:

Mom and I went the day after the official parade, a beautiful sunny day in the 70s! I actually got sun on my cheeks and nose for the first time in many years. It was packed around the mall and Jefferson Memorial, but thankfully the crowd thinned out by the time we reached the FDR Memorial. This was my first visit to see FDR, and I was completely surprised and impressed with the design. The cherry blossoms were at their absolute perfection… a great day indeed.

Huntley Meadows Park:

The boys and I went to Huntley Meadows last summer, but this was our first visit leaving the stroller at home. Mansoor is so small for his age that it’s easy to forget he’s nearly three! He is completely capable of being a full-time walker now. So, we all walked the two miles, on a nice path through the woods and on the boardwalk across the marsh. Mansoor did not ask to be picked up until the parking lot was back in sight, and when he was politely denied a ride, he walked his little self to the car. Masha’Allah, I was very proud of him. It was a bit colder and windier than I had anticipated, but alhamdulillah we had fleeces and windbreakers. We saw many birds including the great egret (I love the big water birds!), but insha’allah we’ll be heading back in a month or six weeks for more flowers and frogs.

I don’t have any pictures of our recent trips to Dumbarton Oaks, Williamsport, or the Baltimore Aquarium, but alhamdulillah I’m feeling more caught up.

The Baltimore Aquarium, as a side note, has not only a new and improved dolphin show, but it has a brand new 4D Immersion Theater which is amazingly fabulous. In addition to the 3D goggles, they have 4D effects like mist, breeze, bubbles, leg ticklers, back pokers, and vibrating seats. Yusuf loved it; it was great to see him enjoy the fright, to shriek in surprise with a smile on his face.

On Ice

On his own two feet

Too quick for the camera!

Puzzle Mania

Yusuf is finally showing an interest in puzzles! I have to literally bite my tongue sometimes to prevent myself from offering commentary and assistance. As a very spacial person, it makes me crazy when he does things like try an edge piece on the inside. Crazy, I tell you! I take some deep breaths or otherwise distract myself, and masha’Allah! Slow and steady he works it out his way — what a sense of accomplishment! Certainly better than just following Mama’s directions.

The puzzle mania (we’re talking at least two or three times daily) is aided by the fact that I let a “character” into the house. Generally, all comic characters (read: super heros), movie and TV characters (Nemo, Dora), etc. are completely banned from the house. I’m convinced it’s all a conspiracy of mass marketing, advertising aimed at kids, designed to foster nothing but consumerism. So, when Yusuf asked for a puzzle, I think he wanted it primarily because it featured Lightning McQueen from Cars (he hasn’t seen the movie but knows the characters from his classmates at school last year). I chose to look at it as a foray into the world of puzzles, a starter puzzle that excites him, and bought it. Only $3, after all. It’s a big hit, the 24-piece jigsaw is the perfect level for him, so insha’Allah we’ll try to work a few others (without characters!) into the mix. Perhaps we’ll have to dust off our Arabic and English alphabet puzzles we have downstairs as well.

Accomplishment.

Lightning McQueen

I spent another $3 on a 1500 piece puzzle for myself, to model the behavior, of course. I actually love the work and just hope that Mansoor won’t run off with any of the pieces!

Spring in our Step

Found in the yard:

Short-stemmed Iris

Crocus

Daffodils

Snowdrops