Our son was always slightly different to his peers in development and interests. Whilst at the crawling stage he would be busy playing with pram wheels and a pudding basin and his visitors sat with their teddies. He always found the toddler groups a nightmare and often screamed. I was told to persevere, but inwardly felt he just didn’t’ want to be there. At nursery he became so unhappy that he stopped singing, something he had always done, and eventually stopped talking. It took several months and a number of Thomas trains to coax him back to talking and singing.
From nursery/prep school traumas we moved onto reception at a local state school where I would have to go out to buy books to put into the library so he could bring something suitable home. He was an able reader at this time and made no progress in that year, coming top of the class. After several discussions and initial promises to accommodate him, it became clear that no help was on offer. In fact the only help came from the children, who at the end of the year, still had no grasp of the alphabet! Moving on, we tried a further three schools over the years until he was finally removed by us after Year 5.
In each school, be it state or private, his differences were not identified, and he was bullied and mis-understood instead. I was labelled an over-protective mummy, but he was so miserable at school and happy at home. Every summer holiday was a nightmare where he constantly asked ‘how many days until school?’. At school he struggled to cope with noises, lights and the buzz of classroom life. He felt isolated and friendless, unable to fit into their system.
One area of interest that kept him going was music. From the age of 6 he took up piano, followed by cello, then singing and viola and music theory. To date, he has achieved Grad 8 singing and Grade 5 viola with distinction, and is preparing for Grade 7 piano, Grade 6 cello, and Grade 6 theory. We have had some patient teachers over the years and some that perhaps couldn’t cope!
As with all his academic subjects, he fires off questions relentlessly, and has an uncanny knack of discovering a weakness a teacher my have in their subject. He has to verbalise everything he is learning, it is his way of reinforcing what he has learnt. Worksheets are just a frustrating repetition of what he already knows.
By the end of Year 5 the Head finally agreed that maybe there ‘was something going on there’ and we saw and Educational Psychologist who assessed that he was very bright and had Asperger’s Syndrome. This came at the time he also had a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrom (CFS) and Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), which the Educational Psychologist could not agree with at all. We felt very let down at the joint meeting with her and the Head, and gave our notice to remove him from the school after persevering for a further term. At this time our son one day said that life was not worth living, and this broke my heart. Some of the incidents that occurred in school are perhaps best not mentioned; abuse is not too strong a word.
I spent that summer holiday researching home education, and we took the step to register him with the then LEA on the first day of the new school year. That was three years ago, and I wish that I had had the confidence to never have sent him to school and kept him at home to find out how he learnt best.
From the start, there was a joint sense of relief, no more screaming at the start of term; or tears in the morning; no more uneaten lunches because he was too stressed to eat; no more bullying. My husband now goes to work without having the pantomime of getting him into the car on time to dash into the city, to double back to his own work through heavy traffic. Because of his CFS my son is usually unresponsive or tired until 10 o’clock, or sometimes later, so we start working when he is ready.
Over the three years at home we have tried and discarded various forms of learning. The way our son learns is quite different to school methods where there is a lot of repetition and reinforcing. When we commenced home education he would have been finishing KS2 if at school, so I picked up from there and came up against a brick wall. My son wanted nothing to do with this material, he was bored, so we moved onto KS3 for Maths, and other subjects. In time after the tutors we were using had left, we hit the road for IGCSEs. We have gone down the route of tutors from a reputable agency, which has caused us grief; we have tried the famous CGP workbooks and written on perhaps three pages. We have also tried their study books, which were deemed unhelpful by my son.
Correspondence courses and on-line school have all been tried with varying degrees of success. Audiocassettes for language got a big thumbs down because there is no visual element to the presentation, he favoured the BBC Learning First Steps courses followed by their Ma France and a German course from a news site in Germany.
We have found that he learns best when he is relaxed, and mostly from just reading the textbook. Generally, he retains about 85% of the material in this way; the rest is covered when we revise. He dislikes writing out exercises so we discuss most subjects, but he does have to do some maths on paper (under protest). He now reads some subjects for himself, usually kneeling on the sofa, arms draped over my footstool with the textbook on the floor. He enjoys learning from well-structured CD ROMs that are interactive, when he was smaller he loved the Jump Ahead software followed by the Learning Ladder series, for maths we used the maths2x1 for KS3 and 4. This was topped up with an IGCSE text and CD ROM in preparation for the exam this May. All in all my son’s learning experience has been an experience for us too. I wouldn’t like to say how much we have spent on aborted courses and textbooks.
In three years he has progressed from KS2 (almost) to IGCSE and beyond, he has just sat IGCSE Maths and Chemistry at 13. He still struggles with times tables and has no grasp of the size of numbers, but really enjoys Differential Calculus, and can’t wait to get to grips with Complex Numbers. This from a child who struggled with KS2. Peculiarly, his real strength lies in the literary field; he has a desire to be a writer.
We have a hospital Consultant’s letter requesting his Access requirements, which has helped enormously with his coping with the exams. He is allowed a break halfway through to ‘chill’ and also 25% extra time to help with the slowness of writing, along with a keyboard for essay-based exams, since writing in volume is too painful to his joints.
We anticipate that he will sit a few exams at a time to spread the stress/workload. One big advantage of being at home is that we get to decide which subjects he sits and when. On the downside it is a big headache for most home educating families to find a local exam centre that will let candidates sit their particular exam subjects and exam boards.
We are trying to avoid specialising him too early, we want him to have a broad-based education, and be free to choose later. We hope he takes around 13 IGCSE/GCSEs, sitting a few at a time. He needs time to recover from his health problems, time to catch up on his emotional development and time to decide what he really wants to do.
A common comment aimed at home educators in general (and we have had our fill of it) is the big question of socialisation. Our son has some friends not many, but that is partly due to being on the 99.7 percentile and thinking on a different level so much of the time, and other children find him hard work. HE is great with small children, very caring and kind, and happily engages with adults and will hold forth on the political situation if allowed. He does sing in a local small choir, which has taken a while for him to cope with.
We have seen him maturing with his social skills over the last three years, and with the help of some acting lesions when he is well, we expect that he will be fine in the end. A retired vicar suggest acting skills as he, like our son, had Asperger’s Syndrome and had to learn how to portray himself as a caring person although he already was inside.
For us it is always difficult gauging the right balance of time spent with friends and time resting. With his CFS life is quite unpredictable, he can suddenly have frail spells with no warning, only to pick up and seem almost well again. Coupling this with the stress he suffers going out, mixing in a crowd or just visiting a friend, it is almost impossible to gauge how much is too much. It’s always the days after a visit that show how well he has coped.
My one big ‘if only’ is if only I had had the confidence to stand my ground when he was small and follow my instincts to keep him at home, then we would have spared him a lot of pain and trauma. As it is, we have learnt from our experiences. He hopes to get to Oxford, although he is unsure which Degree to go for – will it be English Literature, or Latin, or History, or maybe Music, or maybe even Maths?
For further information and support:
www.nagcbritain.org.uk
0845 4500295
www.nas.org.uk
0845 0704004
www.meassociation.org.uk
01280 818968
Showing posts with label Structured learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Structured learning. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
A semi structured approach to home education
We had never intended to home educate. In fact, it had never even occurred to us. We sort of fell into it as a last resort.
Our girls (now 14 and 12) were in an independent, fee-paying, girls only school until March 2007.
We withdrew them because of educational and welfare issues that we were unable to resolve with the school. As we looked at our options, the closest independent school was miles away and the local state schools have a very poor record. So I started to research home education and, to be honest, very nearly didn’t do it at all.
It was only when I chatted to someone who told me his daughter was taking some GCSEs that summer that I personally felt more comforted.
Coming from the background we did, I think we had always intended to do something in way of GCSEs or equivalent with a view to potentially opening the doors into further and higher education.
We started out with quite a formal time-table, which soon gave way to a more flexible “semi-structured approach.”
We started working with English, Maths and Science Workbooks for the appropriate age group, which was very useful to see what they had covered in school and where there were some pretty gaping holes in basic knowledge, especially for the younger daughter and her Maths!
This was accompanied by using online resources such as BBC Bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision/ .
I knew we were in no great rush and that we had time to find our feet and to settle into our own routine.
I found some research that had been done on students studying for GCSE subjects and found that each subject consists of approximately 100 hours of study. If they studied one subject for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week they could be up to the standard of passing an exam in 5-6 weeks if they chose to!
I then found a wonderful forum for Home Educating families who are considering GCSEs and alternatives. It was a real god-send to me because I was beginning to think we were the only family who were considering taking exams.
That moved us away from GCSEs to IGCSEs, which are the international version and seem to be a better preparation for A-Level than GCSE, as well as being recognised and liked by most Universities. Additionally there is no coursework.
When the girls left school it was the first time they had really had the time for external activities and they joined Stagecoach (a group for singing, dancing and drama), joined a Pop Music school where one child plays the electric guitar and the other plays the drums, started horse riding and other activities.
Stagecoach has been fantastic for both children and especially for the older one, who has decided she wants to pursue Drama and acting as a career.
Fortunately we had continued with Speech and Drama lessons from leaving school and continue to work towards the LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) exams. These carry considerable weight in the acting world, as well as contributing towards UCAS points for University.
From that passion, she has found somewhere she would like to go to study at 16 years old and that has given us a clear path to follow. She has been told that she needs 6 GCSEs or equivalent, including Maths and English.
We are working towards IGCSEs with both children, including Maths, English, ICT, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and our older daughter is also studying German.
We are doing this in a mixture of ways. Some subjects, we work at home from books and online resources; we have a tutor for the Speech and Drama; and we are part of a group for the Science, which has been organised by some of the home educating parents we know who have a degree in the subjects and can teach them.
When we started, we adopted a project based approach. We picked our favourite subject- chocolate- and used that to teach across every subject including Maths, Science, ICT, Geography, History and culminating in the obligatory field trip to Cadbury World in Birmingham!
With the younger daughter, she is in the Girl Guides and we have spent most of her first year of home education doing numerous badges because she has responded much better to a more project based approach than to the formal approach, that her older sister seemed quite comfortable with.
Completing the Guide badges has provided her with a huge set of very useful tools, including researching, organising and presenting material in numerous different mediums and setting goals and sticking with them to completion.
The younger daughter is a keen writer and photographer (something we really only discovered when they finished school). She has written 3 full-length books for girls, which we are in the process of self- publishing for her.
Within the first few weeks we had got her photography website up and running, which she built herself, with some help from me. We are working on selling her photographs and creating a business for her out of her writing and photography. You can see her website at www.pawingphotographs.com
For the first year, we did not socialise with other home-educating families at all. I had spoken to a couple of group leaders and felt that most groups seemed to consist of either very young children or people who were taking the totally autonomous route to education. I felt like a fish out of water.
It was only when I met someone in the Home Ed GCSE forum, who was talking about an IGCSE drama group, that we went and started to meet other families who thought in the same way as we did. This led onto the group with the Science IGCSE.
For us it has been very important to help the girls find things they are passionate about, as well as allowing them to try different things and discard the ones they don’t like.
As I know how fast they are absorbing the subjects that we are covering, it also gives us the luxury of being able to go out for the day or for the girls to spend the whole day in bed if they seem particularly tired.
For our family, this has worked best with a “semi-structured” approach, as it gives us a sense of direction. It is a constantly evolving process.
I have written about our journey on my blog http://www.goldstonacademyfortheinsane.com
Amanda Goldston
Our girls (now 14 and 12) were in an independent, fee-paying, girls only school until March 2007.
We withdrew them because of educational and welfare issues that we were unable to resolve with the school. As we looked at our options, the closest independent school was miles away and the local state schools have a very poor record. So I started to research home education and, to be honest, very nearly didn’t do it at all.
It was only when I chatted to someone who told me his daughter was taking some GCSEs that summer that I personally felt more comforted.
Coming from the background we did, I think we had always intended to do something in way of GCSEs or equivalent with a view to potentially opening the doors into further and higher education.
We started out with quite a formal time-table, which soon gave way to a more flexible “semi-structured approach.”
We started working with English, Maths and Science Workbooks for the appropriate age group, which was very useful to see what they had covered in school and where there were some pretty gaping holes in basic knowledge, especially for the younger daughter and her Maths!
This was accompanied by using online resources such as BBC Bitesize http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision/ .
I knew we were in no great rush and that we had time to find our feet and to settle into our own routine.
I found some research that had been done on students studying for GCSE subjects and found that each subject consists of approximately 100 hours of study. If they studied one subject for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week they could be up to the standard of passing an exam in 5-6 weeks if they chose to!
I then found a wonderful forum for Home Educating families who are considering GCSEs and alternatives. It was a real god-send to me because I was beginning to think we were the only family who were considering taking exams.
That moved us away from GCSEs to IGCSEs, which are the international version and seem to be a better preparation for A-Level than GCSE, as well as being recognised and liked by most Universities. Additionally there is no coursework.
When the girls left school it was the first time they had really had the time for external activities and they joined Stagecoach (a group for singing, dancing and drama), joined a Pop Music school where one child plays the electric guitar and the other plays the drums, started horse riding and other activities.
Stagecoach has been fantastic for both children and especially for the older one, who has decided she wants to pursue Drama and acting as a career.
Fortunately we had continued with Speech and Drama lessons from leaving school and continue to work towards the LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) exams. These carry considerable weight in the acting world, as well as contributing towards UCAS points for University.
From that passion, she has found somewhere she would like to go to study at 16 years old and that has given us a clear path to follow. She has been told that she needs 6 GCSEs or equivalent, including Maths and English.
We are working towards IGCSEs with both children, including Maths, English, ICT, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and our older daughter is also studying German.
We are doing this in a mixture of ways. Some subjects, we work at home from books and online resources; we have a tutor for the Speech and Drama; and we are part of a group for the Science, which has been organised by some of the home educating parents we know who have a degree in the subjects and can teach them.
When we started, we adopted a project based approach. We picked our favourite subject- chocolate- and used that to teach across every subject including Maths, Science, ICT, Geography, History and culminating in the obligatory field trip to Cadbury World in Birmingham!
With the younger daughter, she is in the Girl Guides and we have spent most of her first year of home education doing numerous badges because she has responded much better to a more project based approach than to the formal approach, that her older sister seemed quite comfortable with.
Completing the Guide badges has provided her with a huge set of very useful tools, including researching, organising and presenting material in numerous different mediums and setting goals and sticking with them to completion.
The younger daughter is a keen writer and photographer (something we really only discovered when they finished school). She has written 3 full-length books for girls, which we are in the process of self- publishing for her.
Within the first few weeks we had got her photography website up and running, which she built herself, with some help from me. We are working on selling her photographs and creating a business for her out of her writing and photography. You can see her website at www.pawingphotographs.com
For the first year, we did not socialise with other home-educating families at all. I had spoken to a couple of group leaders and felt that most groups seemed to consist of either very young children or people who were taking the totally autonomous route to education. I felt like a fish out of water.
It was only when I met someone in the Home Ed GCSE forum, who was talking about an IGCSE drama group, that we went and started to meet other families who thought in the same way as we did. This led onto the group with the Science IGCSE.
For us it has been very important to help the girls find things they are passionate about, as well as allowing them to try different things and discard the ones they don’t like.
As I know how fast they are absorbing the subjects that we are covering, it also gives us the luxury of being able to go out for the day or for the girls to spend the whole day in bed if they seem particularly tired.
For our family, this has worked best with a “semi-structured” approach, as it gives us a sense of direction. It is a constantly evolving process.
I have written about our journey on my blog http://www.goldstonacademyfortheinsane.com
Amanda Goldston
Sunday, 23 November 2008
A Day of our 'Mix and Match' effort
When eldest came out of school at 7 we tried 'school at home' - which was very draining and proved unworkable for us,we tried being 'Autonomous' and I couldn't stand the TV / Playstation / Computer on almost all the time and threw a wobbly about 3 months in and switched all the screens off!
We have since settled to 'mix and match' : Quran, Islamic Studies and Arabic go along with our family plans - non negotiable, but anything and everything else is negotiable!
(Eldest has proved the method works as he has gained many skills eg. Woodland and Survival, Caving experitise, Leadership ( he's a Scout Leader at 15 and has completed many of their adult modules),Camping etc.. Some skills have been self taught from his interest base eg. programming, graphic and website design. Also academically he has tried bits and pieces as the interest took him : eg.sat Maths. English, and Islamic Studies GCSE's at 10 and 12, also completed a 60 point Open University course gaining a Certificate in Natural Science at 14.)
The Journal below was first put on our home education list as many members were sharing how the home ed. day pans out.Boys at this time were 12, 8 and 7.
Youngest was up first, who re-arranged his bed to look as though he was still in there, so brothers would not follow him down! I was next up and found him in front of the computer playing 'Fate'!(conversation was brief: 'assalmaulikum' , 'waalikumsalaam' : 'washed?' , 'no' : 'had breakfast?' , 'no' : 'read Quran?' , 'no' :'then get your butt back up here!!!!' , 'aaaww!')
Other two up shortly and all washed and dressed. They sorted their own breakfast except younegst who couldn't decide till I said 'Fine, out the kitchen' and then wanted eggs and toast!
Eldest working on Quran with al Qari over the internet while middle son tidied living room.Eldest doing some english work on sites I'd put for him into bookmarks (at this time he was working towards covering the syllabus for the English exam)Youngest onto Quran reading and middle son working on a school express unit on Lions, to be added to his Africa lapbook.
Eldest worked on the english for a while then found this to 'help' ds2 for his Lion lapbook, hilarious!!I'm calling it free delivery : lion lunch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3YJUdChx8s&search=lions(the lapbooks were started after ds2 decided he wanted to record some of the information he found and also when he realised he enjoyed writing stories and summarising the documentaries he watched).
Once Quran lesson over for youngest, ds2 took over for his and youngest started on his explanation of why he didn't need to finish his Spider unit fromschool express, despite the fact he had asked for it, and in fact insisted I print it out immediately!But now, having completed a few pages, he just didn't 'feel like he wanted to' , and could he take his scooter round on the front instead, and he'd hopefully get it 'done in the next few days depending on his schedule'!!Yes, he went scootering!!
Once middle son had finished Quran, youngest also came in and they both helped with the baking,heart shaped cup cakes and a plain sponge for my brother and uncle who were visiitng later in the afternoon.Stayed on to help cook the fish and rice for lunch: lots of sharing, measuring, weighing and recipe reading!
I had a quick tidy up, ocassionally 'commandeering' the odd one for help round the house- (housework comes under life skills for us and as all contribute to the mess so all have a share in the clear-ups)
Everything done, and sat down for a rest, which was the moment ds2 was waiting for as he wanted to read.Book chosen was one we'd got a few days ago from the 'withdrawn' box at the local library.A brillaint story of a young lad named Wesley who creates his own staple crop, and founds a civilization!! all in his own back garden!http://web.syr.edu/~jjvizthu/weslandia.htm
guests arrived, mum busy in chat etc. group prayers, eating together on the floor, all help clear up
older two went off to continue with the garden ( we have had nothing done for months in the garden and kids weren't interested in doing anything tillabout 2 weeks ago when middle son wanted to know, Why didn't plants grow in some parts of Africa? why were all these people starving?so discussion started and we also used the internetrains have failed --http://www.afrol.com/articles/13298http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2855governments have failed --http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13885409and poverty-- because the rich are greedy: in western Kenya, fertilizer costs more than twice what it costs in France... other rich countries have not delivered the promised foreign aid necessaryhttp://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/crosscutting/poverty.html)
Showing that it wasn't a problem that had just appeared but something that was the result of years of failure was important -actions and consequences is something that must be taught as Islamically we are answerable for what we do... lots more on economics,governments making promises they don't keep, even people failing to pay sadaqa and zakat (poor due) which is a Islamic duty, .............and then back to science and how plants grow!
Final result has been where the science is concerned we have a bunch of seeds which he is going to grow in different locations and under different conditions to see what happens. He liked my suggestion of measuring the growth as an indicator of success, and producing some sort of chart to display results!The trip to the garden center also resulted in eldest wanting to look after something in the garden so we came back a few days ago with Gourd seeds,tomatoe, carrots and herbs, and the odd flowers. All the current activity in the garden if the preparation for these seeds and plants to go in.
They stayed out till online tutor signed in , Quran sessions for all 3,(this is seperate to their Al Qari work which is more for correct pronunciation and helping in Hifz).
guests leave, and we all have snack time and cuddle up to watch Patch Adams :http://www.patchadams.com/wonderful story! and very good for high lighting the meaness of people who perceive you as being 'odd', as the one who 'doesn't fit in'
Asr prayers together, and hubby took us to Ealing Common for the fun fair.Back home for prayers, quick snacks, duaas and bed
looking back at the day and trying to see this as 'curriculum' I would say
GARDENING: Nature-- identifying flower bulbs, weeds, dead roots, grasses, digging and weeding
ECONOMICS World Trade Wealth/poverty issues
ISLAMIC STUDIES-- sunnah of eating, keeping your prommises, paying the poor due, giving extra when Allah has blessed you with wealth
SCIENCE -- plants, light, water, chlorophly
MATHS -- collecting data, presenting on chart, measuring
ENGLISH-- writing in the Lion unit, reading and comprehension, spelling
QURAN-- Tajweed and meaning
LIFE SKILLS -- housework, helping others, keeping a tidy home,
COOKERY / HOME ECONOMICSI.T. - use of net as a research tool
Alhumdulilla
We have since settled to 'mix and match' : Quran, Islamic Studies and Arabic go along with our family plans - non negotiable, but anything and everything else is negotiable!
(Eldest has proved the method works as he has gained many skills eg. Woodland and Survival, Caving experitise, Leadership ( he's a Scout Leader at 15 and has completed many of their adult modules),Camping etc.. Some skills have been self taught from his interest base eg. programming, graphic and website design. Also academically he has tried bits and pieces as the interest took him : eg.sat Maths. English, and Islamic Studies GCSE's at 10 and 12, also completed a 60 point Open University course gaining a Certificate in Natural Science at 14.)
The Journal below was first put on our home education list as many members were sharing how the home ed. day pans out.Boys at this time were 12, 8 and 7.
*****************************
Youngest was up first, who re-arranged his bed to look as though he was still in there, so brothers would not follow him down! I was next up and found him in front of the computer playing 'Fate'!(conversation was brief: 'assalmaulikum' , 'waalikumsalaam' : 'washed?' , 'no' : 'had breakfast?' , 'no' : 'read Quran?' , 'no' :'then get your butt back up here!!!!' , 'aaaww!')
Other two up shortly and all washed and dressed. They sorted their own breakfast except younegst who couldn't decide till I said 'Fine, out the kitchen' and then wanted eggs and toast!
Eldest working on Quran with al Qari over the internet while middle son tidied living room.Eldest doing some english work on sites I'd put for him into bookmarks (at this time he was working towards covering the syllabus for the English exam)Youngest onto Quran reading and middle son working on a school express unit on Lions, to be added to his Africa lapbook.
Eldest worked on the english for a while then found this to 'help' ds2 for his Lion lapbook, hilarious!!I'm calling it free delivery : lion lunch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3YJUdChx8s&search=lions(the lapbooks were started after ds2 decided he wanted to record some of the information he found and also when he realised he enjoyed writing stories and summarising the documentaries he watched).
Once Quran lesson over for youngest, ds2 took over for his and youngest started on his explanation of why he didn't need to finish his Spider unit fromschool express, despite the fact he had asked for it, and in fact insisted I print it out immediately!But now, having completed a few pages, he just didn't 'feel like he wanted to' , and could he take his scooter round on the front instead, and he'd hopefully get it 'done in the next few days depending on his schedule'!!Yes, he went scootering!!
Once middle son had finished Quran, youngest also came in and they both helped with the baking,heart shaped cup cakes and a plain sponge for my brother and uncle who were visiitng later in the afternoon.Stayed on to help cook the fish and rice for lunch: lots of sharing, measuring, weighing and recipe reading!
I had a quick tidy up, ocassionally 'commandeering' the odd one for help round the house- (housework comes under life skills for us and as all contribute to the mess so all have a share in the clear-ups)
Everything done, and sat down for a rest, which was the moment ds2 was waiting for as he wanted to read.Book chosen was one we'd got a few days ago from the 'withdrawn' box at the local library.A brillaint story of a young lad named Wesley who creates his own staple crop, and founds a civilization!! all in his own back garden!http://web.syr.edu/~jjvizthu/weslandia.htm
guests arrived, mum busy in chat etc. group prayers, eating together on the floor, all help clear up
older two went off to continue with the garden ( we have had nothing done for months in the garden and kids weren't interested in doing anything tillabout 2 weeks ago when middle son wanted to know, Why didn't plants grow in some parts of Africa? why were all these people starving?so discussion started and we also used the internetrains have failed --http://www.afrol.com/articles/13298http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2855governments have failed --http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13885409and poverty-- because the rich are greedy: in western Kenya, fertilizer costs more than twice what it costs in France... other rich countries have not delivered the promised foreign aid necessaryhttp://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/crosscutting/poverty.html)
Showing that it wasn't a problem that had just appeared but something that was the result of years of failure was important -actions and consequences is something that must be taught as Islamically we are answerable for what we do... lots more on economics,governments making promises they don't keep, even people failing to pay sadaqa and zakat (poor due) which is a Islamic duty, .............and then back to science and how plants grow!
Final result has been where the science is concerned we have a bunch of seeds which he is going to grow in different locations and under different conditions to see what happens. He liked my suggestion of measuring the growth as an indicator of success, and producing some sort of chart to display results!The trip to the garden center also resulted in eldest wanting to look after something in the garden so we came back a few days ago with Gourd seeds,tomatoe, carrots and herbs, and the odd flowers. All the current activity in the garden if the preparation for these seeds and plants to go in.
They stayed out till online tutor signed in , Quran sessions for all 3,(this is seperate to their Al Qari work which is more for correct pronunciation and helping in Hifz).
guests leave, and we all have snack time and cuddle up to watch Patch Adams :http://www.patchadams.com/wonderful story! and very good for high lighting the meaness of people who perceive you as being 'odd', as the one who 'doesn't fit in'
Asr prayers together, and hubby took us to Ealing Common for the fun fair.Back home for prayers, quick snacks, duaas and bed
looking back at the day and trying to see this as 'curriculum' I would say
GARDENING: Nature-- identifying flower bulbs, weeds, dead roots, grasses, digging and weeding
ECONOMICS World Trade Wealth/poverty issues
ISLAMIC STUDIES-- sunnah of eating, keeping your prommises, paying the poor due, giving extra when Allah has blessed you with wealth
SCIENCE -- plants, light, water, chlorophly
MATHS -- collecting data, presenting on chart, measuring
ENGLISH-- writing in the Lion unit, reading and comprehension, spelling
QURAN-- Tajweed and meaning
LIFE SKILLS -- housework, helping others, keeping a tidy home,
COOKERY / HOME ECONOMICSI.T. - use of net as a research tool
Alhumdulilla
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