Kiddie flower craft fun.....

We've had the girls cousins staying all week, and so yesterday we made some paper flowers to give to their Mum and Dad when they picked them up today.
They were all super impressed with their flowers mashAllah and played with them for ages alhamdulillah!

I have to admit.....I did help abit with this, the kids struggled to fold the tissue paper.

Here is what we did to make ours:

• 4 sheets A4 tissue paper
• Pipe cleaner
• 1 A4 sheet green sugar paper
• Sticky tape

1) First, layer the tissue paper together, and then concertina fold (as if you were making a fan).

2) Gently fold in half so you can see where the centre is, and then wrap the end of the pipe cleaner around the paper.

3) You then need to separate each layer of tissue paper and open out, pulling it back.

4) Once all the layers have been separated you will see it starting to look more like a flower now! To hold shape, we squeezed the centre together where the pipe cleaner is, to form a flower shape and wrapped sticky tape to keep the flower shape.

5) I found the pipe cleaner as a stem alone to be too flimsy - it wouldn't support the weight of the flower head, so I took a sheet of A4 green sugar paper and rolled up, securing with a bit of sticky tape. I then inserted the pipe cleaner into the new sugar paper stem, and stuck tape around the stem where it joined the flower.

6) Add a tag with ribbon at the back to write a message (on in our case, wrote each child's name!)

7) If you wanted, you could also add a layer of green tissue paper at the end to act as leaves. Just get a square piece of tissue paper, make small hole in centre in order to insert pipe cleaner stem through, then shape behind flower head.

Lastly, enjoy your home made flowers! :)



Nouns

I'm no Montessori expert....so i apologise in advance to anyone who has studied the Montessori method for my clumsy hap-hazard attempt at implementing some concepts!

There are many good Montessori blogs around.....I took this lesson from Montessori for everyone.

I like the Montessori ideology, and wish I'd known about it years ago so I'd have had time to learn properly instead of rushing around now trying to find quickly some lesson to try with K! K generally responds well to Montessori lessons as they are visual and hands on...something which definitely helps K to learn I find, alhamdulillah.

A little while ago I'd made the Montessori grammar symbols, however I decided to invest in purchasing a set alhamdulillah. I've had them a few weeks now, and thought I really should start using them inshallah!

Some months back we did a lesson regarding nouns and proper nouns following Jolly Grammar. So as it was something K had some experience with, I decided to start with this.

I explained again what a noun is, giving some examples and said that we would use the large black triangle to help us to identify which words are nouns inshallah.

After placing the black triangle above the nouns, K copied some sentences from the board, identifying the nouns using a template to mark the black triangle above.

I'm sure if i had learnt grammar in this way when I was at school, I'd have had a much better understanding (and memory) of what all the grammar rules are today!

I really like the Montessori grammar symbols, as eventually a young child should be able to dissect each word in a complete sentence, knowing which is a noun, verb, adverb, pre-position etc etc....something I think most adults can't even do!

Home made 3D shapes!

Last posting for today......I think! Seems I have alot to blog about today!

I've previously mentioned that I wanted to start introducing 3D shapes with K inshallah - so today we put together a square based pyramid using a net downloaded online here. (just scroll down the page a little).

We used cereal box card to strengthen and patterned paper.

I've wanted to purchase some 3Dimentional shapes for a while, but they seem quite expensive for something we are just going to look at, so figured making them would save some £££ and thought K may also absorb the information better inshallah.

Identifying material properties

This is for yesterdays Tuesday group mummys - so everyone knows what their little ones have done all afternoon inshallah! :)

Following the lesson objectives from the science curriculum on the Schemes of work site, this weeks lesson  dfocussed on various properties found within materials and understanding that  despite being different materials they may have the same properties.

Introduction & activity 1

We had on hand a tray of items each made from either metal, fabric, wood, paper, plastic or glass but also including blue-tack, play-doh, glue and paint (to help define other properties which are not contained in the more solid materials like wood and metal etc).

I briefly explained what the meaning of material properties are and gave examples, using the items on the tray - identifying differences in different objects made from the same material (for example - plastic - we had a plastic cup, plastic disposable cup and plastic sandwich bag - each object had different properties although they were made from the same material - the plastic cup was strong and hard - the disposable cup was squashy and transparent, the bag could be folded and torn! etc etc) as well as property similarities between different materials.

The play-doh and blue tack look and have similar textures. So I asked the kids to stand on the left if they thought play-doh would be stretchy, to stand on the right if they thought the blue tack would be stretchy or to stand in the middle if thought both stretch. (kids all went to different locations)
We tried to stretch the play-doh but found it just broke where as the blue-tack had a veeeeeeery long stretch!

The same with the PVA glue and paint - they look similar in appearance in terms of texture and the way they pour however the glue is sticky!

Activity 2

We played a game to help solidify kids knowledge and understanding of using property vocab associated to different materials.
The kids had to work out which item from the tray had been selected, by asking questions from ready prepared cards.  A couple of the girls took turn to answer for an object I selected whilst the others looks away. I had planned all the girls to take a turn but unfortunately there wasn't enough time! :(

(can be downloaded inshallah HERE!) 

I used cards rather than allowing them to ask their own questions, as i wanted to ensure they would go through different properties, rather than all just asking the same question each over and over!
Each card was then placed in either a "Yes" or "No" group - to help remind them what the properties of the selected item had, to aid them in identifying it.

I think this one was PVA glue

And this looks like it was the blue-tack.

Activity 3

Kids took a snack break before the final task. We took one item made from each material in order to identify selected properties, and recorded the results in the table, which was then used to help see that various different materials can have the same properties (available to print inshallah HERE!).

When it came to identifying if each material is water proof or not, we used water to find out!. So they all took turns pouring the water onto a different item.....(over the safety of a bowl of course!)

Each child then took turns to use the results in the table, to list the group of materials which was recorded within each property.

.....and the kids were relieved when it was aaaaall over! :) They had a quick 10 minute break before we started geography....written up in next post inshallah.

Sweet treats!

Alhamdulillah K goes to morning Qur'an class during week - its a small group, with the other girls attending being Abu K's friends daughters. This morning at breakfast Abu K told me one of the girls gave K a piece of tissue paper, which she "delicately" opened in the car to find some flower petals inside.
To return the gesture, this afternoon we made some small sweet treats to give to the girls tomorrow inshallah, filled with a couple of Lolly's and sequins.

So simple, quick, easy and my favourite word....cheap! :) I think I know what friends and family will be receiving this E'id inshallah! :)

On the back, K decorated marking the little "stitch" lines and signing her name - She tried to write a little fancy!

To make, all you need is:

• card
• cellophane bags (plastic bags for card making -you can get these from ebay or craft stores - I think "The works" sells them. )
• Glue
• decorations
• sweet treats!
• sequins (optional)
• scissors
• fine liner pen

I'm sure its pretty self-explanatory what to do, just by seeing the pictures....but just in case here's some simple instructions....

1. Measure the width of the cellophane bag and cut a strip of card slightly wider, with a depth of about 4-ish inches (you decide what looks best!).
2. Fold card in half across the length (you will stick the bag inside the fold)
3. decorate your card
4. add sweet treats and (optional) sequins
5. Seal bag (I just folded mine over a little to shorten as the bag was too long)
6. Apply strong glue or double sided tape on the insides of the card to then hold the bag

2D ShapesPoster

I haven't done alot of "structured" Shape work with K....actually I don't think I've done any! Whatever she knows she has naturally picked up (I think simple things like colours, early numbers, weather, shapes etc are esaily picked up without much concious effort alhamdulillah) - I thought it was time I introduced 3D shapes and their names as we have some activities in her maths workbook comming up inshallah!
However, before we began looking at and identifying 3D shapes, I thought we should check K's 2D knowledge and fill in any gaps quickly inshallah!

I printed some 2D shapes for K and Z to both colour, cut and stick to make a shape poster. (I cut out Z's so she would have a shape at the end....otherwise everything would probably end up looking like a square if she cut out herself!). It was nice to have the kids doing something together that is the same!

K's on the left and Z on the right.

I also printed off THIS WORKSHEET to write in the shape names - K still has this to do inshallah. Then will move on to 3D shapes - which we will be making our own inshallah!



Odd and Even number activity

I wanted to refresh K's knowledge on odd and even numbers, so today we completed an activity idea I took from sister Umm Sara's blog Lifetime learning at home. (click through to see original idea for this activity). I've been trawling through Umm Sara's blog for the past few days taking many ideas to try with my little madams inshallah! (JazakAllah khayr sis :)  ).

So if you've clicked through onto Lifetime learning at home already, you will have seen that they made 2 streets with houses grouping together the odd and even numbers mashAllah.

I put together a sheet with a pretty house (found on google images) and inserted numbers 1-10. I've uploaded it online and can be downloaded inshallah HERE!

K then coloured and cut out before arranging onto her 2 streets to stick. We've stuck her poster on the wall to help K remember that odd numbers will aways end in a 1,3,5,7 or 9 and an even number will always end in 2,4,6,8 or 0.

Cuting, sticking and number clothes!

Today Z enjoyed cutting and sticking buttons onto a Thobe - we found and printed this activity from A Muslim Child is Born.

I've seen this activity around on the Internet loads! But I was unable to track down any ready made T-shirts with numbers to sort and peg up on a line! So I made my own alhamdulillah.

It can be downloaded inshallah HERE

Here is Z's completed activity....she found it hilarious! (simple things eh!). I think I'll have to arrange some more pegging activities inshallah!