Yarn Art

Yarn was the focus today as the girls dabbled in yarn art paintings, masha Allah.   This is a very unique yet messy approach to painting where yarn  instead of paint brushes is used to apply the paint.  Here are the instructions if you are brave enough to attempt this technique at home.

Not only have the girls been creating with yarn, but my son has also been advancing with his knitting projects, masha Allah.  The most recent projects  include scarves knitted with size 19 knitting needles. 

Size 19 knitting needles

I think it only took him about 4-5 hrs. to complete this scarf as the knitting goes so much more quickly with these humongous  needles, alhamdulillah.

On a final fiber arts note, I just wanted to share some pictures of urban knitting.  Check out this knitted bus. Have you seen this out and about where you live?

For many of us who were schooled conventionally, we were forbidden to use our fingers to do math.  Well, this is just another area where we as homeschoolers have the opportunity to think outside of the box and use an alternative method that may work better for our children, insha Allah. 

Also, if you consider how we as Muslims make thikr (remembrance of Allah), we keep track of how many times we say each tasbeeh(Subhannallah), takbeer (Allahu akbar), etc. with our fingers!  The use of our fingers to count isn’t forbidden to use Islamically, masha Allah.

So, after discovering the book, The Complete Book of Finger Math: Simple, Accurate, and Scientific by Edwin M. Lieberthal at the library, subhannallah, I decided that this visual/kinesthetic style of learning math may really benefit those  children who are having difficulty with math and possibly even everyone in the family, insha Allah.

You don’t have to take my word for it.  Check out this video of a six-year-old adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing using fingermath, masha Alla.

If you want to learn how to calculate using your fingers, this seems like an easy to understand site complete with tutorials for each operation, masha Allah.

This concept is also new to me, but I am excited, motivated, and looking forward to building new neural pathways as well as making math easier and more fun for my children, insha Allah.  We should never forget that there is always more than one way to learn something.

It all started when the toothpicks came crashing down from the cabinet above the sink.   The beads were already down from another baby proof cabinet.  The older children ran upstairs with the supplies and about twenty minutes later, they presented me with their inventions, masha Allah. 

Toothpick car constructed by my nine yr. old daughter.

My five-year old daughter was conducting roll or slide experiments.

Exploration of the physics of rotation by my ten-year old son, masha Allah.

And to think I was worried about not covering  our formal science lesson today!  Anyone else have similar experiences with children constructing and experimenting on their own?

Continuing on with our transition to living math journey, we have been exploring dominoes.  Sometimes, I am so busy searching the internet for resources for the children, I forget to use the materials we already have available here.  One of the books that I pulled off the bookshelf for the younger girls is called, Math Activities with Dominoes.   The activities in this book are geared for children in grades K-3, but as always this depends on the level of the individual child, insha Allah.  The math tasks in this book are centered around problem solving, communication, reasoning, and making mathematical connections.

Get on board domino activity

The above activity was the first activity in the book and familiarized the children with the domino number suits. 

Dominoes in Action is for the next level (Grades 3-6).  My 9 yr. old daughter who hated math several weeks ago is thoroughly enjoying the activities in this book.  They are very challenging, yet fun. 

Also, I found an interesting domino book at the library entitled, Domino Addition.  The activities in the book are simple and straightforward, yet are also inspirational. 

Finally, the children have been actively playing a domino game called Block Dominoes.  It is a simple game suitable for ages 4 and up, insha Allah. 

I also found some preschool aged masaajid and color dominoes on Umm An-Nu’man’s blog, masha Allah.

Most of the time, I have so many ideas swirling around in my head that I can’t get them down fast enough.  Occasionally though, I do experience a lack of flowing imagination when it comes to planning my children’s activities for the week.   I think this is pretty much the same thing as writer’s block.  Insha Allah, I am hoping it will pass soon.  From prior experiences with this, it seems that creative thought comes and goes in waves.   Patience and du’a (supplication) are the only two ways that I can think of to overcome this.

So, please excuse me while I work through this episode, insha Allah.

Anyone else experience creative block?  How do you treat it?

Frisbee golf in the snow

The snow had put a chill on the daily frisbee golf routine since last week,  but the course had thawed out enough for my husband and son to able to return today to try for an ace.  Apparently, others had already had the same idea as there were plenty of footprints in the snow. 

It was a bit frigid out there, so after a while, my son decided to just follow along and investigate the animal tracks so the round of frozen frisbee golf  would be wrapped up more rapidly, insha Allah.

raccoon tracks

Several weeks ago, my husband and son had the opportunity to attend a fused glass workshop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  At the workshop, they first created a design and then cut the desired pieces of glass.  After they arranged the glass, the glass was fired in a kiln at an extremely high temperature where the pieces melted together to form a single piece of glass artwork.  See more images from the art workshop here.

Insha Allah, these pieces can be hung on a chain to wear as a necklace.  They can also be worn as earrings or placed on a refrigerator as a magnet.

On the way to the science class at the library, my 3 yr. old and 5 yr. old inquired about the snow which had not yet melted and how it got there.  We had a nice little discussion about how snow forms and that Allah makes it. 

Well, we were pleasantly surprised when the library class was also about snow, masha Allah.  After the librarian presented a short quiz based on the facts about snow from the book, The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter’s Wonder by Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson, Ph.D., we explored some of the magnificent snow crystal shapes at this beautiful website.

Finally, the children used their own imagination during the snow craft and made a melted snowman collage as an alternative to the model snowman the librarian had displayed.  Actually, he thought the collages were quite creative, alhamdulillah.

It felt like a whirlwind this morning at our house.  I have to admit I am pretty exhausted, but at the same time, I also felt more peaceful after having observed the girls happily complete their math projects.  We have been transitioning to using a living math approach with the girls for several weeks now and to tell you the truth, it seems to be pretty effective for them.  My son, on the other hand, seems content to be left alone to Saxon math and is doing quite well with it, masha Allah.   To each his own. 

Now living math is definitely much more work for me in terms of searching for more hands-on projects for the girls to complete, but again they seem to do much better using a more visual/artsy approach to math, so I am willing to do the extra work for them.  

A few of the projects that they completed this morning included fraction flags which we laminated and seperated into bookmarks, fraction coloring, and grid drawings. 

Fraction flag bookmarks

More fractions

Grid drawings

This past weekend, my 8yr.old and 7yr. old daughters also worked on some tangram stories, masha Allah. In this project, they not only utilized their writing skills, but math and art skills as well.  I am diligently attempting to make their curriculum more integrated in nature as I am witnessing the effectiveness of this method. 

The story below was written by my 7 yr. old daughter, masha Allah. 

Once upon a time, my family and I went canoeing. I saw lots of animals and trees.

We got stuck on a log in the river. Then we saw a Great Blue Heron near a sign that said, Keep Out.

We saw a bull in the woods. My brother thought it was a bear. Everybody saw it.

 The following resources were used to make the tangram stories.  

Tangram Puzzles   

Small tangram template   

Examples of tangram stories 

Startwrite handwriting program

A clothesline and tape work great for displaying the children’s artwork in the kitchen/schoolroom!   I believe that when we display their beautiful artwork that it makes them feel loved and encourages their imagination and creativity.