Slimies and Creepy Crawlies

This past week the little ones and I have been focused on slimy animals including snails and slugs. You might think that little girls wouldn’t be interested in this type of things but my little girls are breaking  stereotypes.  This interest stemmed from our recent insect investigations, so I’ve just been feeding their curiosity in these creatures which are so plentiful in our backyard.  I’ve instructed them to remove these critters from our experimental garden as they are the “bad” bugs which will eat up all the leaves.  Now they have become intrigued by the “good” ladybugs and know to place this species in the garden anytime they find one.

Another slimy creature they have honed in on is the earthworm.  We dug up some from the old compost pile and placed them in a glass jar for observation, but since they weren’t able to observe them easily, they lost interest quickly in that project.

As a result of spending time outdoors and in the woods, Jamilah found a tick on her stomach area.  For some reason, the ticks seem to be attracted to her more than the others as she has counted this as the tenth tick she has found on her body in her whole life.  I suggested that she research ticks and the diseases caused by ticks.  Fortunately, she discovered that this tick wasn’t the type that carries Lyme disease.

Several weeks ago, they enjoyed a petting another slimy animal in my father-in-law’s pond.  This was my first experience petting a fish.  His koi were absolutely beautiful and I was shocked how friendly they were.  They were certainly slimy though and Hawwa especially loved every moment of that experience. 

Summer Hightlights Week 2-Focus on the Library

Summer Learning at the Local Libraries

This year we are blessed to have some wonderful free summer programs available at our local libraries.  The libraries are truly the place to be during the hot, humid summers in Richmond.  I also like the fact that they offer a wide variety of classes and workshhops for the children.  It is a win-win opportunity for me as it gives me a bit of a break from planning and gathering the materials for all their hands-on activities.   Here are some of the programs we have attended thus far this summer.

Saturday-

Science Saturdays at the Main Library in the city where the girls conducted some chemistry experiments  with invisible ink. 

Monday-

The girls attended a Stories and Such session where they tried their hand at chalk painting.  All you need for this painting technique is white tempera paint, colored chalk, pencil, markers, and paper. 

After drawing a large image or shape with a pencil, trace the lines with markers, and then dip the chalk into the paint and paint away.

Tuesday-

We enjoyed experimenting with the chalk painting so much that I broke out our own chalk and paint the next morning and tried it on our own at home.  We even took it a step further and tried the same technique with lavender paint and colored chalk.  This created an even more beautiful effect.

In the afternoon the little girls had the opportunity to attend a preschool craft session where after they watched and listened to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar acted out with props, they made butterfly hats.

Thursday-

In the morning the children thoroughly enjoyed the Shenandoah storyteller as she spun several yarns about animals from various cultures.

Later in the day, the girls dropped off stories they had written to be put on display on the library’s bulletin board as well as attended a rebus story craft. I really like the idea of making a rebus story where both pictures and words are used to tell a story and hope to implement this method in our writing curriculum this year.  I do think the girls felt a bit rushed and a bit pressured to create a story in only a short time period though. 

So, I think they might be somewhat burnt out from the library after our marathon library visits this week.  Although, they did benefit and learned a great deal.  We don’t have as many library trips planned for next week, insha Allah.

Museum Hopping

With the temperatures soaring into the 100s over the last week, I have had to find activities indoors to keep the children occupied.  Even though all ages are welcome at the local museums, a couple of my family members agreed to babysit the little children, so the older children and I could more freely explore the nearby art and history museums, alhamdulillah.

This was our first trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts since the reopening this past May from major renovations.  I was shocked at how much the museum has grown.  It was hustling and bustling with tour groups of children and others who probably also wanted to get out of the heat.

My favorite area was the art nouveau.

I think this was a sneak peek from the Tiffany glass exhibit in which admission is required.

  

 

 

 

 

 

We also enjoyed the Impressionism wing.

Horses were the subject of many of the paintings at the museum and we spent the majority of the visit viewing them.

Of course, I couldn’t leave the fine arts museum until I found a Jackson Pollock painting in the abstract art section.

Right next door to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is the Virginia Historical Society which has been offering free admission this year.   I took the children to visit a couple of years ago, but the didn’t get to wander around too long as the little ones wanted to eat and drink almost as soon as we got there.  I found this visit much more enjoyable with them at home, maashaa Allah.

There was so much to see at this museum as well and truthfully it would be much better to only visit a few of the exhibits at a single visit.  Since, I didn’t know when we would be able to return, we did it all in one day.

One of our favorite exhibits areas was called Virginians at Work.    You could spend half of your visit in this area alone.

The children also enjoyed the doll house replica of the Wilton House from the Colonial era which we had actually toured the week before.

The Colonial era clothing dress up area was a hit too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, all the children did get a chance to visit the science museum.  They have a new ecolab constructed where the children can analysis a stream and become a junior ecologist.  They were able to determine whether their stream sample had good, fair, or poor water quality based on the amount of certain macroinvertebrates present. 

First, they seperated the biotic organisms from the abiotic items.

Next, they viewed the organisms under the microscope in order to identify them.

Even my two-year old got into the action.  She tried to figure out how to look through a microscope.  It was hard to tell if she was able to view anything or not.

The stream samples were taken from rural(Prince William County) and urban streams(Arlington, Northern Virginia area) around Virginia.   They found the urban streams to be of poor water quality and the rural streams to be of good and fair quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insha Allah, next week I hope to spend a bit more time with the little ones as the older children received more of my time this week.

Impromtu Lessons

Over the last several days, there hasn’t been many structured activities to mention except for finally getting to bake the chocolate cake.  As you may remember, my girls were very anxious to bake a cake, so I finally gave in to their request.  It was actually a great exercise in dividing fractions as I decided to divide the recipe in half to allow two groups of girls to pour and mix the ingredients.  I also had them use  smaller cups to measure (1/2 ,  1/3, and 1/4 cups)  out the ingredients instead of a large measuring cup.   This has been a real life learning activity.  I truly feel that you really can’t show that you have learned a concept or skill until you apply it in real life! 

Anyway, the cake was great and to our surprise, the recipe didn’t even call for eggs or milk.  We even made the icing from scratch. 

In addition to the practical math activity, the children have been working on their handwriting a bit.  We were faced with yet another teachable moment when Yahya (11) had to find a place that started with the letter Y in his handwriting book.  Well, I suggested he look it up in the atlas and he chose Yugoslavia.  As you probably know, Yugoslavia is no longer a county as it is now broken up into 9 countries.  Well, that exercise alone led to a discussion about my  grandmother’s family having roots in Yugoslavia as well as some of our neighbors being from Bosnia which was one of the countries Yugoslavia was broken up into.  It seems to me that my family learns so much during these impromptu lessons, maashaa Allah.  I discovered the same thing when I was teaching school.   When I related a personal story or experience to the class,  the children  seemed much more interested as well as were able to connect with the concept so much more easily.

Speaking of impromtu lessons, we renewed our membership at the science museum and during the visit were able to catch a fun physics demonstration, maashaa Allah.  The volunteer didn’t really explain much about the science behind the hair standing on end, so they were left to  figure out using their previous knowledge and experience what was going on.  They seemed content and didn’t ask many questions, so we left it at that and were on our way.  Sometimes, you just leave things for another day.

Pond Dipping and Frog Hunting

Four years ago, our family did a pond study at a nearby pond.   Since then it seemed from the lack of life we observed that the health of the pond may have been diminishing.  Well, this year we’ve back to investigate, insha Allah.

So far the children have been successful with the animal tracking as they captured a variety of frogs, a baby painted turtle, and a baby snapping turtle.  We have yet to find a crayfish but did discover a crayfish mound, maashaa Allah.  Insha Allah, we also searched for frog and toad spawn, but didn’t see any of that either.  The water was a bit mucky with algae and yellow with pollen though.  Insha Allah,in the future, we hope to have an encounter with new creatures including a northern musk snake. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Water Critters @ the Virginia Living Museum

Spider crab

This is Hannah and I am 9 years old. We went to a class called Water Critters with my 4 sisters. I helped them answer the questions. We saw frogs, crabs, turtles, tadpoles, and fish scales.

Crab exoskeleton, turtle shell, and fish scales

American alligator

The alligator was my favorite creature at the museum.  I also saw snakes, bees, lizards, and much more. It was a pleasant day, alhamdulillah.

Teacher Workshop @ the Garden

I was blessed to be able to attend an educator’s workshop today at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens (one of my favorite places to take the children).  The workshop was jam-packed with fun hands-on activities that linked learning about agriculture to real world applications.

Honestly, I felt a bit inundated with so many activities and could relate for a while how my children must feel when I schedule too many activities for them to complete during the week.  I needed more time to reflect and process the information I was receiving before jumping on to the next activity.  Perhaps, this is just the nature of teacher’s workshops.

Nevertheless, I  gained a great deal of material (freebies)  and gathered many creative ideas from the workshop.  One of my favorite activities we completed was filling a bottle cap with small items which we collected on a nature walk to the children’s garden.

After choosing one of the items we found, we made a nature journal out of small brown paper bags, decorated the cover, and wrote a short poem about it.  I choose the big,lumpy, bumpy, juicy  orange as my favorite. 

Journal making with brown paper bags

Sorting plant parts

Another innovative activity the class participated in was to classify plants by the parts we eat (leaves, stems, flowers, roots, seeds, and leaves).  Don’t these props look real?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Next, we went into the garden’s library to learn some ways we could teach children how to calculate the area and perimeter of an actual sized garden.  The instructor also  explained plant spacing at this point.  

I definitely think that the spacing between plants is one area that could use improvement in our own garden, insha Allah.

 

 

Everyone was extremely hungry at this point and was ecstatic to see the lunch delivered!

After lunch and zhuhr prayer for me, seeds were next on the agenda.  We were all asked to choose a seed from a mixture and instructed to glue on a piece of construction paper and draw a character incorporating the seed into the drawing.  Don’t laugh too hard!

Seed donkey

Another fun activity was making a Little Greenhouse.  You can tell I am getting a bit tired because I wrote the date where the name was supposed to go.  We don’t do too much homework right after lunch, so at this point, I am a little worn out.

Finally, after a couple more activities, the last assignment was to make a wanted poster of a selected vegetable.  This activity would require some research of the vegetable to find out its nutrients, medicinal values, and methods of cooking.

All in all, the workshop was very informative and full of practical ideas that I hope to implement with my children.  I also got to network with some really wonderful educators and garden staff.  I think it was also a break that my children needed from me for some time now.  I think we all needed it, alhamdulillah.

Rock Collecting

The children and I are enjoying our earth science study tremendously.    Currently, we are beginning a unit on the rock cycle and rocks/minerals.   So, that means time to go on a rock collecting field trip!

The weather was gorgeous today which meant that my husband and son wanted to get out and play some frisbee golf. 

Collecting Rocks at Gillies Creek Park

Just so happens that one of the courses where they enjoy playing is also a great site for rock collecting, masha Allah.

This was definitely enjoyable for all level as each of the children were able to participate.

Everyone loves rocks!

Back at home, insha Allah, we plan on sorting, organizing and identifying the rocks.  I don’t know if we will be able to correctly identify every one of them, but at least attempt to categorize them into igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the scientific uses, the children are also looking forward to painting them, building with them, and using them as math manipulatives, insha Allah.

When Chemistry and Earth Science Meet Art and Texture

While using materials that are readily found around our house and this lesson plan from Kinderart.com,  the girls discovered a relationship between science and art.  While using watercolors and salt, we discussed that  salt is a mineral made up of  inorganic elements named sodium and chloride and is found in the earth as well as in the oceans, seas, and lakes.  They were also fascinated by the chemical reaction that took place after sprinkling the salt on the wet watercolors, masha Allah.  

Texture painting

Updated Earth Science Curriculum

In an attempt to follow our eclectic homeschooling method, I have updated the Earth Science Curriculum we are currently studying.  Videos, book suggestions, Qur’anic sources, Islamic history, and an online geology curriculum resource have been added.  Also, previously the curriculum was broken down by the week, but  we weren’t completing all the material in a week, so now it is organized by lesson.  My intention is to continue adding more resources to it, so check back often, insha Allah.  Please post any comments and/or constructive criticism, insha Allah.