Sunday, June 6, 2010

Arabic, French and chrysalides


Posted by: ummraiyaan 

 We have been completely fascinated by the live caterpillars. I would advise every family to purchase these – it has been a wonderful experience. You really can’t believe how fast they grow! I am not kidding – you could look at them in the morning of one day and a few hours later they have grown bigger. Well, alhamdulillah are caterpillars have finally grown huge and have turned into chrysalides. 4 were hanging and one was still roaming free. That naughty one has knocked two over. So I called insect lore and asked them if the two chrysalides which are now on the bottom of the pot will die. The lady said no but that we would need to use a teaspoon to carefully place it in the hatching net next to the side so that when the butterflies emerge they can cling on to the side. The other chrysalides can be hung as normal. Anyone else have a cheeky caterpillar knock down his brothers? Not very Islamic eh?! Love for your brother what you love for yourself (tut tut tut!)

Before he kicked his brothers to the ground!

Can you see the one that hasn't changed yet all curled up, the other two hanging and the other two at the bottom.
R has started a new Arabic course online. There are 7 other children in her class and they are studying the book ‘Allama tiflak al-Arabiyyah’   with this organisation: http://www.successfulbeginnings.org/
So far I’m happy with it. The teacher doesn’t like to teach it by translating into English and she speaks in Arabic with the students aside from a few formalities said in English. The lesson is once a week for 2 hours and will last for four months after which she can move on to the next level inshaAllah. I will still be doing our normal Arabic lessons with her. This I hope will push her further inshaAllah and is good because she hears her teacher speaking as well as the other students and she must reply to the teacher’s questions in Arabic. The children receive homework which is scanned and sent to the teacher via email. An added bonus is that the lessons are recorded and you receive the recorded lessons each week. SBHC also do Quran courses for children too – from learning to read Quran to hifdh lessons – so check it out inshaAllah.
I’m in the process of organising next year’s HE inshaAllah as I don’t want to plan in Ramadan and I want us to start in September after Eid ul fitr. I am not happy with the way handwriting is taught here in the UK. In fact, there isn’t much emphasis on clear. neat handwriting. So spoke to a dear French sister who is home educating and she sent me a link that teaches handwriting by the French system. French handwriting is just beautiful and so I’m going to down this route for R inshaAllah. The sister told me that one’s handwriting in France is very important and they begin to teach it at age 6. So perfect timing. Now I know we are in the age of computers, but I do believe beautiful handwriting is an art in itself. Here is the link if you’d like to check it out: http://webinstit.net/matieres/graphisme/ecrire_cusive.htm

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