Sticky Garden Wall

Raahub Yasar!!!

Today, the plan was to make tricky word dominos (Found here http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2013/01/sight-word-dominoes-speed-racer-game.html) , which we did, but I the wrong number of dominos and it's kept blocking the game, so we abandoned it and moved onto plan b which was much more fun. 

I got the idea from another page on the No Time For Flashcards Site (find the original post here http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2013/04/alphabet-flower-garden.html) . It's a great site with lots of simple learning activities, normally based around art and crafts. 

I call is a sticky garden, but you can create any wall mural using the same idea and I'll probably do other variations of this soon as it went down well. But you basically get sticky back plastic (also called contact paper or cover film), stick it to a plain wall with the sticky side facing outwards then let your child stick things to it. 

I cut out flower heads, stems, butterflies and circles, squares and triangles in different colours of paper, but you could let your children cut their own shapes. 

I added the grass at the bottom of the plastic to give it a garden feel :-) 

If you use a good quality paper, they can stick them, then pull them off and stick them somewhere else, just like reusable stickers. I've only just put mine up so I don't know how long it lasts, but I'll probably take it down in a few days or let them create another type of scene on it like an ocean, space or jungle. 

Here are some pictures of them sticking the pieces on then the end of the first stage. They went onto use felt tip pens to draw faces on the people and butterflies they made.

The whole activity, including getting muldud involved in helping me put the plastic up, took about an hour, 20 mins set up and 40 mins of them playing with it before they drifted off to other things, which is pretty good. 

If you do one, let me know how it goes

Hatap yasar

Mut / Leah

My Most Important Work (& My Confession)

Raahubaat Yasar!!!

I saw this on Large Families On Purpose's facebook page and couldn't agree more!  Thanks for sharing. 

Just in case you can't see the picture above, the quote reads: 

"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the MOST IMPORTANT WORK"

I realized this a few months ago and it literally changed my life. I remember an old song where Paa Nabab Yaanun was talking with a sister and he was saying basically that it's our job as goddesses to raise the children. Not without the help and support of our husbands, partners or their fathers of course. 

I must admit that I've always been quite career minded and put my career goals and making money above my role as a homeschooling mother too many times than I care to mention, but I've now realized that I can, in fact, fulfill my career ambitions while being a dedicated homeschooling muldudtet. 

I have also been blessed with a very supportive and successful businessmen as a husband and a supportive family, who allow me to pursue homeschooling without fear of going without anything. 

It's not easy, quick or without pitfalls and you do need support, advice and guidance. But it is very rewarding to be able to groom and teach your own children, while watching them grow and flourish in Wu Nuwaup. 

This quote is a useful meditation of us all I feel, whether you're a homeschooling Nuwaupian yasar or not. 

Hatap Yasar

Mut Bastat En Rayay

Where we get our books from

Raahub Yasar!!!

It's no secret that we love books!!!

Paa Naabab Yaanun instilled the importance of reading and learning in us before we had children and for many years so when we decided to teach our kharadu at home, it was a goal of mine to fill the house with books,

Even before the children came, I had always dreamed of having a room in my home which was just a study / library/ temple , which was full of books that I could go to to read uninterrupted for hours.

That dream hasn't transpired yet, but we do have a whole heap of books. This is a picture of one of the 4 book shelves in our home and we were talking about need another one soon.

Now I'm sure you already know that books can cost quite a bit, and I even heard a homeschooling mother advise AGAINST buying lots of books because of the cost.

Here are my 3 main thoughts on buying books


1)"If you think education (in the form of buying books in this case) is expensive, try ignorance"

2) 1 book, read in the right way, can teach your child about possible every subject you want to teach them and spark discussion on countless other subject too, entertaining, educating and stimulating your child for hours, which to me is priceless

3) If you see the value in books but simply don't have the finance to buy lots of brand new books, find other ways of getting them.

We have roughly 200 books ( at the last count), of them I've probably bought 30 at their full retail price.

Here are the main places  I get books for our Mir from (all books including fiction, educational, workbooks, dictionaries & encyclopedias)

1) Second hand shops - normally costing 25p - £1.99 tops for big encyclopedias, we always wipe them down before giving the children

2) Pound Shops /Dollar stores - Every few months, the pound shops or low cost stores like Poundstretcher or Wilkinson will have loads of story and educational books for £1 - £2 so we'll normally stock up on every title they have.

2) Requested as gifts - Whenever their birthday's are coming up and family ask us what they children want or need, we'll normally ask for books or clothes

3) Ebay - I discovered job lots on ebay a few years ago and bought a box of 40 books for £15. When they came, about 15 were unsuitable so we gave them away but 25 books for £15 is pretty good. I'm sure craiglist.com and gumtree.com would have these too

4) Library sales - our library has little sales where they'll sell their old books for 30-50p and we'll pick up lots of good at these

5)  Ask the ancestors - There has been the odd occasion when I've randomly asked the ancestors to help me with new ideas or resources to bulk up or add a boost to the Mir and we'll get a call from someone saying they've got a load of books etc to get rid of, so do we want to take them, or we'll go to a relative's home and they'll have a box of books and teaching stuff waiting for us. So even the ancestors can hook you up.

You can also get them in markets and car boot sales too, but I've never bought them from there personally

Our oldest will now read the Paa Taraq to us during discussion time and we'll read it to them too, so they get plenty of variety and have really grown to love books and reading.

So if you want to stock up on books but funds are tight, now you can do it for less.

I hope this helps, hatep yasar

Mut Bast.tet En Re
(Leah Salmon)

My Top 5 Free Educational Websites

Raahub Yasar

If you've ever been concerned that the cost of educational materials will be too much for you to teach your child at home, then fear not, as long as you can afford a printer and some ink, or a trip to the local library to print some things off once in a while then you're set. 

Quite a few homeschooling families fuel the majority of their curriculum with free resources and I'd say at least half 1/3 of the material we use are free too. 

These are the sites I've used most to get free lapbooks, lesson plans, ideas, activities, worksheets, coloring sheets etc over the years. Some of these have a free section and paid products, but the ones below are only recommended for their free resources, if the paid section is any good, I'll be listing them in another post I do on paid websites. 


1. Homeschool Share - http://www.homeschoolshare.com/Lapbooks_at_HSS.php
This site has lots of lapbook packs and book studies that make it very easy for you to teach a whole topic, they are straightforward to work out, but I'll blog about a lapbook is for those who don't soon.

2. First School - Mainly for preschoolers or those learning to read  http://www.first-school.ws/  
The layout and navigation of this site can be a little tricky, but once you find your way around, you'll find lots of printables to learn the alphabet and numbers mainly. 

3. Enchanted Learning  - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
This site is full of activities based on different themes, it's easy to use and search for different topics, which include free online puzzles.

4. Currclick - http://www.currclick.com/index.php?keywords=+&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=0&pto=0
This is the online hub of homeschool resources, most good homeschool product companies sell their products on this site and give away free versions of their products too.


5. Donna Young - http://donnayoung.org/index.htm
I used this site alot when I very first started homeschooling, I found a lot of tracing sheets and planners that were simple and effective.


By doing a quick google search, here are some others I've found


* Homeschool Freebie Of The Day - http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com - I'm on their mailing list where they send you a message on Sunday's telling you what free resources will be given out each day of the following week. I've used a few in our Mir. 

* Dads Worksheets - http://www.dadsworksheets.com - A very impressive site with over 7,000 free maths worksheets 

* Free Homeschool Resources - http://freehomeschoolresources.webs.com/ - This site also lists many other free resources


If you can recommend any other good free resources, please let me know by adding them to the comments section below

Remember to put your email address in the box in the top right of the page to get updated of new posts on the blog

Hatep yasar

Mut

45 Inspiring and Interesting Learning & Education Quotes

Raahub yasar,

Ok, I blatently ripped this from the Lesson Planet facebook fan page the other day!!! 

They asked people what their favorite educational quotes were and when I saw the post, 131 people had already commented,  so I wanted to share my favorite ones from among them, thanks to all the lovely people whose comments I'm sharing here.

Let me know what you think of them and feel free to share this post with any parent or anyone you think would appreciate them:

1 - I am not a teacher for the income but for the outcome. (I love this one)

2 - Discipline is not the enemy of enthusiasm - Joe Clark

3 - No one can be good at everything, but everyone is good at something.

4 - My education was interrupted only by my schooling- Winston Churchill

5 - The only dumb question is the one not asked. (I love this one)

6 - If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. (I love this one)

7 - Do or do not, there is no try - Yoda (I love this one)

8  - When I was 5 my mum told me that happiness was the key to life, When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote down 'happy', They told me I didn't understand the assignment, I told them they didn't understand life. (I really love this one)

9 - Those who can, teach.

10 - Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will spend it's whole life believing that it is stupid - Einstein

11 - It's easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men - Frederick Douglass (I absolutely love this one)

12 - Students don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care - John C Maxwell (I love this one)

13 - Teaching is not a profession, it's a passion

14 - When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece - John Ruskin

15 - If you can't explain it well enough, you don't understand it well enough - Einstein

16 - Do one thing better today than you did it yesterday

17 - What we learn with pleasure we never forget

18 - The children that deserve our love the least are probably the ones who need it the most

19 -  Art leaves no child behind

20 - Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

21 - In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.

22 - Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go

23 - Intelligence plus character, That is the goal of true education - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

24 - Minds are like parachute, they only work when they're open.

25 - You only need to be one day smarter than what you are teaching (Advice from one homeschooling mother to another mother considering homeschooling)

26 - Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn - Ben Franklin

27 - What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing - Aristotle

28 - Education is the most powerful tool used to change the world - Nelson Mandela (I've always been very weary of Nelson Mandela, I feel this powerful change can be for the better or worse, the education system can indoctrinate our children so well that they literally build a docile army of drones, ready to do what they say and even defend their corrupt decisions)

29 - Be the change you hope to see (not exactly focused on education but a good quote all the same)

30 - Good, better best, never let it rest, until your good is your better and your better is your best (I love this one)

31 - Doing what is right is not always popular, doing what is popular is not always right

32 - Aspire to inspire (I love this one)

33 - It takes a village to raise a child  - (I love this one)

34 - Every child can learn, just not the same way or on the same day

35 - If you think reading is boring, your doing it wrong (I'd say that this is true of most things, you can always find a way to enjoy what you are doing and make it enjoyable for children)

36 - Don't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do

37 - A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after a success (I love this one)

38 - Fair and equal are not the same - I will always be fair and that won't look equal.

39 - Develop a passion for learning, if you do you will never cease to grow - Anthony D'Angelo

40 - The more you read the better you read, the better you read the more you read.

41 - The difference between try and triumph is a little "umph" - (I love this one)

42- Adults often underestimate the wisdom of children

43 - Those who teach must never cease to learn - (I love this one)

44 - The child's progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him - Maria Montessori

45 - The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child's whole personality - Maria Montessori.


Here are a few from Sayings Of Malachi Z York - Paa Nabab Yaanun

It is a wise man that learns his studies before the class commences

Teach your children they are the best and they will fit it. 

One does not learn by thinking out loud, but by listening. Now class. 

Let the children have their fun, you were once one. 

Hard work is good exercise.

The best exercise for your body is to work your mind.



Let me know which ones you like or add your own below and make sure you add your email address to the box at the top right of the page to be updated of new posts added to the blog. 

Hatep yasar (peace family) 

Mut Bast.tet En Re