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

A Day In Our Life

Raahub Yasar!!!

A sister asked to see what my scheduled looked like since I homeschool and run a business, so I thought I'd share what my day looks like now. This can and does change depending on what's going on in life, but this is what it looks like now.

8-9am - I wake up to the sound of kharadu asking for mayay, fruit or telling me someone's nappy's been whipped off. I'll get up and go downstairs to get the kharadu a drink

9:15am - By now we're all up, I've dressed and changed the younger ones and we're having a fruit or nut snack or a fruit or nut or seed smoothie before our first class

9:30am - Stretching, breathing, exercising and dance either in our main room or the garden

10am - We normally do 30mins Nuwaupuyee  and 30min Maths now or just Nuwaupuyee then get the room ready to eat

11am - Breakfast is about now which is normally a full meal then we'll tidy the room and prepare for work

11:30 - If we haven't already done Maths, well spend an hour on it now, if we've already done it we move onto language - spelling, reading, reasoning, writing, grammar, phonics etc

12:30 - by now I need a break, so the children go off and play upstair while I regain order of the front room, change nappies, read to my son, feed baby girl and put her to sleep, do some house work, check email, work online or start preparing the next meal

1;30 - Back to work - If we didn't do language before the break we'll do it now, if we have done it, we move on to our projects, usually in a lapbook for the older 2 girls, while younger one play, do an online learning site like Time 4 Learning or do some learning activity or reading with me

2:30 - 3pm - by now we all need a small meal or snack, so I'll whip something up while the kharadu tidy up and play then we eat, we used to do the prayer now but I think we're still in the winter solstice so we only do it at 9am and 9pm

3:30 - if we haven't already done the project work, they work on that for an hour, if we've already finished their projects, Mir is finished for the day, so I'll prepare dinner, tidy the front room, get the children to do their chores with me, I'll clean and tidy around the house, fold laundry, hang it out to dry, load the machine, hoover the house, do dishes, clean the bathroom etc, then check emails, do stuff online, pay bills, make calls, attend to baby girl, squeeze in some work etc

There are about 2- 3 days a week when the children's work takes much longer and we only finish their studies at about 4 - 4:30pm as they are really engrossed in it and I don't want to stop them, or they don't want to play and are asking for activities. If  the weather's good, they go in the garden, we may go for a walk or I'll do another activity with them

5pm - this is normally TV time where they'll go on BBC iPlayer or Netflix for their beloved Octonauts or Avatar Last Air Bender, Horseland, Max & Ruby, Bernstein Bears, Barnyard etc or they'll find a movie. Sometimes they are having so much fun playing they don't come down til later or instead of watching something they'll go on Time 4 Learning in turns

By now i'm getting dinner ready and sorting their night clothers etc

6 - 6:30pm - dinner time

7 - 9pm - this is bath and bed time for all 5 kharadu, if Mr Salmon is back from work, he'll handle this so I can get some alone time to work, but if he works late etc, I'l do this bit

9pm - Now's prayer, story and bed time, where the older 4 will go to bed, leaving us with the baby girl, who'll stay up until about 11pm - 12am.

This is my main work time in the day (The Naturally You Coach, Mir preparation and planning for the next day, other duties etc) unless there's a lot of house work to do. I must admit that it's not easier starting work now as I often want to just chill out after a long day, but with many goals to achieve, I keep going

I'll normally go to bed between 2 - 4am most nights, or if I accidently fall asleep while putting the baby to sleep at 10 - 11pm and wake up at 2  3am, I'll stay up to work until 5 - 6am then sleep until 8-9am


There are many things that change the plan like illness, changing nappies, attending to the occasional tantrum, calming baby girl from crying, appointments outside, receiving grocery deliveries etc and some days very little Mir work gets done and other days loads gets done. It really just depends

So there you have it, a quick glimpse into our life

I hope you found it useful

Hatap Yasar

Mut

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

Nuwaupuyee Hopscotch from Masking tape

Raahub Yasar!

I got the idea from several Pintrest Posts, that you can use masking tape to make temporary games for your children to enjoy inside, that you would normally find outside. 

There were some really fun ones, but I thought I'd start with hopscotch, especially as they'd just learnt how to play it from watching Max & Ruby on Netflix!

If you don't know how to play hopscotch, here's a quick video demonstration, this isn't exactly how we played though - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ikg9qnWrDU 

It took about 15mins to make it and it lasted for about 4 days.I made it on the living room rug where we eat, learn, play, dance and exercise. It was even swept and hoovered twice a day!

I'm probably going to buy a bed sheet and draw this onto it with a permanent maker so I can whip it out when I need it instead of making it each time, but I'm going to make some other floor games with masking tape soon that'll i'll share, including a race track for my son. 

Even though the point of it was to help the kharadu with their nuwaupuyee numbers, after walking over the for a few days, they finally sinked in for me!

You can of course do this with English numbers and getting the children to help you make it will be a fun family activity.

Hatap yasar

Mut Bastat En Rayay (in da house!!!)

Our Nuwaupuyee for the week - Jan 2013

Raahub yasar!!!

Thanks to recommendations from the Nuwaupian family, I've upgraded our nuwaupuyee poster so it only has the words we're learning in our script.

It's an exciting and slightly nerve wracking step as I'm not great with languages, but the Paa Taraq have given me sufficient motivation to commit to speaking and studying it daily with the children.

4 days a week, we begin Mir with dance and stretching then Nuwaupuyee which has been working well for us..

I want to say a big TAWUHAAT to the teachers of the classes on http://nuwaupic.com/ , you're all doing a really good job and I appreciate you all very much.

Also tawuhaat to the family helping out on the facebook Nuwaupic study group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/nuwaupic/ 

The words we're studying this week are from the Zaman wu Garah (Day and Night) video on Nuwaup.com found here, which are

Today - Panan Zaman
Tomorrow - Ghadad
Yesterday - Barah
Before - Baa'ad
After - Qabal
Next - Tayal
Later - Fwatur
We can - Enen Qadur
Good night - Wawad Garah  


Hatap yasar
Mut Bastat En Rayay


Paa Munzal Nathur Amun Nabab Rayay Akh Ptah Djedtwy - Hu Kawan Harar!!!

What are lapbooks?

Raahub yasar,

I first discovered lapbooks about 3 years ago and since then, we've probably made close to 50 of them on different topics.

In short, they are a folder which contains mini books, worksheets and other fun activities, all teaching different parts of one topic.

You can either buy lapbook packs where all the piece are laid out for you or you can make them yourself.

I like Hands of a child's lapbook packs and Homeschool share's. Here are their sites:
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/
http://www.handsofachild.com/

Here are some videos of other mothers showing the lapbooks they have made and a few videos showing how to make your own.  Soon I'll share some we've made.

A Plant lapbook: I have never made such an big lapbook, I was so impressed



A little boys train Lapbook - very cute


How to make a lapbook



One example of how to make mini books to put into a lapbook, there are lots of these minibooks you can use



If you decide to make one, enjoy!

Hatap yasar

Mut Bastat En Rayay

Our budding scientist at work

Raahub yasar!!!

Just as I was about to buy an elaborate jewellery box for Mut Tiy En Rayay's (7yrs old) kharadu zamam (children's day) gift, she told me she wanted a chemistry set for her birthday in March. So for her birthday we'll probably take her to a science fair and for kharadu zamam she got this chemistry lab. It's for 10 year old's and over, but she's definitely ready for it's concepts.

We've read through the safety instructions and we're doing the first experiments now, which are introducing her to soluble and insoluble substances, dissolving, solutions, solvents and solutes.

The only drawback is that we opened the kit ready to get started, only to find there's a whole shopping list of stuff you need that aren't in the kit. Many are found around your home (i.e. salt, hydrogen peroxide, ground pepper etc) but quite a few we don't have (ie white sugar, food colouring, methylated spirit etc).

What she'll learn and experience by doing the experiments is worth the extra effort of getting the additional materials and she'll be able to perform 100 experiments in total.

It might be worth finding out the additional materials your desired kit needs before you buy it so you don't get off to a false start like we did.

As she is really into science right now, I got her to do a complete write up of the experiment, complete with a materials and equipment list, an explanation of what she did and a results table, just like I remember doing in secondary school. 

It was music to my ears when she said to me the next day "Muldudtet, we didn't do any Mir work yesterday morning", so I told her the experiment was Mir work and she said "THAT was work, that's my favorite work ever"!!!

We got ours for £26 from Amazon.co.uk (click here) though I've noticed the price is currently just £19, if you want it get it while it's reduced.

Hatap yasar 

Mut Bastat En Rayay