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

How to make a mini book

Raahub yasar

Here's a really quick video I found on how to make and little book that your kharadu can use to write a short story in or use to write out points on a particular topic you're learning about.

If you make lapbooks, you can easily stick this into your lapbook.

Enjoy



Hatap Yasar

Mut Bastat En Rayay

Oldie but goodie Primary Mathematics Workbook

Raahub yasar!

A few years ago my cousin gave me a load of old books that she used with her children when they were younger.  One of which was this text book. At the tome it was too advanced for anyone, but my 7 year old started with it s few months ago and loves many of the activities it has.

You can tell it's quite old as the pictures and prices of some food in one if the pictures reminds me of when I was little, 10p crisps and 20p coke :-)

I'm not sure if you can get them anymore, so here are a few of the pages with activities for you to use with your children.

I hope your little ones enjoy and if I find where you can get a copy I'll let you know.

Hatep yasar

Mut :-)

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)

Our Nuwaupuyee of the week poster

Raahub Yasar,

To make learning new nuwaupuyee (our language) easier, the kharadu (children) and I made this little poster.

It's 4 pieces of black craft/sugar paper stuck together then decorated with ankhs. The words of the week are stuck on with tape that we carefully remove and replace with new words or sentences each week.

If you are teaching your kharadu or yourself, you may find it helpful to have something like this up so that you can see it very regularly. We have ours up in our living room, which is also the dining room and mir (school) room too, so we see it all the time. I aim to practice the words with them daily, just by getting them to look at them and we'll all say them out loud in Nuwaupuyee and english.

This picture is of last week's words, this week (commencing Mon 16th Oct 2012) our words are

Yakax - take
Safaf - see
Sawaf - look
radad - give
and the sentence - Panan zamam enen eahaw aalam nahaw... - today we will learn about ... ( I can use this every day during our mir studies several times and even get them to say it to me and let them teach me something :-)

Hatep yasar and be sure to subscribe to the blog by adding your email address in the box at the top right of the page and share with anyone you think would like it.

Mut Bast.tet En Re
(Leah Salmon)

Our Children's Daily Routine :-)

Raahub Yasar,

Sounds like my children's daily routine already!!!

Hatep Yasar, have a wonderful day

Mut 

(Leah Salmon) 

Our Homeschool Supplies Lists & Cost

Raahub Yasar!

Even though the cost of homeschooling can be high, you can absolutely get by very well on a tight shoe string  budget. 

Today I wanted to share my homeschool supply list so you can work out what it will cost in terms of resources and costs to get started or to restock if you're already started. It's broken up into 

1) Learning materials 

2) Basic materials for everyday use

3) Equipment that's really useful 

4) fancy extra stuff.

These list are by no means exhaustive, just what comes to mind right now:

1) Learning Materials (some free, some paid for that I find useful, but just opitional)

A few work books on the subjects you want your children to learn (you can start with maths, spelling, reading, writing, phonics and a language or science

A good supply of reading books for the child's age and a few years above and preferably a library card to go and read different books ever so often

Links to a few free websites with learning activities

A subscription to an online learning system or a computer learning program to make learning a bit more interesting (and to get them familiar with using computers at the same time)

2) Basic materials for everyday use

Plain white paper 

Lined white paper 

Pencils

Colouring pens or pencils

Crayons

Sharpeners

Rubbers/Erasers

Rulers - 6inch, 12inch and 

Sticky tape

Glue sticks

Scissors

Coloured paper

Folders

3) Really Useful Equipment (some of which you may have in your home anyway)
Colour or black and white printer

Black  and Coloured printer ink

Laminator and pouches

Digital camera 

4) Fancy Extra Stuff

Glitter

Fancy art bits and bobs - Spangles, those shiny sparkly decoration that come in different colours, googly eyes, feathers, craft sticks etc

Paints and brushes

Tissue paper

Crepe paper

Playdough, plastercine (or ingredients to make your own)

Playdough cutters and tools (you can get set of playdough shape cutters, little rolling pins, rolling blades for cutting etc) 

String

Elastic bands

Cd player and cd's 

Musical instruments (preferably mainly wooden and cultural i.e. drums)

As far as costs are concerned, you can get started with 3 children for as little as £30 a month or spend up to £100 a month on 1 child if you include educational magazine subscriptions, private tutors and drama, dance and music classes. 

We probably spent £30 to get started (mainly on printer ink to print of lots of free worksheets, tracing sheets and coloring sheets, then paints, craft materials, pencils, colours etc), then maybe £40 a month thereafter, made up of £10 a week picking things up as we went along. 

Now I use an online learning program for the older 2 children now called Time 4 Learning which is about £25 a month and covers a lot of maths, science, language arts and language art extension which I like so in total we spend an average of £40 a month on all 4 children, not include the occassional trips and restocking workbooks 2-3 times a year. 

There are some months when we actually don't spend anything but the £25 online program fee and other months when I might go crazy and spend £60 or really fancy art supplies, brand new books gadgets and more. 

I'd love to hear what other homeschooling families are using and spending on their homeschool supplies, so please comment below. 

Remember to subscribe to the blog by adding your email address in the box above and share this with anyone you think would find it useful

Hatep yasar

Mut Bast.tet En Re

When I look in the mirror

Raahub yasar

I will admit that there are days when not a lot of 'teaching' or 'structured lessons' goes on in our mir,  but I've always made a point of filling our home with books. 

This one of the books that I've had since Mut Tiy En Re was small and it's just about got all it's pages :-) 

The front image is stunning in my humble opinion and so are many other illustrations in it, though a few of them aren't that great (i.e a little girl in an extremely short skirt, a grown mane in a belly top and a reference to thank God blah blah blah). 

Apart from those few things, it's a good book with a very positive message for our children. 

You can get it here in the UK - http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/isbn/9781881316282?cm_mmc=sws-_-sws-_-bd-_-serp&afn_sr=para&para_l=90 

Or here in the US - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-i-look-in-the-mirror-sopoeia-greywolf/1001738600 

Or try Ebay to get a cheaper second hand copy or a nubian or children's book shop. 

Hatep Yasar and remember to enter your email address above to subscribe to the blog. 

Mut Bast.tet En Re

Seed Dropper Home School Network Radioshow

Raahub Yasar

This show was just recommended by another inspirational homeschooling sister Khepera Ma'at on facebook who you can find at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHomeschoolingIya . The show is almost 3hrs, but the first hours was most focused on homeschooling. It says it was a A-Z on how to start a homeschool, I think it was a bit general, but did share some good viewpoints and definitely made you realized that it is possible and important to teach our own children.

Click here to listen now on Blogtalk Radio - Seed Dropper Home School Network 09/15 by UHURU NATION X REAL TALK RADIO | Blog Talk Radio

Here are the points that struck me most from this recording:
 * Firstly, at 2hours 2mins - the brother James mentions our master teacher Paa Nabab Yaanun and how our Nuwaupian nation successfully separated ourselves from a system that didn't serve us so we could build our community together.

During the first hour in the homeschooling section they spoke about:
*  Many of us use school as daycare to get rid of our children for 8hrs a day
* The schools are really just preparing our children to enter the prison system, schools are decorated the same as prisons
* Our children are locked in the school, they can't get out and parents can't get in unless they unlock the door for us.
* One parent was told by her childs school that she had to make an appointment 24hrs before they want to visit their child at school
* Our children would be better off at home pretty much doing nothing rather than send them to school to be indoctrinated
* Black women have to lose the fear of not being able to do it because we already have everything we need to teach our children
* Black mothers need to come together so we can look after our children together
* The sisters shared what they did in their homes with their children and how to get started.
* To get started you should find out what your state requirements are (US based show by the way) to start  homeschooling.
* If the state laws don't suit your needs or they are too strict for you, get up and move to another state - we are not trees, we can move, we own the whole earth!!! (I loved this)
* The only reason they make children sit SATs is to see how indoctrinated they are, the higher the grade, the more successful the system has been at indoctrinated you.
* Teaching our children a trade is very important so that our children can come back and help build and rebuild our society - it's a shame that we can't build our own homes.
* Growing our own food and making sure our diet is right is very important to our community too.

So check it our now at - Seed Dropper Home School Network 09/15 by UHURU NATION X REAL TALK RADIO | Blog Talk Radio

Remember to subscribe to the blog in the box up on the right, take care, stay healthy and hatep yasar

Mut Bast,tet En Re

My visit to the 7th annual Homeschooling Fair in London

Raahub yasar,

A lovely sister invited me to a Homeschool fair the other day and Shaep (ayi nafurmul hamat - my beautiful husband) and I decided to go and check it out.

It was very short notice, we were running late on the day, but I'm so glad we made it there, even if it was for just over an hour!

Mawas (baby) Nafurtat and I outside the fair in Notting Hill Gate, London

It was held in Westbourne Grove Church near Notting Hill Gate in London, which was a great venue. As I we walked into the reception area, I look up and saw a material posters (or whatever you call those things!!!) saying "school is not compulsory", that instantly put a smile on my face :-) 

Shaep and I walked through to the market room, which just had a few people milling around the stalls by that  time. We had a look at all the tables, which were all stalls of other homeschooling parents and I saw this great quote that resonated with what Paa Naabab Yaanun has been teaching us for years and is another reason we didn't want our kharadu exposed to their system of edited dictation  (education)

There were a few book stalls that had some free handouts and leaflets and books for sale, at one of the tables we saw the only sister in the room and she quickly indentified herself as the one who'd invited me to the fair and I gave her a big hug!!! Here she is at the stall:

Here are some of the leaflets that I picked up with a directory of different homeschooling groups, the laws around homeschooling, useful websites and frequently asked questions on homeschooling. The book I picked up called "Early Years" which is published by Education Otherwise (at http://www.educationotherwise.net/ a long standing resource for homeschooling advice and guidance) has a lot of good ideas around what to do in your homeschool, but most of the contact details in the resource section were out of date which was a shame. 

As we got there later in the day, we missed the talk I really wanted to hear which was the panel of young adults who had been homeschooled, who were there to answer questions on their experiences.

The funniest moments in the last 2 talks we did manage to hear part of were 

- One of the speakers said that she didn't think grammar, reading and spelling work books were completely necessary and that children can learn words from things around them in real life. She said her son learnt from the words around him while travelling on the trains so the first words he learnt to read were "Danger, High Voltage"!

 -  The other speak said that when she was pregnant she's say to herself "As soon as this baby is 3mths old, I'm going back to work" but when her child was born she said "I didn't want to let her go or give her to anyone, why would I have you just to give you away!"

- The first speaker also showed this slide during their talk that was a bit of a laugh too - Sorry the picture's not great, but it says "I expect you all to be independant, innovative, critical thinkers, who will do exactly as I say!"

It was a good day, if we go again next year, I'd like to get there earlier to take in more of the talks and more specifically, see how we can reproduce this event for our Nuwaupian yasar.

Here's the website to the event so you can keep up to date with the event for next year https://sites.google.com/site/homeeducationfair/

Hatap yasar

Mut Bast.tet En Re

What style of homeschooling do we use?

Raahub yasar,

Homeschooling families typically get asked  'What do you do with your children all day?' In many ways, that depends on the style of homeschooling or home education you choose for your children.

The 2 ends of the home education spectrum to my knowledge are:

The strictest form is 'A School At Home' - This is where you pretty much aim to create a school structure and environment in your home, so in this home, you'd expect to see set hours for studies and teaching times, a set curriculum, text books, lesson plans etc. Some people will even get uniforms that their children wear during their school time, a black board, desk and chairs.

The most relaxed form is 'Unschooling' (aka free range learning, child centred learning, de schooling etc) - This type of home education in based on the concept that a child learns from any and everything, without the need for structure, text books, computers, curriculum or anything else you'd typically find in a conventional school environment. So in this home, you probably find ample books, instruments, art supplies, educational toys, games and activities, but not many 'lessons times'

You also have different more specific schools of thought that families use to with their children like

Montessouri (child centred learning) - http://www.montessori.org.uk/what_is_montessori
Steiner Schooling -Click here to learn about Steiner Homeschooling
Waldorf Schooling - Click here to learn more about Waldorf homeschooling 

Now, what do we do in our Nuwaupian homeschool?

I like the concept of our children learning from life itself and becoming self reliant, able to make their own decisions about what they learn and when in the unschooling kind of way, but I'm also pretty sure that our educationally advanced ancestors, the ancient tamareans would have had a learning structure of some sort. There was always order in our culture, so that's what I aim to create in our home.

I have images of little tamamrean children carrying their books into a big granite pyramid in ancient tamare discussing molecular science and the electromagnetic lay lines of the earth as they rushed to get to their desks or hall of learning in time to hear their mustalameed begin class. Super smart little 7yr olds asking questions that a 15yr old in this society would be baffled by - this is what our children should be able to achieve and will achieve in the right environment.

There are loads of educational and stimulating things around our home, from computer programs, to books, art activities, toys and gadgets and so on, so even away from a structure lesson time, there are opportunities for them to learn.

So I'd describe our homeschooling style as a relaxed, child centred school at home. In any given day, you can expect to find us enjoying meals as a family, teaching a few structured lessons from nuwaupic language to science, biology or nature, the kharadu working through their workbooks and online learning systems, reading reading and more reading, either independently or me reading to them and lots of play play and more play.

Hatep yasar

Mut

Parenting is like archery

I found this on The Busy Homeschooling Mum's facebook page the other day (http://www.facebook.com/busyhomeschoolmom) who got it from www.fiveinarow.com ,

I think this is true in many ways, but I also feel that even if you do everything to keep your child on Paa Taraq, they have a destiny, path and the ability to make decision of their own. The "worst" homes can spit out the "best" children and vice versa, if you know what I mean :-)

Hatep yasar!!!

Mut Bast.tet En Re 

(Leah Salmon)

P.S. I just joined twitter, so if you're on there, let's connect. My twitter handle is https://twitter.com/anuwaupianmir

Teach Your Children They Are The Best...

Our Nuwaupuyee for the week

Raahub yasar,

The recent update that was delivered to us last week called Nimrod (at http://wu-nuwaup.com/outformation-class/nimrod/) from Mursal.tat Nysut.tat: Nerua Nafur.tat Atum-Rayay wu Mursal Nysut: Ptah Khaf Rayay Hepet Atum Rayay (Nerua's dress was lovely by the way), focused on the importance of our language Nuwaupuyee (formerly known as Nuwaupic). - The video of the update is at the bottom of this post.

If you didn't already know, there is a whole website now with Nuwaupuyee lessons on it at http://nuwaupic.com/

We aim to speak as much nuwaupuyee as we can, but this update really did give us a wake up call as to just how important it is, so we're going to learn a few words and phrases a week ans build from there.

So last week we learnt these words:

Nawam - Sleep
Jabab - Bring
Please - Ealal
No - Nual
What - Sanas
Here - Hunanu
That - Pafaf
What is that? Sanas kawan pafaf?
What colour is that? Sanas lawun kawan pafaf?

I'm going to spend another week on these then move onto 5 new words and 2 sentences a week from next week.

We went on a family walk which lasted about an hour in total,during the walk we went through the words then did lots of practice. As we walked I'd ask them "sanas kawan pafaf? and point at different things, or I'd ask "sanas lawun kawan pafaf? and they know most of the colours in nuwaupuyee so they could answer in nuwaupyee too, which allowed us to have a little nuwaupuyee conversation as we walked.

Homeschooling and learning can happen everywhere you go :-)

Hatep yasar

Mut