Bookworms Presentations

Finally the long awaited the has come - bookworms presentations! This week, aunty Hafsa generously hosted all the big crowd (11 families!) in her spacious home. All the kids, not to mention the moms, were very excited, as each family had prepared their very own presentation to present to the group. The presentations were as varied as the families themselves - and that's the fun of homeschooling! We learned about growing a sunflower, we enjoyed a Nasheed on Arabic numerals,  we got to know some new facts on outer space matters, we saw a skit on the common mistakes made in Salah, we watched a Medieval knights tournament, we learned tons of facts on Islamic history and the Khalifa state, we were introduced to the smallest doctor we've ever known, we heard a Nasheed on Hijab and we saw a skit from Islamic history, in which a just ruler killed his own son, in order to implement the justice of Shariah. All of us got also certificates of participation for our efforts!

After the wonderful presentations, we enjoyed a huge pot-luck lunch. All in all, the party was great! Although we feel a bit sad that this meeting was last one of the season (bookworms will be on summer break), we know that we'll be very glad to see all our friends in the fall again, Insha'Allah. Do check back on our blog in a while - we'll have a selection of our presentations day pictures available.

Planet Earth - part 3

Today we had another viewing session of National Geographic series "Planet Eearth". This time, we visited aunty Hafsa (Haneen's and Safia's mother), who kindly invited us to her home. Masha'Allah, the huge TV in their recreation room was perfect for the viewing!

After the video, all of us enjoyed snacks and had some good running rounds in aunty Hafsa's home. Thank you, aunty Hafsa, for having us over!

More on airplanes

Today’s book: “The Glorious Flight across the Channel with Louis Bleriot” by Alice and Martin Provensen

Reflecting on our PAF museum trip, today we continued the topic of flying and airplanes - we read a book about a Frenchman Louis Bleriot, who was the first one to fly across the English Channel.

The book says: “Louis Bleriot (1872-1936) was one of the truly great pioneers of aviation. He devoted the fortune acquired by his invention of an automobile searchlight to the development and construction of his high-performance aircraft, the “BLERIOT XI”. His flight across the English Channel (we got to know that this is not a TV channel but a water body running between to parts of land) demonstrated to the world that barriers of land and sea no longer existed for
the airplane.”

The story of the book goes as follows: On a nice outing with his family, Mr. Bleriot notices in the sky above his native town of Cambrai an airship! This inspires him to build his own airplane. Over years, he makes several attempts – 11 to be exact – to build his own plane and finally succeeds. Mr. Bleriot and his “BLERIOT XI” participate in a challenge to fly across the English Channel with a prize of £ 1,000 offered for it. He sets out on early morning of July 25, 1909, almost gets lost at the sea but 37 minutes after taking off, he finally lands on English soil! Mr. Bleriot wins the prize!

After the story, we made airplanes of our own: a darting one and a gliding one. Darting one has a sharp front and streamlined, smooth body – it flies far and fast. Gliding one has a flat front and wider wings – it flies slowly and gracefully. We talked about the differences in the design of these
planes and why they fly the way they do. In the picture below, you can see some of our darts and gliders.

PAF museum field trip

Instead of our regular book club session, today we had a really awesome field trip to Pakistan Air Force museum. Although nearly all of us had been there already, visiting PAF is always fun: lots of huge planes and other machinery on display, plenty of space to run and, of course, rides to enjoy. First, we followed the track around the models displayed outside. Then we entered the Archives building, where more planes were displayed, along with guns, shields, uniforms and historical accounts with photos - the place was huge! Afterwards, we all sat down for some snacks our moms had brought along and finally went for the rides! The all popular choice was the dodgeing cars, which many of us tried even multiple times. Smaller kids went in a miniature train and the flying airplane. To enjoy some of what we did in the museum, click here to check out the photos.

Planet Earth - part 2

Since today was the first Wednesday of February and we previously had agreed to have National Georaphic "Planet Earth" video's viewing sessions on every first Wednesday of the month, we did just that. The hour long viewing session and sitting in one spot was not easy, but the video was worth it, Alhamduillah. Afterwards, we had our snacks and good running around aunty's Atefa's home. :) Aunty Najia had prepard for us a game - pin the tale on the horse - which we really enojoyed.

In today's "show-and-tell" session, Sulaiman shared the very first letters he had learned in Arabic, Masha'Allah. As his ummi was holding up flash-cards, he was saying the sounds of the letters for all of us.

The Balloons Day

This week, Zainab and her mother had invited us to have the bookclub meeting in their home. We read a story about Percy, the park keeper, and his animal friends - "The Hedgehogs' Balloon" (by Nick Butterworth). In the story, Percy saw some balloons floating by. As he picked them, he heard some crying, which turned out to be a hedgehog sitting and crying. The hedgehog said that he also loved balloons but never got the chance to have one, because it would burst on his spines. Percy had an idea how to help the hedgehog. To see what the idea was and whether it was helpful for the hedgehog, find your copy of the book and read it! :)

After reading, we took out our balloons we had brought along, blew up one and decorated them. Then, aunty Laila showed us a small experiment with the balloons: we blew up another one and held it in our fingers at the opening, without tying it. Aunty Laila directed us to pull our hands apart and let some air out of the balloons - this made all kinds of funny noises! The more we pulled the openings of balloons, the deeper the sound got. And if we pulled it open just a little - a very high pitch sound was coming. Auty Laila told us that this is exactly how our own voice works - the same thing is happening in our throats, when we make higher or lower pitch sounds.

There was more excitement to come - aunty Laila asked us to tie two blown up balloons to our ankles and come in the car porch of the house. She arranged us in a circle for a game. We had to burst the balloons of other kids by stepping on them, at the same time trying to save our own ones! That was a lot of noise and fun. And the winner of our game was Fatimah!

In today's show-and-tell, the Pirani family had brought along the clay tablets they had worked on as part of their history studies. They had studied the ancient forms of writing, one of which was writing on clay tablets - so they had tried it out and brought for all of us to see, masha'Allah!

Planet Earth

our paper birds

Our home the Earth is an awe-some place and in order to introduce a few of its wonders to the Book Worm Club members, we had a viewing of the first segment of BBC's Planet Earth series called From Pole To Pole.Alhumdulillah It was a beautiful overview of the various biomes around us and we home to continue viewing the rest of the program in the future months Insha'Allah. Laila Aunty organized a quick activity where the children cut out bird decoration out of paper. She found these hanging in a community center in Latvia, and asked them to teach her the design Masha'Allah.


Alhumdulillah we had four little presenters sharing their work for show and tell:

Hassan's flash cards
Haneen & Saffiyah's diorama of a zoo, MAsha'Allah, this fit in well with today's theme.

Haneen and Suffiyah put together a large diorama of a zoo, which we all agreed was much nicer that the one we visited; the animals were not behind bars and seemed a lot happier.

Fatima's poster

Fatima made a chart about different seasons, on the other side of the chart was an outline of a map of Pakistan which she left for the Book Club members to complete.

Even little Hassan brought some flashcards to share, made by his mother and mounted on popsicle sticks we enjoyed identifying the letters and pictures as he displayed them to us.