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.

Can Being Small be Good?

Today's story: "Who Can Save Noor?" from "The Talking Tree and Other Stories" by David McRobie.

In storytime, we read a story about an eleven years old girl named Harun, who was the shortest in her Primary Five class. Because she was so short, she was often left out of the games of her classmates and people didn't feel she was grown up enough to do the things other fiftgraders would do. However, once her shortness came in very handy. A little boy named Noor got lost - he had fallen into an old well. The opening of the well was so small that no grownup could go through it. But it was just right for Harun. She was lowered into the well and brought Noor up! Harun's father was very proud of her, and after this incident, Harun never felt bad about being so small.

As we talked about the story, Umm Uzair asked us to think about incident in our own lives, when we felt that we are big enough for something, while the others around us thought that we were too small. Then, she asked us to make a picture of that event and later share with others.
In "Show and Tell" time today, we had two presenters: Hibatullah and Fatima. Hibatullah showed us her project, which she had made together with her mother. It was about the concept of Hala and Haram foods. As you can see, she has divided the page into two halves - one for the Halal foods, which are allowed for Muslims to eath, and the other - for the Haram, which are forbidden for Muslims to eat. Hibatullah told us that there are so many more Halal foods than Haram foods - Allah (swt) has given us a wealth of good foods to choose from!
Fatima has prepared a great presentation about the five sense we have and about other human body related topics. Together with her mother, she had been busy the entire week reading a children's encyclopedia about the human body. She was very excited to share with all of us what she had learned.

Bookworms at Karachi Zoo

Making great use of Karachi cool winter weather, Bookworms set out for a field trip to Karachi zoo. As we arrived to the zoo gate, we noticed many buses lined up at the entrance, indicating that the zoo will be full of schookids. And it was! Neatly walking in rows, hastened along by their teachers, little kiddies were going from cage to cage, repeating the names of animals in English. Some of the bookworms were so excited to see the schookids, that they forgot about the animals and were ready to join the neat rows themselves! :)The zoo had lots to offer: two huge elephants, Benal tiger, lions, black bear, alligators, zeebra, deer, monkeys and countless varieties of birds. Walking at our own pace from cage to cage (not being rushed by teachers!), we spent at each animal as much time as we wanted.

Absolute favourites were the elephants and the alligators - it must be their enormous sizes that made them the most attractive. As we were standing on the bridge across the alligators pond, we kept on noticing more and more animals in the water and resting in the sun on the shores.
After a good walk, we sat down in a quite corner of the zoo for some snacks. Mothers had done great job - the snacks were delicious! And they gave just the right amount of energy for us to start playing around in the little park again. A lone tree attracted the attention of kids - Aisha's hat was being trown onto its branches and then climbed after!
The visit to the zoo was so full of excitement that we didn't have enough time for reading our stories. Umm Uzair promised that we'll read them next week, Insha'Allah, and revisit our zoo trip once again.

You can see more pictures from our field trip to Karachi Zoo right here: http://bookwormsbookclub.shutterfly.com/pictures/8

Clay Play Day

Alhumdulillah the Book Club met for some messy fun and frolic: playing with clay. Prior to covering our hands with wet sticky clay we read a book about life in the ancient civilizations of Mohenjodara and Harappa. Much of the tools of daily life (pots, seals and even toys) were hand made with clay, most likely found by the rivers which must have once existed near them.

After discussing the importance of clay in the lives of the people past, we brought out a huge slab of clay (provided previously by Umm Muaz), and then all club members sat down for some muddy fun.

From dinos to little bowls the book club moms had a loads of fun while the children meshed and mashed the clay to their hearts content forming rolls, snowmen,a spoon, a stove and pot and all forms of abstract art! Masha'Allah. Everyone was sorry when the clay eventually ran out, but were pleased to place their finished work in the sun to harden and then taken home another day.

The Book Worm Club gets techie

After a break of a couple of weeks, the Book Worm Book Club finally resumed its activities last week. Alhumdulillah both the children and mothers excited to to meet again.

For our 'Show and Tell' and to commemorate the Hajj, Saaim  put together a lap book about Hajj, Masha'Allah, which was an inspiration to all members watching.

Hajj Lapbook by Saaim

 

In the red flap Saaim has  noted the good deeds to be done within the first ten days of Zil Hijja, the green note below it holds the Takbir ut Tashreeq, followed by the words of Dzikr to be said with in the yellow blocks and the envelope at the bottom has a note about his cow, Masha'Allah.

The entire itinerary of the first ten days of Hajj is outlined within this calf booklet

A lift the flap quiz about Hajj

Alhumdulillah after the interactive presentation and quiz by Saaim we then began our book:

Safaa Aunty shared this fun science story which gave us a tour of the inside of a computer. With messages being sent in the form of electric impulses just like the human brain and a 'mother'board being the center of all its inner workings, we foun computers do have something in common with human beings Subhan'Allah!

 Safaa Aunty concluded the session by presenting us a mobile phone, which had fallen apart, to observe and then shared this video about the parts of a computer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWzX4MEYOBk