Bear… your torture begins! *evil grin*

Free online Science resources for tweens

• Rader’s Biology4Kids … Chemistry4Kids … Physics4Kids … AND Cosmos4Kids. Phew! That’s a lot! ;)
• CK-12 Life Science for Middle School – a whopping 1,143 page digital book… get it delivered for free to your Kindle from Amazon! It is mucho gorgeous.
• CK-12 Earth Science for Middle School … I had sworn to minimize screen time but what do you do when you have 908 fabulous pages like this? A free Kindle book… go, get it. Now.
• Middle School Chemistry – developed and written by Jim Kessler, Patti Galvan, and Adam M. Boyd at the American Chemical Society. I so want to be a geek!
• SciGirls Connect! and check out their PBS site here.
• I.Science.Mate – Integrating Science, Math & Technology
• How Stuff Works
• How The Body Works
• The Vega Science Trust Videos
• Outstanding Science Trade Books… OK, not exactly free, but it is a great reference for those who love using living books
• The Physics Classroom … an online, free to use physics website developed primarily for beginning physics students and their teachers. I think I need this…

Marz … you have your work cut out for you… bwahahahaha! ;)

Biology

• Rader’s Biology4Kids … a very nice start to cover the basics of Biology. The site has information on cell structure, cell function, scientific studies, plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, and other life science topics. (Check out the full list of their bio core topics here.)
• High School Biology @ Khan Academy … get started on the prep page and move on to AP Biology too!
• Fuse School … I think it is a work in progress, but it has lots of resources and is very very promising with videos and all sorts of info for everything you learn at school!
• The Biology Corner
• MIT OpenCourseware Biology courses… It’s MIT, yo! Are you suitable impressed? I am ;)
• Wikiversity’s High School Biology … lots more resources here
• Interactive Biology – high school biology lecture videos. There are also Physiology and Anatomy videos.
• Learner’s TV … High School Biology Video Lectures, Video Courses, Science Animations, Lecture Notes, Online Test, Lecture Presentations. Absolutely FREE. More here.
• ALISON – Free online Biology course … ALISON hosts over 750 courses with a wide range of subject categories.

Chemistry

• Rader’s Chemistry4Kids … good introduction to Chemistry… Rader’s has information on matter, atoms, elements, the periodic table, reactions, and biochemistry.
• Khan Academy’s Chemistry Page … Check out the prep page to get started and also move on to AP Chemistry and Organic Chemistry
• Fuse School’s Chemistry… videos and notes, people! Check them out!
• Learners TV Chemistry Video Lectures
• ALISON – free Chemistry course … a wealth of courses – something for everyone!
• MIT’s OpenCourseWare Chemistry Courses

Physics

• Rader’s Physics4Kids … with information on motion, heat and thermodynamics, electricity & magnetism, light, and modern physics topics. If you are interested in Astronomy, check out Cosmos4Kids.
• Khan Academy’s Physics Course … get started here
• Learners TV free Physics video lectures
• MIT’s OpenCourseWare Physics Courses
• ALISON – free Physics course … and with Engineering courses here.

“Children’s aptitude for knowledge and their eagerness for it made for the conclusion that the field of a child’s knowledge may not be artificially restricted, that he has a right to and necessity for as much and as varied knowledge as he is able to receive; and that the limitations in his curriculum should depend only upon the age at which he must leave school; in a word, a common curriculum (up to the age of say, fourteen or fifteen) appears to be due to all children.

We have left behind the feudal notion that intellect is a class prerogative, that intelligence is a matter of inheritance and environment; inheritance, no doubt, means much but everyone has a very mixed inheritance; environment makes for satisfaction or uneasiness, but education is of the spirit and is not to be taken in by the eye or effected by the hand; mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated.”

~ (Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 12)

So… my set up is all ready for 2017, in shaa Allah. I have my A5 dori, my grid paper notebooks (I only write on grid paper… grid is good… heh) and my trusty fountain pens. I can’t wait to dig into journal goodness.

Here are some links that I have found very useful for starting out. They are Juz ‘Amma resources:

• Sheikh Navaid Aziz
• Sheikh Muhammad Alshareef’s Touched by An Angel
• Touched by An Angel Tafseer Workbook
• Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan

Did I tell you that I’ve converted the entire family to my notebook neurosis? Each one of my kids (yes, even 5-year-old Peep) has a dori. Theirs are well made leather covers and I bought them hoping that they will be keepsakes that last my children into adulthood.

Marz keeps a commonplace book, crochet patterns and a smash book and Bear does a lot of drawing and doodling. Peep’s is a passport size cover and it is ma shaa Allah so cute! He has a two notebooks in his tiny TN – one is a sticker notebook and the other contains his reading list. The Dad Man has one too – a larger A5 to our standard sized (11cm x 21cm) ones. He has always jotted down ideas and work-related plans in a notebook of sorts, so I thought he would make the ideal victim candidate for a leather notebook.

Bear’s dori

Peep’s – it is small and fits right in the palm of an adult’s hand but is plenty for his scribblings and studies :)

I’ve recently acquired an A5 one too to add to my dori family (don’t judge me!) and this is expressly for my Islamic studies. I already have an insert for supplications and want to organize new ones for Tafseer and Seerah.

There are alhamdulillah lots of lectures online and for those who are keen on Islamic journaling, Sister Sumayah Hassan of Recite and Reflect has initiated a lovely project called Iman Illustrated. This is an open community of sisters who journal together. It doesn’t matter how artistic or not you are… the idea is to put pen to paper and to reflect on the Quran. Check out the group’s links for more inspiration:

• Iman Illustrated Community Guidelines
• Iman Illustrated’s Facebook Page
• Iman Illustrated’s Instagram

I am keeping my journal simple. I can’t draw for toffee, so I am not even going to try… haha ;) I am just going to try and better my Arabic writing and make my notes tidy. No jazzing things up beyond different coloured inks, no embellishments, absolutely no bells and whistles. Just a simple doable and, in shaa Allah, sustainable effort. I am also slowly moving the girls into Quran journaling. For now, Marz is collecting 25 supplications to write out and memorize and Bear, 25 ahadeeth on good deeds.

So… are you Quran journaling? What resources have you found useful and what do your pages look like?