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.

Not-so daily diary :)

I am trying to get into a better habit of curating. I have amassed a collection of quotations, ideas for books and a huge assortment of links to crafts and homeschool materials, but they are all on various devices and in the deep recesses of my head ;) I am now slowly sieving through this stockpile and attempting to transcribe them into my commonplace book.

You might wonder why I should bother when I can just digitise everything. The fact is, it doesn’t really work for me. I have used Pinterest, saved links into bookmarks and even considered using apps like Evernote. All of this should have made me more organized, but I got nowhere to actually synthesizing the information and translating it into actual beneficial knowledge. Cutting and pasting is very quick… for me, though, the pen is mightier than the keyboard. I need more than a cursory glance and prefer a physical repository of ideas.

These are the things I am keeping in my commonplace book:

• poetry
• passages from books that I especially like
• recipes
• supplications from the Quran and Sunnah
• quotable quotes
• speeches
• articles

Do you keep a commonplace book? What do you journal about?

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?

My first traveler’s notebook, a Raydori… love it to pieces!

Those of you who know me in person would know that I have a penchant for pen and paper. OK, HUGE understatement!! I am a full-fledged, card carrying, unapologetic stationery addict. You know, a dream of mine is to sell stationery? I think my business would be in the red though, because I would probably want to keep everything for myself. ;)

Initially, I tried going the whole hog with scrapbooking and smashbooking and what have you… it was fun at first – I’d once considered a publishing job and still love looking at good layouts and presentations. The problem was that this hobby consumed my every being to the extent that I was close to making the Dad Man and the kids forage for their meals. It didn’t help that my latent OCD tendencies slowly but surely kicked in – I kept wanting to rip out pages because they didn’t look right. I kept analyzing the handwriting, the alignments, the colours… it all became very very overwhelming, self-defeating and a complete waste of time. That foolishness clearly had to go and alhamdulillah I kicked it to the kerb.

Me and my insane attempts at scrapbooking… the dreaded blank page when no inspiration kicks in!

I have since taken a step back from scrapbooking and gone into journaling – I write about my days and whatever inspires me and I try a bit of craftiness without getting obsessive about it. Since the words take centre stage, I no longer worry about embellishment and decoration… once I focused more on the process than the end product, I found planner peace and my family, thankfully, stay nourished ;)

I use a leather notebook. For the uninitiated (and you folks simply MUST join us on the dark side!), this is a leather cover with 2 to 4 (or more if you are crazy that way!) elastic bands inside it to hold notebooks. The original/most popular was made by the Midori Company and simply referred to as the “Midori”. It now has its own brand name and is called the “Traveler’s Notebook”. (I think “Midori” is a much prettier name, don’t you? The kids and I still call our notebooks “dories”.) The TNs gave birth to numerous DIY versions by other leather craftsmen – these are affectionately called “fauxdoris” or are named by their makers. My first dori, purchased a few years ago, was made by Ray Blake and it is called a “Raydori”.

The TN can hold several notebooks, so each insert can be used for different purposes. I have one insert for a weekly planner, one for a diary/journal, one for my Islamic learning, one for a commonplace book and one for my homeschooling ideas/notes. Once a notebook is full, I can store it and put another in its place. It’s all wonderfully portable so I can use it anytime and anywhere – I love looking through my journals when I am out and about. The best bit about these babies though? The leather. There is something simply intoxicating about well made leather goods… they are just WICKED!

My blue Traveler’s Notebook… ain’t he a beauty?

I’ve grown to depend on my notebooks for my homeschooling days – Marz is now preparing for her IGCSEs, so a few notebooks have gone into English Literature notes and lesson plans. I am also moving into Islamic Journaling – I have been copying words of remembrance/adhkaar and trying to memorise them. (I really must work harder on this!) I am also going into Quran journaling, for the simple reason that it is high time – I need to organize all my notes and random scribbles into something more ‘coherent’ and systematic!

Studying and journaling at the park while Peep has football practice.

Mornings are special times with my dori – I get ready a nice mug of chai, settle down with my pens and my books and journal away. This daily fix keeps me cheerfully sane :)

In shaa Allah, I’ll share more about my dori days and resources I have found. Is anyone out there into this analogue culture? Give me a shout out because Midori loves company. :)