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Inquiry In Action

June 28, 2010 by Imaan 2 Comments
Inquiry In Action

Inquiry In Action is a a 470-page resource of guided, inquiry-based activities that covers basic chemistry concepts along with the process of scientific investigation. It was developed and written by James Kessler and Patti Galvan from the office of K-8 Science at the American Chemical Society. Experienced educators both, Patti worked as an elementary school teacher with a keen interest in science education before coming to ACS. James has been developing resources for K-8 teachers for 20 years.

Why am I going on about this book, you ask? It is FREE! I kid you not… all 470 pages (phew!) are available for download here.

Cool, right?

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Reading time: 1 min
Homeschool Good Reads

Auroras

September 5, 2005 by Imaan 5 Comments

We did this impromptu lesson some time ago and I thought that some of you might enjoy these links with your kids.

During one of our book hunts, Marz and I found “Eskimo Boy: Life in an Inupiaq Eskimo Village” by Russ Kendall. It tells of seven-year-old Norman Kokeok, an Inupiaq Eskimo who lives in the village of Shishmaref on Sarichef Island, in the Chukchi Sea, just north of Bering Strait (off the northwest coast of Alaska). Illustrated with large color photographs, this book describes the life of modern-day Eskimos and Alaska. It also includes a glossary of Inupiaq words.

We have read this book so many times that Marz wants to meet Norman – I tell her that he must be about 19 years old by now!

The book talks about the beautiful Northern Lights and so we did a short lesson on it. Here are some links you may enjoy:

  • Auroras: Mysterious Lights In The Sky – clearly my daughter’s fave!
  • Auroras – Ghostly Earth-Sun Link
  • Auroras – Paintings In The Sky. What Makes Them Happen?
  • Nordly’s – Northen Lights
  • Everything Alaska’s Aurora Borealis Page – Everything Alaska also has colouring pages, beautiful photographs of Alaskan wilderness and more!
  • AuroraWebCam.Com – The Northern Lights international project from Alaska

(Image of the aurora in Alaska from Pexels)

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Reading time: 1 min
Homeschool Good Reads

Butterflies Revisited

August 24, 2005 by Imaan No Comments

Going the regimented route didn’t work out for us … if I’m to be completely honest, it brought out the absolute WORST in me. I trashed my lesson plans and started on a clean slate. Marz and I played silly games, tackled the colouring books and chit chatted in the darkness after Bear and Dad had gone to sleep. We took out stacks upon stacks of books and we just read. It felt good reconnecting with my daughter.

I have decided to follow a more eclectic approach… something along the lines of the unit-study-five-in-a-row way with loads of good literature. So we make the rules up as we go along. So what? ;)

We did butterflies earlier this year, but I’ve decided to revisit this unit … this time remembering to breathe more!

Butterflies, Butterflies!

  • Alan & Hui Meng’s Butterfly Life Cycle Photos
  • Beal School’s Exploring Butterflies in Kindergarten
  • Butterfly File Folder Game
  • Butterfly & Moth Printouts @ Enchanted Learning
  • DLTK’s Butterfly & Caterpillar Crafts
  • First School’s Butterfly Pre-school Activities & Crafts
  • Jenna’s Story – Caterpillar to Butterfly
  • Kidzone’s Monarch Butterfly Picture Story
  • Kidzone’s Online Butterfly Jigsaw
  • Life Cycles – The Monarch Butterfly
  • Monarch Butterfly Links
  • NBII Children’s Butterfly Site
  • Science Museum of Minnesota – Monarchs & Migration
  • Star Tribune’s beautiful photographs of butterflies
  • Yukon Butterflies

Books We Read

  • “All Aboard Reading: Butterflies” by Emily Neye
  • “Butterfly Battle” – The Magic School Bus
  • “Charlie the Caterpillar” by Dom de Luise
  • “DK Readers Level 1: Born to be a Butterfly” by Karen Wallace
  • “How to Hide a Butterfly & Other Insects” by Ruth Heller
  • “The Butterfly Life Cycle” from Enchanted Learning
  • “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle (but of course *S*)
  • “Where Butterflies Grow” by Joanne Ryder & Lynne Cherry

Random Crazy Stuff

  • Pinned a filmy dupatta (that’s the large rectangular shawl that Indo-Pak women wear) on Ms M, gathered up the middle, fashioned huge butterfly wings and let her run about the house in her usual drama-mama fashion :)
[Butterfly photo from Pexels]
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Reading time: 1 min
Homeschool

The Little Red House…

August 17, 2005 by Imaan 2 Comments

I did this activity with Marzipan and she loved it to bits! If you have the time, you can make a felt story board or draw some pictures to accompany the tale. I just read with a lot of drama and had an apple and a knife ready! It worked just fine!

As with most resources I purchase or find online, I have adapted the content by injecting an Islamic flavour.

The Little Red House With The Star Inside

There was once a little boy named Ahmad who was tired of all his toys and tired of all his play.

“What shall I do?” he asked his mother.

And his mother, who always knew beautiful things for little boys to do, said, “Dear Ahmad, you shall go on a journey and find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.”

This really made the little boy wonder. Usually his mother had good ideas, but he thought that this one was very strange. “Which way shall I go?” he asked. “I don’t know where to find a little red house with no doors and no window.”

“Go down the lane past the farmer’s house and over the hill,” said his mother. “Then hurry back as soon as you can and tell me all about your journey.”

So Ahmad put on his cap and his jacket and started out, saying the du`aa for leaving the home. “Bismillah. Tawakaltu `allallah wa la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah.”

He had not gone very far down the lane when he met with a merry little girl playing in the sunshine. Her cheeks were like pink bloom petals and she was making dhikr, like the pretty robins in the trees.

“As salaamu `alaykum! Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?” asked the little boy.

The little girl laughed “Wa `alaykum as salaam! Ask my father, the farmer,” she said. “Perhaps he knows.”

So the little boy, went on until he came to a great brown barn were the farmer kept barrels of fat potatoes and baskets of yellow squashes and golden pumpkins. The farmer himself stood in the doorway, looking out over the green pastures and yellow grain fields.

“As salaamu `alaykum! My name is Ahmad. Do you know were I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?” the boy asked the farmer.

The farmer laughed too. “Wa `alaykum as salaam, young man! I have lived a great many years and I have never seen one.” He continued, “Ask Granny who lives at the foot of the hill. She knows how to make molasses, taffy and popcorn balls and red mittens! Perhaps she can direct you.”

Ahmad said, “JazakAllah khayran!” to the farmer who cheerfully replied, “Wa iyyakum!”

He then went on farther still, until he came to the Granny sitting in her pretty garden of herbs and marigolds. She was as wrinkled as a walnut and as smiling as the sunshine.

“As salaamu `alaykum! I am Ahmad,” said the little boy, introducing himself. “Please, dear Granny, where shall I find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?”

Granny was knitting a red mitten and when she heard the little boy’s question, she laughed so cheerily that the wool ball rolled of her lap and down the little pebbly path.

“Wa `alaykum as salaam, ya Ahmad! I should like to find that little house myself,” she chuckled. “I would be warm when the frosty night comes and the starlight would be prettier than a candle ma shaa Allah. Why don’t you follow where the wind blows? Perhaps the wind can direct you, in shaa Allah.”

So the boy bade salaam to the Granny and went on up the hill rather sorrowfully. He wondered if his mother, who usually knew almost everything, had perhaps made a mistake.

The wind was coming down the hill as Ahmad climbed up. As they met, the wind turned about and went along, singing beside the little boy. It whistled in his ear and pushed him and dropped a pretty leaf into his hand.

“I wonder,” thought Ahmad, after they had gone along together for awhile, “if the wind could help me find a little red house with no doors and no windows a star inside.”

The wind cannot speak in our words, but it went singing ahead of the little boy until it came to an orchard. There it climbed up in the apple tree and shook the branches. When Ahmad caught up, there at his feet lay a great rosy apple. He picked up the apple.

It was as much as his two hands could hold, it was red as the sun had been able to paint it, and the thick brown stem stood up as straight as a chimney, and it had no doors and no windows.

Was there a star in side? The little boy said, “Alhamdulillah,” thanking Allah for his find and made his way back home.

Upon reaching home, Ahmad greeted his mother with a cheerful “As salaamu `alaykum Ummi!” and gave her the apple. With a wide smile on her face, his mother took a knife and cut the apple through the center.

(AT THIS POINT, START CUTTING AN APPLE CROSSWISE)

Oh, ma shaa Allah! How wonderful! There inside the apple, lay a star holding brown seeds.

“SubhanAllah… It is too wonderful to eat without looking at the star, isn’t it?” Ahmad said to his mother.

“Yes indeed,” answered his mother.

Apple - Cut crosswise
[Image of apple and jar from Pexels]
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Reading time: 4 min
Homeschool Good Reads

The Salamander Room

August 11, 2005 by Imaan 4 Comments

I found The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer in a second-hand bookstore here in Islamabad and it is SUCH a treasure. This is a story about little Brian who finds a salamander and wants to keep it in his room. What follows is a series of gentle questioning from his mum (It’s really sweet that she doesn’t say “Euww! No way!”). She asks how he can cater to the creature’s needs such as “Where will he sleep?” etc.

Brian answers all of her questions and concerns with imaginative solutions:

  • make a bed for the salamander with leaves & moss
  • bring in crickets & bull frogs to lull it to sleep
  • collect wet leaves, stumps and boulders for the salamander’s play
  • bring in other salamanders for company
  • make a pool and bring in insects for the salamander’s food & drink
  • control the insect population by bringing in birds and bullfrogs
  • provide trees and ponds for the birds & bullfrogs
  • lift off his room’s ceiling so the sun can shine through, trees can grow and so the birds can fly freely

As the story progresses with each addition, Brian’s bedroom is transformed into a lush jungle paradise!

This book is beautifully illustrated by Steven Johnson and is great for teaching little ones about cause and effect, rainforests and how we can do our bit to care for the environment.

Some activities you can do with your kids:

  • Learn more about salamanders at Enchanted Learning
  • Learn more about rainforests – I found Rainforest Alliance’s site to be a wealth of info & free lesson plans!
  • Reading Rainbow also has very nice free educational guides for this book.
  • Read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry – more on this great book in a bit!
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