Sister Adeela of River City Homeschoolers has a new project out and ma shaa Allah, it is wonderful!

Visual Journaling 4 Kids

If you want to combine noteboooking or journaling with art, then Visual Journaling 4 Kids is definitely a site you must visit! I think visual journaling will suit my younger daughter to a “T”. She is a kinesthetic learner and has a penchant for all things arty and crafty.

There are tutorials, lots of photographs, links to visual journaling resources, writing prompts and more! Go check the site out… GO!!

Mars adores reading and walks around with her nose buried in her book. I mean this literally. Her father’s come close to a coronary watching her – “The stairs! The stairs! Put the book aside before you crash down the stairs and break something!” I’m pleased that she loves reading because there was a time when I was worried about her seeming lack of progress. My fears were completely groundless of course – but then you do develop some measure of paranoia when everyone asks you why your daughter isn’t reading at such-and-such age. (She read independently at 6 in case you are wondering.)

Anyway, she is so much like me that it is uncanny. She reads constantly, loves learning new words, has a strong inclination for the humanities and enjoys Science, especially natural history. She’s been trying her hand at writing stories and poetry as well and this has been a great source of pride for me. She is a novice for sure but I’m so glad that she has put her thoughts and feelings down on paper. She had never dared to before – she had never thought that she could or should, always harbouring this notion that she was never good enough.

So like her mama, Mars is doing well on the language front. Unfortunately, like her mama, she is less inclined towards Math. OK, let’s just come right out and say it… she hates Math with a vengeance and would do anything to get away from it.

I’ve tried to inject a bit of fun into her lessons and alhamdulillah there’s been a positive change. I prepared her a Math notebook – the cover has cowboy and horse clipart (she is horse mad!) and and old western style font. I’ve uploaded some of her notebooking sheets here if you want to download them. (Just click on the image below.)

MathNotebooking

Math Notebooking

Some 'fun math' books we've used

I’ve used some fun Math books like the following:

• Arithmetricks: 50 Easy Ways to Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide Without a Calculator by Edward H. Julius
• Brown Paper School book: I Hate Mathematics! by Marilyn Burns
• Brown Paper School book: Math for Smarty Pants by Marilyn Burns
• Funny & Fabulous Fraction Stories (Grades 3-6) by Dan Greenberg and Jared Lee
• Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy
• Spaghetti And Meatballs For All! by Marilyn Burns
• Amanda Bean’s Amazing Dream by Marilyn Burns
• Family Math (Equals Series) by Jean Kerr Stenmark, Virginia Thompson & Ruth Cossey

Do any of you have Math phobic kids? If so, what have you done to help them along? What resources have you found useful?

Mars and I have been easing into notebooking, particularly for Science. She doesn’t really enjoy writing because she finds it exhausting (you would understand why if you could see the amount of Arabic homework she has to do on a daily basis!) and also for reasons I have stated earlier. Still, she has agreed to give it her best shot and upon seeing the notebooking sheets I’ve prepared, seems really excited as well, alhamdulillah. It helps that Science is her favourite subject – there are numerous topics we can delve into, not to mention the multiple ways in which we can process, collate and present the information.

Notebooking is a useful tool for teaching students how to organise their material and thinking. In addition, they will be able improve their reading and writing skills. As a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, I ask Mars to narrate back or retell what they have learnt. In this way, I can be sure that we have covered all the bases and that she fully comprehends the lesson. Notebooking is also a form of narration – I like that it gets her to write and saves me the trouble of recording her narrations :P I have prepared her some sheets but I hope that in time, in shaa Allah, she will use her talents and creativity to personalise her notebooks.

Here’s an Astronomy Notebook I am sharing with you. Nothing fancy – I’ve kept it really basic so it’s easily adaptable. Pages have not been numbered so you can print and arrange them as you see fit. The notebook includes pages for:

• the cover
• references on the universe from the Qur’an and Sunnah
• individual planets and other celestial objects
• new words (word bank)
• a discussion on astrology and Islam’s position
• illustrations and descriptions

Download by clicking on the image below.

Imaan.Net's Astronomy Notebook

Feedback will be greatly appreciated :)