what does mommy do

So, its been about 4 years since I've been officially enrolled in public health school, and now that my kids are in school, I have come across several circumstances where I've had to define my profession. I went to the Academy to talk about hygiene, but when I got there, Ibraheem's teacher had laid out stethoscopes and food pyramid projects and had told the kids I would give instructions on both of those things. All 5 of the worksheets I brought about covering your cough, washing hands, etc was not really useful. Lucky for me, I could try again at the community center, where I had more fun and got a chance to talk to all 15 of the kids at one time. I introduced myself as someone who educates people about health and clean hands - yes i am the clean hands lady!!! I asked some questions to the kids about how they get germs. This is what they said:

• when someone farts in your face
• if you touch someones wart it gives you germs
• picking your nose
• playing with dirt
• playing with my guinea pig

So ok good - they got the idea of where germs come from. A teacher noted to me to stress the importance of bathing - guess there are some issues in that department...

The best is when I walk into the house today and find Ibraheem washing his hands. I immediately am alarmed and ask, what happened?

He says, oh nothing, I just wanted to wash the coming-home germs off my hands before I went to the bathroom....

gotta love it...!

school daze

Went to Ibraheem's class to talk about hygiene, cleanliness, overall best practices for good health this flu season.

Went to Imraan's class to read a story. (The old lady who was not afraid of anything) Imraan sat between two girls - maya and ariana (who he always talks about!) they are twins who only speak in spanish. one of them had her arm around imraan, then later imraan showed her his leg or sock or something.

homeschool update

So its mid-october and here's where we are at with homeschooling:

• Ibraheem is confidently reading level one books. earned his first prize today for finishing (ok, 2 stickers away) his first reading chart! he is reading words everywhere all the time. it is really a phenomenal experience to watch. We turn anything into a spelling game. Some things that have helped solidfy reading words: Boggle Jr. (rec'd as birthday gift!!) - which is also great for Imraan to learn to match letters, so double bonus. Writing cards to people, writing mini-stories next to his artwork. Writing and drawing emotions (thanks nani!). Also good is that word chart, with word families.
• Math-wise: we play bingo almost daily. Both of them love it and it really works on number recognition. we have a number chart (1-100) which we also use when we play school (or when they play school). Ibraheem will call out a number and ask Imraan to correctly say it, which always results in a sticker for his chart. We really love reward stickers and sticker charts for everything!
• When i started all of this home stuff, I didn't have much for Imraan to do. I kept him busy with using foam stickers on construction paper to make collages/pictures. I picked up the library copy of Your Three-Year Old: Friend or Enemy (series recommend by A.S, thanks!) and realized I should be encouraging him to scribble! So thats what we did. I asked him to pick up a marker/crayon and start drawing whatever shape I called out. Amazingly, within a few days, he was drawing people! Just last week he drew something - which I have yet photograph- it was a boy, 'with two arms, two hands, two yegs (still says y for l), two feet. and now he's in the fire'. I laughed about the fire thing b/c i was reminded about how much children btw ages 3-5 are obsessed with fire! So now he too can join in with the coloring projects.
  
• We are also doing some projects at home which kids are doing on Ibraheem's off days, such as the 'hand bat'. http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mhandprintbat.htm Hopefully it will keep ibraheem connected with school as much as possible. Although we are all loving the idea of having tuesday and thursdays completely free!!!

more later!

eid party

For the little muslims at play eid party, i gathered several coloring sheets from the following sites.
hopefully the links will not disappear on me!

http://www.islamicplayground.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=57
http://www.playandlearn.org/articles.asp?Type=Coloring&prt=none
http://tj-ramadan.tripod.com/ActivitiesForYoungerKids.htm (loved the maze one to masjid from home)

Homeschool stuff

I started schooling the kids at home on tuesdays and thursdays, and we fill our days with lots of crafts, worksheets, reading, and arabic/islam.

One of the things we did recently was with egg cartons. After they went to bed one night, I separated an egg carton (although I used a paper carton, I think the styrofoam would have worked better) into individual pieces. See the website below for the lady bug example. I had it ready for them when they woke up and they were so excited to make their own. I have an art box stocked with googly eyes, foam stickers, felt, and a bunch of other things to make great projects. Ibu made a ghost with his. I also showed them a craft in symmetry..instead of traditional snowflakes, we did butterflies, and little bears.

We are also doing a lot of crossword puzzles. Omar has a website where he makes them and so far its been a real fun activity. Ima's getting familiar with drawing and I'm having him work on drawing faces, and I cut out shapes and have him create people or houses. Ibu's also been handy with the stapler (learned how to use it at the Academy) and goes stapler happy with some of his construction paper.

We are also keeping up with math and writing....and on that note, need to update my posters!

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/Eggcarton.shtml