InshaAllah I'll be filling you in on the material we covered in-class last week (as well as the weeks prior to it).
Islamic Studies: The seerah of the Prophet (saw) has been our main focus for the past 2 to 3 weeks. We began with the story of Abraha, famously known as Aamil-feel leading up to the Prophet (saw) birth, brief upbringing by his mother Amina and milk-mother Haleemah, the death of his (saw) mother (after which he becomes an orphan), then Abu-Muttalib's death to Abu Talib taking him (saw) under his protection, his (saw) position as a shepherd then as a merchant. We recently finished the part where Khadija (ra) marries Prophet (saw). InshaAllah this week we will read about how the Prophet (saw) begins to receive wahi (revelation) and encounters Waraqa bin Naufil, Khadija's (ra) wise, blind yet aged cousin.
Mathematics: For our new unit Addition & Subtraction, we started off with fact families. We reviewed what fact families are and how they contain 4 equations that consist of addition and subtraction combinations. For example: 1+2=3, 2+1=3, 3-1=2 and 3-2=1 make up for one fact family. Students created their own fact families as well. We followed up with doubles and doubles + 1. For example: 2+2=4 (double) & 2+3=5 (double+1). They worked on related activities including different board games to further their understanding. We had a mathematician visit us early this month for a math workshop as well. Students learned quite a bit with the hands-on activities she provided about estimation, time, place value, money and sorting/patterning. Finally, as of late we've been busy learning all about place value. Students are at the stage where they can explain that place value is the amount each digit represents in a number and they can also identify different place value digits using ten base blocks. We watched a few related videos, worked in pairs as well as independently.
Language: Students were introduced to media literacy early this month, an important skill where they learned to evaluate, analyze and create media messages. We talked about the various media outlets we are exposed to on a regular basis and determined the purpose of the media we hear, read and watch using author's purpose PIE (persuade, inform, entertain). While studying the purpose, students were reminded of the importance of using media in a safe and wise manner. They also created their own advertisement to persuade their audience to adopt healthier eating habits. Each student created a colorful poster of their favourite fruit or vegetable which had various nutritional facts in an attempt to convince their audience. After successfully completing their media literacy component, students wrote journal entries as well as persuasive pieces to practice the art of persuasion!
Spelling: We wrote the spelling review test on Friday (from lessons 13-18) and now we are on lesson 19 words with sh and th. The words for next week's spelling test (Thursday, March 2nd) are: shout, shut, crash, then, thin, math, think, together, nothing, anything.
Bonus! solids, liquids, gases, matter and continents
Science: Matter is everywhere! That's what we are studying in science these days. We talked about what matter is and why it matters (no pun intended). We discussed the different states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. Students watched videos related to the topic and worked independently on comprehension worksheets. During class discussions they were able to differentiate between a solid, a liquid and a gas by way of describing the movement of particles in each state and other properties such as shape, space, texture etc. They were also able to explain the changes in the different states of matter using temperature (heating and cooling). We've covered the theory aspect for the most part and hope to do a few experiments in class in the upcoming week inshaAllah.
Social Studies: We studied the 7 continents in the world. Students worked on individual maps to label and color in all continents. We then learned about the most important part of all maps: the compass rose. Students got familiar with the cardinal directions North, South, East and West and understood its importance: to communicate information on a map. I checked for comprehension by using the world map and local neighbourhood maps; their job was to locate different continents, parks, schools, other landmarks using the cardinal directions. As I anticipated, with practice they were able to use a compass rose to identify cardinal directions and locate them accurately. We will continue with more hands-on fun activities this week too inshaAllah.
A few important reminders:
Language: Students were introduced to media literacy early this month, an important skill where they learned to evaluate, analyze and create media messages. We talked about the various media outlets we are exposed to on a regular basis and determined the purpose of the media we hear, read and watch using author's purpose PIE (persuade, inform, entertain). While studying the purpose, students were reminded of the importance of using media in a safe and wise manner. They also created their own advertisement to persuade their audience to adopt healthier eating habits. Each student created a colorful poster of their favourite fruit or vegetable which had various nutritional facts in an attempt to convince their audience. After successfully completing their media literacy component, students wrote journal entries as well as persuasive pieces to practice the art of persuasion!
Spelling: We wrote the spelling review test on Friday (from lessons 13-18) and now we are on lesson 19 words with sh and th. The words for next week's spelling test (Thursday, March 2nd) are: shout, shut, crash, then, thin, math, think, together, nothing, anything.
Bonus! solids, liquids, gases, matter and continents
Science: Matter is everywhere! That's what we are studying in science these days. We talked about what matter is and why it matters (no pun intended). We discussed the different states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. Students watched videos related to the topic and worked independently on comprehension worksheets. During class discussions they were able to differentiate between a solid, a liquid and a gas by way of describing the movement of particles in each state and other properties such as shape, space, texture etc. They were also able to explain the changes in the different states of matter using temperature (heating and cooling). We've covered the theory aspect for the most part and hope to do a few experiments in class in the upcoming week inshaAllah.
Social Studies: We studied the 7 continents in the world. Students worked on individual maps to label and color in all continents. We then learned about the most important part of all maps: the compass rose. Students got familiar with the cardinal directions North, South, East and West and understood its importance: to communicate information on a map. I checked for comprehension by using the world map and local neighbourhood maps; their job was to locate different continents, parks, schools, other landmarks using the cardinal directions. As I anticipated, with practice they were able to use a compass rose to identify cardinal directions and locate them accurately. We will continue with more hands-on fun activities this week too inshaAllah.
A few important reminders:
- RazKids- Do remind your children to practice reading every day for 20 minutes.
- Library Books- Please remind your children to return any books soon to be due back to the library.
- There is an Islamic Studies test coming up and I will inform you all of the details beforehand.
- Homework packs are due on Thursday, March 2nd.
JazakAllah khayr.
