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Curriculum...What We Do |
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For the preschoolers' curriculum...first, you must figure out what you want your child to learn and what your child is capable of performing. If you are cooperatively homeschooling, you need to make sure that all moms have the same expectations and all children are capable of participating and performing in the chosen curriculum. This is necessary so that the group is effective and happy. The currciulum and teaching styles must also be dynamic and adapt as the needs change or be modified to remain effective. After a Hello Song (or smilar gathering activity) children may also rotate between stations allowing even more individualized help. Wtiht eh curriculum below this isn't really useful in small groups but may be useful, and even necessary, in larger groups. The basic curriculum in our cooperative homeschool (preschool level) was based on a three day per week 3 hour each class day schedule and lasts a full school year with standard Islamic school holidays. Our goals, with the help of Allah, were to teach the children 5 to 10 surahs, the English alphabet and some phonetic sounds for the letters, teach the Arabic alphabet and some basic vocabulary, and teach miscellaneous themes, math (numbers 1-20, sorting, comparisons), etc. Below is a daily and annual schedule. We taught Islam as part of every lesson as much as we could. I have most of the year schedule on Word if you would like it.
Books used & other notes: 7. Jumpstart in Arabic is spendy but easy to use and my dd just loves it. |
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We homeschooled on our own for Kindergarten. Here's some of what we did...sorry there's not as much detail as preschool but it wasn't really necessary since I was the only teacher. English...we used The Writing Road to Reading by Romelda Spalding and did phonograms about 4 times a week. I did not teach exactly as Spalding puts it but I think the phonograms really helped to develop a good reading level. The WRTR is not very user friendly. Jay Patterson wrote a user manual for WRTR and his books are called Reading Works and Grammar Works. They are pretty spendy but do make it a bit easier. Spalding also offers classes to learn how to teach WRTR. We used the phonograms as our penmanship work, too, and did extra practice of writing letters as needed. In the beginning we used Zaner-Bloser handwriting but I think writing the phonograms would have been sufficient. With my son, insha Allah, we'll probably do D'Nealian handwriting with is somewhere between ball-stick manuscript and cursif. We also read the Eemaan series, Bob Books, MCP Phonics readers (I don't recommend these) and also got a subscription to Scholastic's Hello Reader club. Next time, I'd just buy the books at Scholastic's 50% fairs (they have them twice a year here in Phoenix and are wonderful for buying new books and gifts). Math...we used Saxon K and in the Spring we started Saxon 1. Saxon is wonderful for Kindergarten and really lays a solid foundation. Next time, insha Allah we'll spend less time on the Meeting Book since all that calendar work was fruitless. We did math about 4 times a week. Quran...we basically reviewed surahs at bedtime. Astaghfirullah, I must say that by bedtime we were all too tired. I've had a hard time finding motivation for Quran. Arabic...for several months we had a tutor. We stopped since my daughter was not happy and going to lessons and doing daily homework was a real battle every day. We used Jumpstart in Arabic for fun. We also have a program called Sindibad which is really wonderful. It has activities which progress from recognizing letters to building sentences. The digital audio quality is very good. We got it in Syria but I haven't seen it on the market here. We also like the Arabic song tapes available at NoorArt and Astrolabe (Hayya ila al arabi and more). Islam...I used the IQRA curriculum as a guide but I found that most the activites were geared toward classrooms and didn't really work for us. Next time, I'll use Yahya Emerick's Learning About Islam (as a guide only), Ghazi's stories of the Prophets, Let's Learn from the Holy Quran Activity Book. For Seerah, I used a set of books (someone is borrowing the set now) which is called Seerah and has 10 or 12 paperback books in the box. Each chapter is very short and manageable with paraphrasing for a 5 or 6 year old. My daughter didn't really like them but I think the info is really good, probably better for 2nd+ graders to either read on their own or have adult read to them. Science, Social Studies, History, etc....we belong to a weekly group study and do most of these topics in this group. For Kindergarten we started the 3 hour group with circle time, followed by a correlating project, then snack and then a large motor activity. The kids just love it and each mom brings in her own talent, ideas and style. |
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We are in our third year of homeschooling and are now (as of January 2002) in first grade, alhamdulillah. Here's what we've been doing. This year we are using The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer as a curriculum guide. It is a guide to classical education and is pretty western centric but it can be easily modified for anyone. I only use it as a guide but really don't follow it on a daily schedule basis (the daily schedule would be nightmarish, even Bauer admits that! I like to read the Charlotte Mason monthly newsletter which keeps me on track and not stressed. English...we're still using Reading Works (user friendly manual for The Writing Road to Reading by Romelda Spaling). We do spelling words daily. Handwriting is part of spelling. Most the time we spell in a composition notebook but when we need a change we do it in salt or on my Palm Visor. Sometimes we write letters...daughter dictates while I write and then she copies it. I've been thinking of starting some grammar and may pick up English for a Thoughtful Child. Math...we're doing Moving With Math now and are pretty happy but do have to modify some things. Saxon just got tedious and boring although I still think it's a good system with lots of repetition. Saxon is also easy prep whereas Moving With Math is more work for me. Science...we are following TWTM but have stopped doing the notebooking since daughter hated it. Now we just talk about it. We do a lot of this in our weekly group study. We did quite a bit of animal studies already and alhamdulillah the kids always want to learn about animals. Our local Game and Fish department has resource boxes on various topics that we checked out (Free!). Now, we're going to move on to learning about the human body and then on to plants. History...we stopped doing most of history (we're supposed to be learning about Ancient history 5000bc-400ad) but we still keep up with prophets and Islamic history. We do a lot of non-Islamic history in our weekly group study. The kids love it in the group but dread it at home. Although we recently read Trojan Horse by Little and Maryam loved it. She even asked to go back and finish His Majesty, Queen Hatshepsut which she bored of a few months ago and I didn't stop to discuss and explain often enough. Insha Allah this time we'll do a better job. Quran...we review surahs mostly while in the car. There's an online Quran reciter which we just started using. Masha Allah, it is wonderful. It's link is on the links page. We try to have Quran parties every once in a while to help give the kids encouragement to memorize. It's about time we plan one again! I'd love to hear how other parents teach Quran. Email me. Arabic...My dear husband has taken over lessons but I must admit this is probably our hardest subject. No one has enough patience or motivation and it's hard. Daughter now goes to a weekend Islamic school but we don't expect her to get any true Arabic learning out of it but it is good exposure to other Muslims and it also motivates us. We basically teach Arabic along the lines of the Total Physical Response and mix in a building amount of Arabic vocabulary into our daily lives. Masha Allah the improvement of comprehension and speaking has really shocked me this past week. There's a group at yahoo called KidsIslamicStories which has a very nice way of teaching Arabic vocab but the transliteration is pretty tedious for me. Islam...I've been using Yahya Emerick's What Islam is All About (too high for our level but good info and discussions...I'd love to see the next editionwith the Arabic text!), My Book of Islam (Maryam loves this...It's very first grade level and has pictures that she likes). Her weekend school uses The Path of Islam (book 3) from Interanational Islamic Educational Institute and so I supplement with other readings and discussions at home. Art...Last summer we started Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks. It's a wonderful program and easy to use for mom and child. I must say that I dropped this since we started a regular, academic curriculum although my daughter likes to pick up the books and draw out of them. There are also lots of really nice books about how to draw certain things. We have one on dinosaurs and have checked out ones on other things, too. Extracurricular Activities...The kids also participate in a weekly physical education class. It's a lot like school PE but is during the day and is made up of homeschoolers. The kids also take various art, gym and dance classes. We belong to a local homeschool group and go on fieldtrips and park days. The few Muslims who homeschool here also get together monthly. |
| Email: ummadam@cox.net |
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