Apple Picking, and Shenandoah Fall Field Trips.

Back in the early parts of October we took the Professors on two Fall field trips, one to the Shenandoah Mountains, the second Apple picking. They were supposed to be a combined trip, but due to weather, and our enrichment class schedules, we had to break it up into two. I'm happy we got to Shenandoah this year, after running out of time last Fall, so I won't complain.

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Shenandoah Mountains

DH and I printed out a few places we wanted to visit on our trip to Shenandoah, which included a few short hikes, one to a waterfall, and one to a meadow, and stops at the overlooks. The weather changed in a hurry shortly after we arrived and not only was it rainy, it was colder than we anticipated, so we did a few short stops at the overlooks, and the older Professors and DH went on a very, very short hike at one of the overlook stops, but we mainly took pictures from the car. There wasn't too much Fall color out yet, but still just as beautiful, Masha' Allah. 

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Apple Picking

The Orchard we chose to pick apples at this year, sits near the foot of  the Shenandoah Mountains, and was the main reason we decided to pick there. It was a bit more rustic than the farm we normally pick produce from, so the Professors, were thrown off. We picked late in the season, and late in the day, so there weren't many apples low in the trees, and we used a picking pole to reach most of our apples, but did find a patch of trees with a good selection, low enough for the older Professors to reach.  Alhumdullilah, it was a great trip, and now we are planning on eating, and making apple sauce, apple puree and possibly applesauce cake with our apples, insha' Allah. 

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Reggio Inspired Moveable Alphabet aka Fridge Magnets.

Masha' Allah, when the twins were small they were gifted a set of large sized alphabet, and number fridge magnets. Over the years, and through one move, we lost just about all of them. For awhile no seemed bothered by this, but recently I discovered Professor #1 trying to spell out words with the few remaining letters and numbers we had left, and thought, we need to fix this. The one store I knew sold the large size letters closed down awhile ago, so I hit the internet and found them at Lake Shore, they even sell a larger Jumbo size. Our set contains all the letters of the alphabet, plus a handful of extra letters.

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We decided to purchase only the letters this time around, no numbers, and instead of keeping them on the fridge, we moved them into the playroom, repurposing a magnetic dry erase board.

It took a little rearranging, we have very limited wall space in the playroom, but I was able to clear out this nook for magnetic letter play. 

You can see here its within BP's  reach but he does use a stool to reach the higher letters he can't pull down to his level. 

Alhumdullilah, its worked out well and is a great edition to the playroom that everyone has enjoyed using. Masha' Allah. 

Introducing Math with Unifix Cubes.

Math is a subject the Professors have not tackled formally until today. Like everything else, I figured we'd take a strictly Montessori approach to it and use the red and blue number rods, bead chains, and binomial cubes, amongst other manipulatives.  A little while ago I came across this post on Pintrest:

http://www.homegrownlearners.com/home/2010/8/28/making-math-fun-unifix-cubes.html

 and thought YES! THIS is how we are going to introduce Math! Its the perfect mix of Montessori concepts and Reggio creativity, Masha' Allah, and it's also an activity I can do with Professor #3, who didn't join us today,  along side working with the twins.

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Getting Started

Each of the three older Professors has their own box of Unifix Cubes, and accompanying activity booklet. They are responsible for keeping it orderly.

The activity booklet came with the Unifix Cubes and covers basic mathmatical concepts, starting with patterning, and ending with division. 

I purchased this separately for Professor #3 to work with. 

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The Lesson. 

Masha' Allah, Professor #1 got a little overwhelmed with some of the larger problems, and really, just didn't want to do the work. We took a more focused approach to building the problems, and got a much better result, allowing him to understand the concept of the work more clearly, Alhumdullilah.

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After he completed his problems, Professor #2 asked if he could build with his cubes.

'Tower'

'Color Maze'

Unifix Cubes 'in traffic' as 'buildings'

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Masha Allah, it was a good introductory lesson. Insha' Allah we will work with this a few times a week. 

Qur'an Reading.

Masha' Allah, the twins have graduated from their first Qur'an reading book. We have now moved onto what is called in Arabic the Noorani Qa'ida.  Masha' Allah, the book coincides with our Quranic Studies curriculum, which is from a very resected private Islamic School in our area.

The book is color coded which has helped tremendously to keep teaching/learning simple and more focused.

The book starts with the Arabic alphabet, and ends with short sections of the Qur'an. 

The book can be found at: http://www.islamicbookstore.com/

Library Book

One of the things we have been studying is the change of the season from Summer to Fall. I wanted to share this Library book because it captured everything I wanted to get across to the Professors in a simple, relatable way, for all of them,  Masha' Allah.