Sensory SENSEation

Our homeschool is a hands on homeschool. We love to explore the world using our senses. There is so much fun in making activities that can foster that. We find it very easy to include a sensory table in one place of our homeschooling area. The benefits of sensory fun are:

• Children can explore their world in a positive fun way
• Children get in tuned with their senses and learn with their senses
• It allows for imaginative play
• Get’s children involved
• It’s fun!
• Makes for memorable learning
• Promotes bonding
• Good way to incorporate life lessons, academics (science etc)
• Encourages dramatic play
• Promotes language skills
• A creative outlet

Some of our present and past sensory based ideas:

All through out the summer the boys wanted to go to the beach! So we brought the beach to them with shells and cornmeal for sand, we included glass beads so when they used their shovels. They would dig and find the buried treasure!

I must admit when my husband and I joined in, we enjoyed it as well, making our cornmeal castles and getting messy.

Sensory learning makes any homeschool, preschool, and school a much more memorable experience. After all children want to explore.

You can’t go to the beach and not get wet! We filled a baby tub with water, little fish, and this time blue glass beads for under water treasure.

Sensory is a great part of science, investigating the world around them using their sight, smell, touch, some cases taste and hearing. Allowing them to make their own conclusions through reasoning and thinking out the situation.

Spaghetti art. The children played with the cooked spaghetti it was warm then it became cold. They mixed food coloring in and made some spaghetti art.

We used common kitchen spices to explore the sense of smell. We had some spicy pictures!

Parent and teachers can encourage sensory play with very simple activities.

Have different bins or tables every month to promote different sensory ideas, this will encourage hands on play and exploration.

Different materials to use in your sensory bin:

1. Rice
2. Water
3. Sand/ Cornmeal
4. Soil
5. Cotton Balls
6. Slime/ Playdough
7. Noodles
8. Beans
9. Toys
10. Confetti
11. Shells
12. Oatmeal and so on…

Sensory time should be encouraged often and you can easily find ways to add through your lessons.

I wonder what we will put in our bin today!

Monday Mommy Moments: Pretend Play

My facebook status message said:

“I’ve been to the moon, slept in a cave, hid from the big bad wolf, was a robot that told jokes, flew my paper airplane to my island, ran from baby cheetahs, and was a super hero all in my living room. The joys of pretend play.” -Ameera Rahim

I’ve decided to write some memorable moments each Monday. Every day we play pretend in our home also known as open-ended. I’ve learned my children are good at telling stories about dragons and Muslim heros. There is so much benefit to pretend play. For us the pretend play has:

• Brought us closer
• Encouraged healthy play
• Use of the mind
• Helped us solve problems
• Learn about other places
• Learn about people

“The importance of Imaginative play in child’s development cannot be stressed enough. In our modern overly technological society a child’s imagination is often paralysed with fast-moving pictures of a television set or brightly colored 3-D worlds of computer games. Often, parents concentrate on getting their preschoolers school-ready by paying a lot of attention to learning the alphabet and numbers but forgetting how important it is to nurture their child’s imagination” http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/imaginative-play-benefits-of-pretend-play-for-childs-development-games-scenarious-ideas-317173.html

It inspires our children to be creative and use their imaginations. We encourage parents to promote pretend play in their home. It can be easy as setting up a center in the home dedicated to pretend play such as puppets, dress up clothes, and big boxes! Their world is full of different ideas and letting them have an outlet to use their imagination is beneficial to their development.

Not only providing a space for them but also joining them has so much rewards. I always get a good laugh after an hour or two of pretend play. It has brought my children closer to me because we have fun and join them in their world of astronauts, jungles, and sea creatures. MashaAllah as always we incorporate learning into our pretend play time. If we are on the moon for the day, we will mention what the moon looks like and it’s shape. If we are butterflies we are first caterpillars! even after we read a good book, we will act it out and live it in our living room!

What a wonderful world 🙂

What will you be today? Where will you go?

About: Habeebee Homeschooling

As salaamu alaykum and Peace

A little about us at Habeebee Homeschooling

Habeebee (Beloved) Homeschooling, consist of two parents Ameer Idris, and myself, Ameera Rahim. Habeebee is how we feel about our children and homeschooling, they are both beloved to us and so the term Habeebee Homeschooling applies in two ways.  

 

Alhamdulilah we officially starting sharing our journey publicly in 2010 but we have been homeschooling for 4 years mashaAllah

Our approach is hands on learning and early education. We love teaching our children in fun and exciting ways and learning through other various resources. We use great project ideas to make our homeschooling fun, informative, and memorable.

Ameera: A mom of four resides in NY she often contributes articles on Muslimas Oasis website and loves to write about homeschooling, being a mom, and parenting. She is originally a Maryland native but moved to the big apple once she married, and has been in NY for 5 years.  Ameera is an advocate of early literacy, early education, and being hands on in your child’s learning.

Ameer Idris: The team leader, supporter and homeschooling Abi, he has studied overseas with various scholars such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid, Imam Siraj, Shaykh Muhammad Yaqoobi and others. Born and raised in Brooklyn Ameer Idris has traveled and lived through out the world, having been to Morroco, Japan, Medinah and so on. He is an advocate of homeschooling and being part of it

You can always connect with us on twitter: @habeebeehs

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HabeebeeHomeschooling

Email: belovedhomeschooling@gmail.com

info@habeebeehomeschooling.com

In the near future we will be sharing a few of our products that we have been working on to help homeschooling families inshaAllah.

Warning: Message To Our Readers

As salaamu alaykum,

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, so maybe we should be flattered to find another blog using our name and work on blogspot. While we do appreciate everyone sharing our children’s work and our articles we would appreciate it as well that you link back to the original source of the work and also not use our photos without permission.  We put a lot of heart time and love into sharing our joys of homeschooling with you all.  

 

Habeebee Homeschooling is NOT affiliated with the following blog: http://habeebeehomeschooling.blogspot.com

WE DO NOT WORK WITH the owner of said blog nor do they have our permission to use the name and content from our blog here on wordpress. We are informing our readers that our blog is http://habeebeehomeschooling.WORDPRESS.com and not at blogspot.  The content they post on blogspot  is not in relation to us, unless they are using our content in which we will ask them to remove it due to copyright violation.  We used to be at blogspot months ago before we made the change to wordpress. This is our new home.

For a moment we were thinking of closing the blog and for a few days and we did. Several friends, bloggers, and followers of the blog emailed and gave encouraging words to open the blog again as many parents have benefited and look forward to the updates. We appreciate the feedback and we say to all of you thanks for supporting us, sharing with us, and growing with us.

Ramadan Blogs, Websites, & Freebies!

As salaamu alaykum, okay so we are in the process of unpacking in our new home. We just could not leave on a break without giving you guys some awesome sites to keep up with the Ramadan crafts!

We look forward to hearing about the lovely crafts you all made during Ramadan inshaAllah!

 

 

 

 

Ummi’s Circle : http://ummiscircle.blogspot.com/   This blog is hosted by my identical twin sister mashaAllah! I love watching the work my nieces do over there 🙂

Confessions Of A Muslims MOMmaholic- She has such great craft ideas! – http://confessionsofamuslimmommaholic.com/

I learn I read I write: http://ilearnireadiwrite.blogspot.com/   This blog is one of our favorites!!

http://tj-ramadan.tripod.com/ramadanlearning.htm

http://www.mini-mumin.com/RK.html Free Mini Ramadan Kit!

http://studioqscrap.com/2011/08/welcome-ramadhan-mini-kit-freebie/ This looks nice, have not tried it yet so it you have leave a comment!!

A few ideas we have not posted but are working on:

DIY Ramadan Coloring book- select pictures about Ramadan and put it together to make a coloring book

DIY Ramadan Storybook- Put together a story about Ramadan so the children can read it

Ramadan Word Search

DIY Ramadan Decoder

DIY Ramadan Cards for family and friends

DIY Eid Cards for family and friends or homemade pictures framed