A Turtle

Assalm alykom:




Before I left Florida, my family and I went on a small camping outing. A friend of ours owns a large piece of land with a nice lake on it. My husband and this friend have taken the kids before. They camp there, hunt and fish during the day. This is the first time that the wives went with. The first day we arrived it was a nice day. We set up our camp right by the lake. You can see how beautiful it is in the picture. As we were setting up the tent, I saw this turtle from far away walking from the woods to the lake. He was moving pretty slow, and I cannot run so fast. However, he was slower because I caught him before he reached the lake. He was really heavy to carry back to the tent area. My kids were so thrilled with him. Everyone wanted to pick him up and touch him. We eventually let him continue his decent into the lake.
















After our adventure with the turtle, the kids went to gather sticks and wood to prepare a fire to cook with. As they were bringing the sticks, little scorpions started to scamper on the ground. They were inside the wood pieces they brought. They were like a transparent brown. This was the first time I had seen a scorpion that was not in a zoo,book or on Animal Planet. They were really neat. The kids were pushing them around with sticks. Well, the outing was alot of fun. It rained all night. It actually stormed. We survived and left in the morning due to the rain. The kids were disappointed because they wanted to hunt a deer in the early morning. We returned in the afternoon after the rain. We fished a little and caught nothing. The kids did target practice with the bee bee guns. Overall it was a great time!

Finger knitting

Assalm alykom:

I had my daughters who are ages 5 and 9 try this finger knitting. I tried it too and found it quite easy. Here is a tutorial on how to do it. It was a little difficult for my 5 year old daughter, but she was able to make a small bracelet. My 9 year old daughter became really good at it once she made few scarves. The first scarf in the picture is her first try. The next two are much better. The orange one is mine. I made a few of them and braided them. The one on her bear was made with a real chinky yarn, and she made it real long. You should try them with your kids, it is great for their eye hand coordination!

Quotations

Asalm alykom:

Here is an Islam related writing asignment for higher grades. My son is in 6th grade and he was able to do it. Quotations can sometimes be difficult. Once the student learns the basic rules, he or she just needs practice writing with quotations to get better. I had my son take a situation or story from hadith or Quran that involves a conversation. Some examples would be the conversation of the prophet Sulayman and the hud-hud bird, prophet Ibraheem and his son, or Prophet Dawood and Goliath. We used these situations because at the time we were studying the history of Mesopotomia and the history involves the Biblical prophets and their stories.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Assalm Alykom:

The move to Oklahoma has given my family the blessing of seeing snow. what a beautiful site from Allah the snow is. Twenty years ago I left rural Indiana and have not been able to enjoy the beauty of falling snow. Last week, I was able to enjoy it once again. Florida is hot and green year round and this scene does not fall there. My children have never seen snow, and it was so thrilling for them. We are really enjoying the colder weather. You feel a sense of energy with it. I just hope we get a little more snow before the spring!

Rock Turtles

Assalm alykom:

While studying reptiles with my 5 year old daughter, We made these rock turtles. Here is how we did it:

Materials:

• Small round smooth rocks
• Card stock paper
• Acrylic paint
• Markers
• Clear nail polish
• Glue

Directions:

• Clean the rocks and paint the top side and let dry
• Once it is dry paint the bottom side of the rock
• Once it is dry go back to the top and paint a design for the shell
• Cut out the shape of the head and feet and color with markers
• once the paint is dry apply to the rock clear nail polish to seal the paint.
• Once the nail polish dries glue the feet and the head on the underside of the turtle.

Moving

Assalm alykom:

I have done a great deal of moving over the last twenty years. I feel like I am kind of an expert at it. I have moved on a small scale from apartment to apartment. I have moved on a large scale where I needed a moving company to move a whole house full of furniture. I have moved overseas and was down to two suitcases per person. This last move was across the states. This is quite a distance and would be costly to move everything. We sold all of our furniture and was just down to books, clothes, toys, kitchen items and a few miscellaneous sentimental stuff. If you have to do this kind of move here is some companies and places that I advise to make it easier. We used a moving company called U-pak. You pack the truck and they drive it to your destination. This way was better than U-haul. First, we did not have to drive a truck 1200 miles and it was less expensive. The company was very polite and came through with all of their promises. For selling all of my furniture, and for buying it all over again, we used free-cycle and Craigslist. We sold all of our funiture in Florida through Craigslist, and what we could not sell, I gave away in free-cycle. Now, we are in Oklahoma, and we are buying through the same way we sold it. My last bit of advice for those who have to move, do not keep too much stuff, "Less is better!"