Friday 30 November 2012

I know, I know...

My posts are getting even fewer and further between [if that is possible] but life and no home education going on leaves me with little outside of the mundane to write about.  I may have to change the main topic of the blog to cover life as a parent in general or something similar.

Progress since the last blog...  a very lovely, caring and wonderful sister had, despite my attempt at feigning normality, noticed that I was still functioning at well below par even though I only had Scout at home and made it possible for him to attend an Islamic school too mashaAllah; may Allah ta'ala reward her with success in this life and the next, ameen.  And then my wonderful sister offered to help out financially on a monthy basis so that he could continue his studies at the school - subhanAllah, alhamdulillah, the power of Allah never ceases to amaze me; He can make anything possible.  This is extra fantastic because although Scout is very intelligent mashaAllah I knew he wouldn't cope with the teaching methods used in the school that the other children attend.  He is much more of a visual, spacial learner and needs the freedom to explore subjects in his own way and, alhamdulillah, the school he attends is based on the Montessori approach [which you may remember I did explore myself a while back] which suits him down to the ground and he is loving it.  A few of his friends are there too which also helps ;)

It's a long shot from Montessori's vision of a Farm School for Adolescents but he is given encouragement and space to manage his own learning outside of the classroom and they have independant learning time too.  Unusually for a small school they also have lab space and they seem to do quite a few experiments, which he really enjoys.  All students have access to online tutoring and lessons and a Wikipage dedicated to Biology lessons - they are sitting their Biology GCSE in May inshaAllah.  There have been a few issues but all in all I am really pleased with the way that he is developing, he has only been there for 2 weeks so he still needs to settle into the management of the learning he has to do at home but that will come inshaAllah.

So, what am I doing with all this free time?  Well, I don't get that much free time - about 3 hours a day - but I do get to the women only swim on a Wednesday, madressa and a weekly majlis alhamdulillah!  And you would be surprised how much that 3 hours can do for your health and state of mind mashaAllah.  The house is also a lot tidier mashaAllah and I may be able to get some extra space once I sort throught the home ed. resources I no longer need.  But mostly I'm concentrating on getting better and back to good health so that I can at least get my 3 little ones back to home educating inshaAllah.