My Baby Boy's reading

Today, a year after homeschooling, Umayr is finally reading.Alhamdulillah.
When we started, he scooted off at any effort to teach him the alphabets.
He didn't know a single one.In fact, he didn't even know his colours.

I remember getting him tested for learning disabilities and was told that he
showed symptoms of Asperger's.

We are praying now that it was just a phase as he is socialising, finding his
way around by himself and showing great dexterity in soccer unlike Asperger
kids who tend to shy away and have difficulties with balance.

At what I think were his first efforts at reading, he'd hide in a corner, fingers intensely pointing left to right at the words in the book, his
eyebrows stitched together but not a sound came out.

It must be pressurising to have a brother who read at 3 and is now reading junior classics.

Then, I'd by chance hear him reading to his sister, not all correct but it was like music to me.

Today, he read half his reader by himself in front of me and I'm really sure he's finally reading. It was part memory and part phonics as he tried to put together some words and remembered some.He also read some parts of a reader that we have never read.I hope I can remember this day always.

He's not reading Shakespeare yet, but I'm gonna take it with the flow, something
I have just started doing in the past few months, which maybe was what worked
with Umayr....

Hush Little Baby

Something to lullaby your babies to;
a modified classic by Zain Bikha

Hush little baby pure and small,

He created you, He created us all

Hush little baby, don't you feel,

we're never alone when Allah's so near

Hush little baby breathing so calm

He'll protect us all and keep us from harm

Hush little baby still and serene,

You are a Muslim, Islam's your deen

Darhad

I watched a programme on Discovery Channel last night about a tribe in Inner Mongolia called Darhad.They are the last nomadic tribe there as 'modernisation' has made their way of living cease to be a lifestyle choice.(?)

Anyway, I was waxing lyrical about how their life is not defined by the economic models that most of us live by today to my husband when it occured to me just how much capitalism has affected our way of life.

Whatever you do, you can't run away from rising oil prices, fluctuations in exchange rates and inflation just for starters.We go to university taking courses to become the wheels of our economy.We work from day to night to see most of the income we earn go into paying for mortgages, car loans, food from around the world cause we don't produce our own, heck we don't even know some of the things that go into our food anymore....

Anyway, what touched me most was; towards the end of the show, the host asked one of the members of the family he has been staying with 'What gives you happiness?'.He replied,'It is very simple, it is the work that I do and the peace in my mind.'

My Off Day

Today was supposed to be our day off from school as we had a long day yesterday. The boys had a taste of their first soccer tournament and it lasted half the day.Not forgetting, the manager of the club, mishandled the logistics such that my boys woke up at 6.30 in the morning to be there at 7.00 only to wait for more than an hour for the bus to come at 8.30 when we were supposed to be in Hougang where the tournament was to take place.

The boys enjoyed themselves although they had to play with the kids from Keat Hong as they were the only two in their age group and they too had only three:)

At some point, my husband had to resort to bribing Umayr to play.So between games, we went to Heartland Mall to buy toys, of course Ihsan joined in too and my husband couldn't resist buying something for his princess.


Back to our 'holiday' today, princess was as usual asking to be read to, especially her trilingual book "Who's Who". Towards the end of the day, she even 'worked'.....It's such a tranquil sight....Anyway, I wasn't able to do as much as I planned to today; got some objects for the pink object boxes, did housework backed up over the weekends ( which took up most of the day), did my budget for the next school year and gosh! I didn't do any lesson planning at all!