A Short Break

The past two weeks had been a vacation of sorts; we went for a three day break to Malaysia and today was the Vesak Day public holiday. These put me in a holiday mood, there are days when I forget that Ihsan is taking the PSLE this year.

We did do school before the Malaysia trip and Vesak however, albeit more just going with the usual rhythm of the day; workbook work, Quran, reading, narration, quizzes. I did continue with some activities on the insect and I have started a few lessons on polygons.

One point of note is a lesson that I plan to integrate polygons with insects- the bee hive. I find the topic of polygon is one that can encompass many grades-

i. the toddler can fit shapes to frames of polygons found in the metal insets set.
ii. the lower primary child can learn the nomenclature of polygons.
iii. the middle school child can learn tessellations with polygons and basic geometry.
iv. the upper primary/ lower secondary child can learn more advanced geometry and workings of polygons.

Across topics;

i. of course there's the hexagonal bee hive and bees.
ii. Islamic art and architecture.
iii. polygons in nature.
iv. chemical structures

Here are some websites that has been useful with my insects and polygons ventures of late:

http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/polygons.html

http://corpus.quran.com/concept.jsp?id=mosquito

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/search/index.shtml?scope=gcsebitesize_include&q=polygons

Oh, what a challenge it is to start rolling again when you have had a great vacation. We shall persevere insyaa Allah.

One interesting possible theme-route that we might be taking in the near future is that of heredity and genetics. This all came about with Umayr wondering why one of our local soccer players is much taller than his counterparts. He of course conferred with his sage- his brother, Ihsan- who matter-of-factly started talking about genes and stuff to his blurry-eyed brother.

To help him, plus I was not really prepared, I did the short-cut of going to a website:

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/human-body/heredity.htm

Well that's all for now as I enjoy the peace and quiet of the rest of this public holiday with the rest of the family members fast asleep.