2008年7月11日金曜日

Things we've been doing so far.

We've been using the Islamic curricurum(Ad-Duha Institute) for about 3 months now. My children are doing the ALP level together.

I think Ad-Duha is really a well-made curricurum. It covers Tawheed, Tafseel, Quranic Arabic, Ad'iyaa and so on in this level. I think the curricurm is really secure and reliable, they base the curricurum on the reliable sources like Tafseer Ibn Kathir, An-Nawawwi's 40 Ahadeeth, , Sahih Al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and Minhaaj Al-Muslim (Creed of the Muslim) and so on.

My two children who are 1 year and 4 mos apart in age, are using the same level together, but it's working well, alhamdulillah. The older one often learns and cathes up faster and she's teaching the younger one even when playing, that helps the younger one learn. So far they're enjoying the program. And it's useful for the English education, too.

We also try to recite the Quran together everyday. I made a small chart for them so that they can color in after they finish reciting, and I reward them with stickers every ten days. They love it.

We're working on Juz Amma now. We recite after the CD recitation. To my amazement, it really is working well, alhamdulillah. It made me realize again that THE CHILDREN DO LEARN FAST!! I knew that children catch up the language very fast, they acutually learned to speak their father's country's language so quick that I often used them as translaters for me. The same thing applies to the Quran recitation, too. They learn and memorize quicker than I do, and sometimes my older one corrects me when I recite. So now I really did realize how impirtant it is to start early! I also personally wish that I started in this age! ( I became a muslim when I was 21...)

2008年7月6日日曜日

The choice that I made...

Bismillah.

Currently, I'm homeschooling my two girls(4 and 5).

Children's Islamic education was always a big concern for me, as it is for most of the concerning muslim parents. Living in a non-muslim country like here, it often requires more efforts to bring up children Islamically. I was wondering what would be the best for my children... there acutually were many choices, and I did many Isthikharahs... Then here I am, came to the conclusion of homeschooling.

When I first found out about the homeschooling years ago, I really fell in love with that idea, learing with children! What a great idea! I never thought there was a choice like that. After that I'd been researching and collecting all kinds of information about homeschooling. Although I had a strong feeling this might be for us, however, I still had some doubts if I could really handle it or not. So there were times I thought of sending them to school, but after some consideration and Istikharahs, it seems like homeschooling is the best choice for us for now, inshaallah. May Allah help us on the way, ameen!