First Week at Hayati

It's been a lovely first week at Hayati Homeschool and not chaotic at all as I thought it might be - what with new faces, new routines and unexpected issues inevitably cropping up. Must be all that organizing we got done before we started! As I always say about pretty much any situation - you can never be too organized!

This month our learning themes in all languages are colours, numbers (0-5) and the caterpillar into butterfly story. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our core book of the month - we read it everyday and we have it in English and Arabic. It's a great story both in the way it depicts the magical process of how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly introducing themes of growth, development and change - but also a great resource for introducing counting, food vocabulary and colours. 

We made butterfly art to hang on the tree

We made our own caterpillars from cotton wool which dried hard after painting. We went stick hunting in the garden and painted them red for the antennae and of course wiggly eyes - what art project is not transformed by sticking on wiggly eyes? The day I found these in a store in Marrakech was a serious art & craft coup I can tell you.

Friday is Arabic day and we set up the book display with Arabic only books. This is the first time the children have heard Modern Standard Arabic, which is very different to Moroccan Arabic known as Derija, which all the children hear at home. Derija is a spoken language and so all texts are written in MSA. We started with books they were already familiar with in English and while they often got up to play with other toys or flip through different books (which we never discourage), our Arabic teacher continued reading and over time the children will get more used to hearing and crucially understanding MSA.

Free painting with sponges and rollers and introducing their names in Arabic

Oh and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing. Children and music are a match made in heaven - music is always my go to activity when I feel things are flagging a bit and they (and me!) need a pick me up. We had a very up tempo rai music session complete with bellydance outfits, tambourines and bells. Needless to say it was probably our favourite activity of the day and what better way to accustom their ears to Arabic than hearing it sung along to rhythmically pounding drums.

In between art activities, story time and imaginative play the children get physical, engaging the world with their bodies crawling through tunnels, going up and down the ladder to the tree house and zooming down the slide

The water and sand table are lots of fun to experiment with (this is a photo taken before anyone has actually played with it) usually by the end of the day the water has turned to a muddy brown sludge, as of course the favourite activity here is to add spadefuls of sand to the water...

And so our first week at Hayati is over and as our family Sunday winds down (Daddy making supper, daughter watching Happy Feet after a long post-rain walk jumping into puddles) I'm working on next week's menu. Pomegranate season has just begun and it makes such a great healthy snack and beautiful garnish for pretty much any dish... I'm thinking sweet melon & pomegranate jellies; vegetable, chick pea & pomegranate tagine; rosewater and almond biscuits decorated with pomegranate seeds; but best of all a bowlful of pomegranate seeds and a spoon!

Pomegranates at Hayati look just about ready