Year Round Up

It has been a busy year! We had a new addition to our family which is why this blog has been so quiet. She conveniently joined us in the Spring Holiday a few days before the new term began.

We had a wonderful cover teacher for the English days and the children benefitted from interacting with a new person with new creative ideas! The next few months the children were introduced to both the English and Arabic alphabets, did lots of name art to familiarise them with the letters of their names, made family trees, experimented growing plants from seeds, learned about the life cycle of frogs, practiced making their own art based on Jackson Pollock's work and Matisse and continued number work - treasure hunts were very effective and fun building their confidence with counting and helping with the concept of addition. As part of learning about plants and growing the children also helped to pick the apricots and peaches which were later turned into delicious peach and apricot jams and pies... Enjoy our photos!

The children also collected tadpoles from a pond and watched them change into frogs observing the different stages of development. 

More photos to come as we prepare for the new 2015/2016 year!

Autumn Term Round Up

Happy 2015! School has started again after the holidays and thought I would share some of our art creations we made last term:

We have embraced strawberry and banana season:

And took part in the olive harvest in October:

New adventures begin this month! Our learning topics are the body, introducing alphabet sounds and comparisons & opposites. 

What we've been up to

Every morning we get creative with play dough. It's our favourite warm up activity, the kids gets so excited when they see the play dough pots out and dive right into making cakes, bird's nests, moustaches, snails and anything else they fancy. It's a great way to practice those developing fine motor skills and for the kids to get used to the group dynamic again and melt away any early morning shyness.

Beautiful 'cakes' ready to go in the play oven

Around 10am we usually do some 'real' cooking. The promise of making dough, stirring cake mixture or breaking eggs pulls them away from the play dough table as they become fascinated with measuring out our ingredients of the day. The children always make something everyday which is part of their school menu. 

Enjoying their pizza - they measured out the flour, water, salt and olive oil for the dough. They watched the dough rise and then rolled it out themselves and then spread on the homemade tomato sauce and cheese and then they watched the pizzas go in the oven.

Raspberry and pomegranate fool - the kids mixed the yoghurt and cream together with a beater and then layered the  cream, raspberry mixture and pomegranate seeds to create these beautiful deserts they had for their afternoon snack. Although my daughter preferred to mix hers altogether and was excited to see the vibrant pink colour that was the result.

After lunch we have story time followed by quiet time. The children can have a nap on one of the mattresses or play, read or colour quietly. I find this time really restorative for all of us as they become focused on having some individual time (as opposed to the high octane fun of playing in the playground or singing and dancing as a group) and getting some rest. After quiet time everyone is ready to focus on doing something creative and colourful.

Following on with our caterpillar to butterfly theme we made butterflies decorated with crepe paper that could be carried around on sticks. Earlier in the week we made cocoons from papier-mâché, decorated with sequins of course!

It was Eid in Morocco last week so the kids made cards celebrating this big national holiday to give to their families. Inside the Arabic teacher had written 'Eid Mubarak'.

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

Let the learning adventures begin

We are officially open for the first day of Hayati Homeschool tomorrow! The excitement is building as everything has been dusted, cleaned and put in place. Books that were sheltered in a cool room to avoid the 50C Moroccan Summer heat melting the glue in their spines and causing all the pages to fall out are back on display waiting for little hands to turn their pages, listen to their stories and wonder at their pictures. The crayons, having spent their Summer in the fridge, are back on the shelf ready to turn blank pages into colourful works of art. The old play dough has been thrown out and my daughter and I turned our kitchen into a play dough factory using natural ingredients for colouring such as turmeric and beetroot.

Much to my daughter's delight we have also added a trampoline next to the tent - another way to help develop those gross motor skills!

Now it is time to hurry back to the kitchen to finish off our chocolate beetroot brownies for tomorrow's afternoon snack and let my toddler taste test the fresh tomato and date sauce we made for tomorrow's spaghetti lunch. After all some of the best (and most tasty) lessons are learned in the kitchen!

Summer Camp Week 3

Here is the schedule for the final week. We may continue through to the end of the week but it depends on numbers so for now I will post up just Monday and Tuesday.

Monday: Let's Get Creative

11.00 - 11.30 - Puzzles, activity sheets, play dough

11.30 - 12.00 - Snack: Banana milkshake with veggie/fruit faces

12.00 - 12.30 - Pizza Making

12.30 - 13.00 - Peacock collage

13.00 - 13.30 - Lunch: Our Pizzas!

13.30 - 14.30 -  Hand & feet painting

14.30 - 15.30 - Necklace & bracelet making

15.30 - 16.00 - Snack: Chocolate flapjacks with orange & strawberry juice

16.00 - 17.00 - Face painting & story time

Tuesday: Nature Discoverers

11.00 - 11.30 - Activity sheets, puzzles & card games

11.30 - 12.00 - Snack: Carrot sticks with guacamole

12.00 - 12.30 - Weather pictures: painting and collage

12.30 - 13.00 - Songs & dancing

13.00 - 13.30 - Lunch: Spaghetti with tomato sauce with parmesan cheese

13.30 - 14.30 - Making buzzing bees

14.30 - 15.30 - Taking care of animals

15.30 - 16.00 - Snack: Make your own banana split!

16.00 - 17.00 -  Face paint & story time

Children can pick and choose from these activities and are free to get in and out of the pool as they wish (to keep cool!), there is always adult supervision.

Please make sure your child brings a hat, a swimsuit & towel, suncream and a change of clothes.

For any more info please contact me at claralouisa@hotmail.com or 0661918772

Summer Camp Week 2

What a wonderful week this has been. The garden has been full of laughter and excited shouting with occasional bouts of quiet time as the kids focus on an art project or an activity sheet or on getting play dough into almost every corner of the tent!

Here is the new schedule for this week. Please note there will be no Summer Camp on Thursday and Friday (10 & 11 July) this week.

Monday: Under the Sea

11.00 - 11.30 - Puzzles, activity sheets, play dough

11.30 - 12.00 - Snack: Cucumber boats with cream cheese and apple juice

12.00 - 12.30 - Making a whale/mermaid/octopus with paint & buttons

12.30 - 13.00 - Game: What's the time Mr Shark?

13.00 - 13.30 - Lunch: Roast chicken & chips with homemade tomato sauce

13.30 - 14.30 -  Activity sheets, drawing with 'under the sea' stickers & sponge paints

14.30 - 15.30 - Decorating fish-shaped cakes/ croquet match

15.30 - 16.00 - Snack: Our 'fish cakes' with orange & banana juice

16.00 - 17.00 - Face painting & story time

Tuesday: Circus Fun & Pizza Day!

11.00 - 11.30 - Activity sheets, puzzles & card games

11.30 - 12.00 - Snack: Fruit & veggie faces with orange & strawberry juice

12.00 - 12.30 - Pizza making

12.30 - 13.00 - Water balloon juggling/ Gymnastics with music

13.00 - 13.30 - Lunch: Our pizzas

13.30 - 14.30 - Giant elephant collage

14.30 - 15.30 - Circus obstacle course/ garden bowling

15.30 - 16.00 - Snack: Make your own banana split!

16.00 - 17.00 - Clown face paint & story time

Wednesday: Let's Pretend

11.00 - 11.30 - Mask making, activity sheets & card games

11.30 - 12.00 - Snack: Flapjacks with banana milkshake

12.00 - 12.30 - Menu collage, let's pretend shop & restaurant

12.30 - 13.00 - Deep sea diving: Treasure hunt in the pool

13.00 - 13.30 - Lunch: Potato tortillas with cucumber sticks

13.30 - 14.30 - Talent show / Make finger puppets

14.30 - 15.30 - Ball games / doll house & farm play

15.30 - 16.00 - Snack: Orange & raspberry ice-lollies

16.00 - 17.00 - Puppet show & story time

Children can pick and choose from these activities and are free to get in and out of the pool as they wish (to keep cool!), there is always adult supervision.

Please make sure your child brings a hat, a swimsuit & towel, suncream and a change of clothes.

For any more info please contact me at claralouisa@hotmail.com or 0661918772