How to tell the parts of the world in forest

As we walked through the forest to our favourite spring for collecting some fresh drinking water, Mamma called us to the one of the trees, saying that she wanted to tell us something. She asked us to look closely at the bark of the tree all around, if we could notice anything. Upon examining the tree, we saw that one side of it is covered by moss. Mom then told us that all the trees grow moss on the northern side of their trunk to protect themselves from the cooler northern winds. Thus, the side with the moss on is facing the North - and from there, you can easily figure out the rest of the sides of the world - South, East and West.

It is helpful to know this quality of trees in case you get lost in woods, so you don't end up going in circles, while figuring your way out. It is also helpful for determining the direction of prayer. For example, if we know that in Latvia the direction of prayer is nearly Southwards (a little towards East), looking at moss on a tree can help us determine the approximate Qibla.

Hafsa's science project on HibaKidz site

Hafsa's science project (of growing her own salt crystals) got published on HibaKidz website! Check it out: http://hibamagazine.com/hibakidz/science-success-how-to-grow-your-own-salt-crystals/

Karachi spring

One lazy afternoon, Uzair was complaining of nothing to do. So Mom decided to send him on a secret mission. She gave him a camera and told to go outside in our lane to take photos of all the spring flowers he manages to find. Here you can see what he came up with.

The solar system model

We really enjoyed reading "Space Explorers" book from "The Magic School Bus" series and learned a lot about the planets of the solar system. We made a project of our own solar system, as close in size and color to the actual planets as we could. This one in made by Hafsa.

The project: recyclable A4 paper mashed into balls and painted by water colours, cover of a pizza box.

Our reptiles project

We finished reading the chapter on reptiles in our Animal World encyclopedia and made our final projects. Each of us chose one reptile that we liked. Mamma made the picture of it with pencil, then we outlined it and coloured it to look as close to life as we could. Uzair himself wrote facts about his reptile (the ringed snake), while Hafsa got some help in writing about her reptile (iguana) from Mamma. Mamma also made a separate page with main facts about reptiles in general and the places, where reptiles are mentioned in the Quran. Uzair was really excited to learn about the snake-charmers of Pakistan, so after reading about them, he made a picture of a snake-charmer, showing how he plays for the snakes and snakes come up from their basket. We did also an arts and crafts activity - mamma made the shape of a lizard on a page and we glued into it red and yellow daals as scales of the lizard.

Our birds project

Today we finished reading the chapter on birds from our Animal World encyclopedia and made our final projects. Each of us chose our favourite bird. Mamma made a picture of them with pencil, we outlined them, coloured them and wrote some facts about them. Mamma made one more page with general facts about birds and wrote, where the birds are mentioned in the Quran.

Different types of hair

Today in our Usborne encyclopedia, we read with our mom about our hair and nails. For understanding better, why different people have different types of hair (straight, wavy, curly), we made clay models of all three types of hair. It turns out that straight-hair-people have round shaped hairs, wavy-hair-people have oval shaped hairs, while curly-hair-people have flat hair! Check out our work in the pictures below.

As we learned about our nails, we realized that the nails grow from the roots, just like our hair. We could very well see this by looking at Hafsa's nails, which had some mehendi on them. Mom had coloured her nails with mehendi on the Eid and by now all the colour had almost grown out of her nails, as the new nails kept on coming up from the roots.