We learned all the sounds of the Alphabet, we learned to write them and read them and say them upside-down, sideways and inside-out . We really immersed ourselves in the letter of the week by eating foods that started with that letter, went on letter hunts around the classroom and at home, made them with play dough and traced them in our rice pan and on our touch screen laptop.  So we decided to celebrate our big accomplishment by having an Alphabet party! Each student brought something from home in a zip lock back that started with the letters they were responsible for. Then at school we match the letters with their sounds and objects. We also made crowns with our favorite alphabet letter and of course we ate alphabet cereal.  Check out the pictures below to see what we did!

April was all about Patterns. We are all patterned out! We made patterns with noodles, cereal, blocks, shapes and colors! Our favorite thing to do was go on a nature walk and look for patterns in nature. Learning about patterns is not only fun but very important in developing important skills such as prediction, repetition, and recognition.  It also helps children use their decoding skills to decide what comes next.  The students were so creative when making their bean, corn and noodle pattern plates. Below you can see the thought they put into each circle they made.   

Our little fishes have been busy learning all of the letters of the alphabet. To help strengthen their recognition we have been using our fingers to try and re-create the letters. Last week we talked about X is for X-ray and using our fingers to make x's. Our fish are busy are work mastering their skills at this level and we are excited spring is now here so we can explore our skills outdoors!

Our Monday Mornings are full of conversations about what we missed in each other's lives over the weekend. It is the chattiest time of the week.  The students love to share and express themselves in a very animated way.  We channel this energy into our Monday Morning journal writing. I give students a topic to write about such as their favorite food, a place they like to visit, an important person in their life or they can choose their own topic.  Afterwards, we share our journal and pictures with our friends! 

Mrs. Entesar is our beloved Quran and Arabic teacher. She captivates the students interest through her interactive and hands on teaching approach.  She gets the kids involved every step of the way. We practice our Surahs several times through out the day. Our youngest student of 21 months is already able to recite many Surahs with his peers MashAllah! He is eager to learn.  Check out some of our Facebook videos to see how she teaches with actions and meaning.  

The Arabic lessons are focused on a letter of the week. Last week the students made a nest Osh to go with the letter Ain. This week they painted a Purple (bonafsejay) Heart (Qalb) Hat (Qobbah) all for the letter Qaaf! 

The students have mastered learning and writing the numbers 1-10 and are now working on number 11. Our Little Alim's are little sponges that are learning a second language and in turn teaching their family members at home.  Learning a second language helps engage their little minds. Here is a link to an ariticle that shows the benefits of learning a second language in your child's early years. 

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=60

See the pictures below to see some recent activities the children did with Mrs. Entesar. 

January has been shaping out to be a very eye-opening month for our 3 and 4 year olds.  We have been learning how to explore with our 5 senses. We were introduced to our 5 senses by playing with home made play dough. The students smelled, touched, listened, looked and imagined tasting the play dough. Here are some words we used to describe what we experienced: salty, pink, smooth, no sound, thump, doughy.  We also borrowed a popcorn machine from one of families and saw how popcorn popped right before our eyes! We used our 5 senses again to explore the properties of popcorn.  Here are some words we used to describe what we experienced: soft, salty, white and yellow, crunch, pop, pop, pop, fluffy, mmmmmmm.

Our letter of the week was 'P' so that made our week even more eventful with play dough and popcorn! 

The following weeks we had fun with 'Q' and quilt making and 'R' while making a Rainbow Reflection.  The students learned about the word reflection and were using it throughout the day.  We are so proud of our Little Alim's as they can all write the letters P, Q and R, some of our students even attempted the lower case letters as well! We gave ourselves a HUGE pat on the back for that big accomplishment.

In math we are learning about sorting and classifying objects. We had fun this week noticing things that were the same and different. 

Explore our pictures below to see a few of our activities over the past few weeks!

What a great first week back we've had! After a refreshing break, our little fishes were happy to come back to our little learning pond!

This week we've been busy at work creating the letter N out of Noodles and learning first hand how to string beads on Necklaces. We love seeing how excited they get mastering these tasks. Each bead is a huge accomplishment to them and we want to make sure they know how proud we are of the work they do.

We're also starting to talk about the big number 6 and how we can sort piles of 6 similar objects together. Stay tuned to see what other exciting learning we do throughout the month!

We are so excited to share our blog with you all! We will be writing about all the great things we do at Little Alim's Academy.  It's time we share with everyone how our students love, learn and grow Islam through the caring and nurturing environment that we have created at Little Alim's.  

We have 2 classes right now, the 2's and the 3/4's.  All of our students are learning and growing in different ways.  Our teachers use numerous strategies to touch upon the varying learning styles and growth of each of our students.  We love, love, love how each one of our babies suddenly does something new and remembers a special dua, song or poem that was recited in class.  A new Arabic letter or word that stuck with a child or being able to finally write their name for the first time is a cause for celebration, in which one literally happens every day at school.  We celebrate each child daily as we see a new concept grasped, a new word said or simply a kind word or smile.  

Stay tuned for more of our proud accomplishments from our Little Alim's!