Day 53

Assalamu alaikum!

What a jam packed day alhamdulillah.

We started off the day with Arabic with teacher Salam.  Still working on the letter daal and we did some fun exercises with this letter.  

During our second period we did had a mini-science class about solids-liquids-gases.  We watched water vaporize, and are kept a close eye on a frozen balloon that was changing from a solid to a liquid state.  We also cracked an egg and saw how it was a liquid :)

Period three we go to visit the Science Fair that the grades 4-6 put on mashallah.  We got to see models of human body systems and animal habitats.

During period 4 we had Quraan with teacher Afaaf.  We are so excited about having teacher Ibtissam with us again on Monday insha'Allah.

We watched a Magic School Bus video on the water cycle, and played musical chairs!

It was indoor recess today, so we got to enjoy some free play inside the classroom.

In the afternoon we had our weekly halaqa, it was about wudu' (ties into cleanliness our character theme of the month) and we prayed two rak'as in our class.

During period 8 we took the letter Ee and wrote the letter Ee carefully in our phonics books.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacehr  

Day 51

Assalamu alaikum!

We started off the day with some educational centres.  The students were taking part in a playdough building centre, ramps and balls centre, snakes and ladders, puzzles, and art centre.  

During Arabic class with teacher Salam the students learned the correct pronunciation of the letter daal with fatha-dumma-kasra.  Mashallah they were able to identify these words by hearing how they sound and then identifying their beginning letter.  

In gym class we did some warm ups and yoga, followed by three different games.  The students are really improving in their ability to understand that 1) sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, and there's no need to cry.  2) Sometimes you don't get a turn, and that's ok you need to be patient.

In the afternoon we worked on a small reading book that helps students practice the long-A sound.  The students took these books home and promised me they would practice reading them :)

We ended the day with a nice trip to the computer lab.  The students worked on patterning, beginning sounds, and shapes on www.starfall.com.

Have a good evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher 

Day 50!!!! Halfway to 100 :)

Assalamu alaikum,

today we started off our day with some phonics work that needed to be finished up.  Period 1 was French class, the students reviewed vocabulary that begins with the letters A, B, and C.

During quraan class the students were being tested on surat al-kafiroon.  Please practice this sura with your child at home.

During period 3 we had a small science introduction to the three states of matter: liquid, solid, and gas.  We then did our usual calendar routine, and we talked about how animals prepare for the winter.  Insha'Allah we will be having a Scientists in the Classroom visit on December the 9th to helps us explore all the ways animals and humans prepare for the cold weather.

Period 4 was with teacher Salam, and the class is now learning the letter daal, the students learned new vocabulary that goes along with this letter.

The children were super excited about the snow today!  It was great seeing most of the students prepared with their winter gear on.

In the afternoon we took the number 6-six, and we learned how to write the number six in digits, letters, and tally marks.

We ended the day with chapter 5 from Charlotte's Web, the students got to know the characters and are really excited to hear the next chapter insha'Allah.

Today's Show & Tell was great!  Thank you to all of you for remembering to send in something blue with the Tuesday group.

Have a great evening,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 49

Assalamu alaikum,

It was great seeing everyone after a three day weekend.  We missed our dear friends Omar and Hafi today, and hope to see them back in the classroom soon insha'Allah.

We started off our day today talking about our weekends, and practicing our three duaas. 

Teacher Nancy was delayed coming to school, and so we went ahead to the library on our own.  We read two amazing books on creativity.  The class is learning to identify the following things about a story:  
- Is it fiction or non-fiction?
- Who is the main character?
- The setting.
- What can we learn from the story.

During our period three class we did a quick review of the letters s,a,t,i,p,n.  We are very good at identifying the beginning sound of a word and now we are working on identifying the ending sound of the word.  We do this by stretching out the word, this strategy will insha'Allah help the children write words which they may not know the spelling of.

The class had quraan with teacher Afaaf for period four.  The children's homework for this week is to practice ayas 4-6 of surat al-Kafiroon.

In the afternoon we worked on writing the letters Cc, and Kk in our phonics book number 2.

The class ended their day with French with monsieur Said and the students worked on a fun work sheet and they also worked on some new French vocabulary.

Have a great evening,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 48 - Costume Day

What a day!  It seems that the costumes gave the children triple the amount of energy that they normally have masha'Allah.  

We missed our dear teacher Charmaine today, and in her place we had teacher Maimuna.  Teacher Maimuna and I were dressed up as Minnie and Mickey Mouse.  It was so much fun seeing everyone in costume, some chose to dress up as themselves and that is fine too :)

We started off our day with some quraan with teacher Afaaf, followed by calendar and reading.

Today the school was visited by the Turkish Ambassador to Canada.  The visit was during our scheduled gym class and so we didn't get to enjoy our regular Thursday gym.  Instead of gym we decided to do some yoga inside the classroom.

We had an indoor recess, and decided to use that time to get some face painting done.  We had some butterflies, fairies, tigers, lions, and even some superheros! 

In the afternoon we played heads-up-seven-up.  

Have a great evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 47

Assalamu alaikum,

alhamdulillah we had a productive Wednesday and we are soooo excited about costume day tomorrow insha'Allah!!!!

We started off the day with our Wednesday 1-hour centre time.   Today I was evaluating the children's ability to work in a team and masha'Allah I saw some excellent teamwork and cooperation between the children.  The children used straws and connectors to make a tower that was taller than me!

We then had our morning calendar routine.  Today we talked about stranger safety, and what to do if you get lost from your parent at a store or other public place.  It is very important for your child to memorize their home phone number.  This is something you can work on with your child at home insha'Allah.  
In Arabic class the students took the letter khaa and the different ways to pronounce it with fatha, damma, and kasra.  They also brainstormed for many words that begin with the letter khaa.

We had our second round of show & tell today and mashallah we had some very impressive presentations.  

We ended our day with a lesson on the letters -ck when they appear together in a word.  Like in the words: sock, mock, flock, block etc.

Have a great evening everyone,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 46

Assalamu alaikum everyone!

The children started off the day with some play dough building activities with play dough and popsicle sticks.  

Period 1 was with monsieur Said, today the children worked on a cutting and pasting activity that teaches the children the names of animals in French.  The students were working in small groups, and did very well during this activity masha'Allah.

Teacher Ibtissam is away and taking her place is teacher Afaaf.  The students are still working on surat al-Kafiroon.

During Arabic class the students worked on the number 2 in Arabic.  

We introduced the letters Cc and Kk and talked about the two sounds that the letter c makes, and we brainstormed for different words that begin with this letter.

The show & tell for this week was: something white.  Mashallah the students brought in many different objects and talked about them beautifully.  

Have a great evening,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 45

Assalamu alaikum,

we had a great Monday alhamdulillah. 

We started off the day working on some puzzles, masha'Allah puzzles that once seemed impossible are now being put together with comfort and skill.

During our circle time we talked about our weekends, and read our new morning message.  The children are very excited about having a costume day on Thursday insha'Allah. 

This week is anti-bullying week at Abraar School, during our library period teacher Nancy read the students a nice story about what bullying looks like and the children talked about what to do in a situation where one feels bullied.  

The grade 4 class came in for reading buddies during period three the children really enjoyed being read to mashallah.  

During quraan class the students worked on surat alkafiroon with teacher Ibtissam.  

In the afternoon we worked on the number 5-five, and then the children had French class with monsieur Said in the grade SK1 class!

Have a great evening everyone :)

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 43 - Cloud Thursday

Assalamu alaikum,

We had a great Thursday today alhamdulillah. We started off the day with some fun and educational centres, I have found that when the children start off their day with playing and interacting with their peers they end up focusing better during our target lesson time.

Period 1 today was quraan with teacher Ibtissam, the class is working very hard on memorizing surat alkafiroon masha'Allah last week the class was rewarded with an ice cream party!  Congratulations to Ibraheem, Dana, and Daoud for being the top reciters of the month.

During period two we worked on our guided reading story I Am Clean we did our calendar routine, read from Charlotte's web and worked on our phonics book page number 17 this page helps us figure out the beginning sounds in words.

Period three was with teacher Salam and the students worked on the letter خ today, the students helped brainstorm for words that begin with this letter.  

Gym class today was again a skill-building lesson. Students learned the difference between and under-hand throw and an over-hand throw.  The practiced throwing tennis balls inside hula-hoops and they practiced bouncing the tennis balls and catching them.


We had an indoor recess today, the students enjoyed playing at the dress up centre and playing with our modelling sand.

Nap time was awesome, the room was dark from he cloudy weather and everyone enjoyed resting during this 40 minute resting time.  Before nap time students recite two duaas, and ayat-al-kursi insha'Allah with time the students will be able to recite these duaas and aya on their own.

During our last period we worked on finishing off some unfinished work.

Have a great evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 42 - Wonderful Wednesday

Assalamu alaikum,

What a wonderful day alhamdulillah.  Every year I think I have the best class, and then I get the next class and I am once again thinking "alhamdulillah this is the best class!" (masha'Allah).

We started off the day with some educational/fun centres.  Students were working together as a team to build marble runs using different recycled materials.  We also had a writing/drawing centre, a boogie board centre, and a painting centre.  

Period 3 was Arabic with teacher Salam, the children had lots of fun putting together a ح ـ  حصان craft mashallah.

During gym class, we did our usual warm-ups and then each student got a tennis ball and practiced throwing & catching, rolling the ball (bowling style), and bouncing the ball against the wall.  It was a very fun gym class!

We worked on a mini-book "the letter S" this will help the children read and recognize high-frequency words insha'Allah.

We are working on a new guided reading story.  It is called "I am clean"  the children did an excellent job right from the first day masha'Allah.

The afternoon's show& tell was run by teacher Nura today jazaha Allahu khairan, we had many many interesting books.  Thank you all for remembering to send in something with your child. :)

Unfortunately we did not get to visit the computer lab today, the network was down recently and that has affected the connectivity of the computers.

We read a chapter from Charlotte's Web at the end of the day.

Have a great evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw

SK2 Teacher

Day 41

Assalamu alaikum everyone!

We started off our day today with some puzzles on each table.  During French class with monsieur Said the students reviewed the letter -Cc and worked on their oral french language by repeating after the teacher.  

During Arabic class the students worked in their workbooks on the letter ح .  

In Quraan class the class read the first three ayas of surat al-Kafiroon.  They have started adding blocks to their quraan castle masha'Allah.  During Quraan class the students got take part in hands on activities to help emphasize the strong letters.  

We read a chapter from Charlotte's web and talked about what we had for breakfast while emphasizing the importance of eating a well-balanced breakfast.

In the afternoon we had an interesting show & tell with a great variety of books.  After show & tell we worked on our phonics books, insha'Allah we will be finishing our phonics book 1 this week.

Have a great evening,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 40

Assalamu alaikum!

We started the day off with some educational centres, followed by calendar.  During calendar time we reviewed our three duaas, mashallah the class has memorized the first two and is already very familiar with the third.

Our character theme for the month of November is CLEANLINESS.  The class was part of a school-wide assembly where the grade 3 students performed skits and song to help us understand the meaning of cleanliness.  In the class we are talking about keeping ourselves clean, keeping our classroom and school clean, and also keeping our hearts pure.

We went to the library today and the students that had returned their books were able to sign out a new book.  Please make sure you return the library books by Friday every week so that we give teacher Nancy a chance to check them in to her program by Monday.

On Mondays and Thursday we visit the city park, the children had a great time climbing trees and playing on the structure.  

For mathematics today we took the number 4-four, the students worked in their math books. The last period for today was French with monsieur Said.

QURAAN HOMEWORK: Review ayas 1-3 of surat al-kafiroon.


Have a great evening,

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 38

Assalamu alaikum,

today we started off our day with some educational centres.  The children practiced writing, typing, cutting, glueing, and they had a taste-testing centre where they got to record their findings.

During Arabic class the students were itnroduced to a new letter, the letter ح through a fun story about Hakim حكيم and his horse حصان.  The students then worked in their textbooks and completed the page for the letter ح.

In gym class the students practiced four different types of movement in five teams, each team got a name of the body part used for the five senses.  The eye, tongue, nose, ears, and fingers teams!  We then played a game of germ tag :)

In the afternoon we had an interesting show & tell with fun objects being brought in, mashallah we had round coasters, a round slinky, a round night light, a snow globe, and some other round toys.

We ended off our day in the computer lab were most of the students were practicing mathematical patterns on the starfall website.

Thank you to Ali S., and Alizay's father for treating us with some round timbits! 

Have a great evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 37

Assalamu alaikum, 
the SK2 class had a very busy day today masha Allah.  We started off the day with an elaborate French class with monsieur Said, followed by Arabic with teacher Salam, during Arabic the class worked on the letter jeem in our workbooks.

During period three we did our usual calendar routine with a quick review of some of the concepts we have been working on.  We also quickly reviewed our STAR rules.

Teacher Ibtissam does an amazing job keeping the students entertained and motivated during Quraan class.  The students have earned an ice cream party masha'Allah!

In the afternoon we had our "round object" show & tell.  Masha'Allah the students brought in many round objects such as balls, a cookie drawing, a fish bowl with a fish inside, tooth brush holder, a really round stuffed turtle, and a weaved plate from Eritrea.  Can't wait to see and hear about tomorrow's show & tells!

Have a good night :)

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher

Day 36

Assalamu alaikum, I hope everyone had a great weekend :)

we had a wonderful day today alhamdulillah.

We started off the day with some leveled reading practice.  The students then told teacher Charmaine and I about their weekends, it sounds like many fun things took place over the weekend masha'Allah.
Congratulations to our friend Ammaar for getting a new pet fish!

During our second period we got to visit the library where we listened to a nice story, and then we got to sign out our very own books.  Please remember that library books are due on Friday.

Period three was our science/math lesson.  We started talking about our five senses that Allah swt has blessed us with, we talked about the different tastes and the students will get to taste test different things during our science centre on Wednesday insha'Allah.  In math we learned the number word -three.  Students should now be able to spell the following number words:

0-zero
1-one
2-two
3-three

Period 4 the students had quraan with teacher Ibtissam, she was assessing the students on surat attakathur, please continue reviewing this sura with your child at home.

We had fun at the city park today, and group 1 got to stay outside for an extra 10 minutes as a special group reward masha'Allah!

During period 7 we wrote in our journals, today's topic was "I love to eat..." the students filled in with their favourite food choices and drew a picture to go with it.

Have a great evening everyone!

Safiah Aghliw
SK2 Teacher