Winter 2016 : Malaysian breakfast at SKMM

Usual scene on Saturday mornings at Abraham Moss High School cafeteria.

We had Malaysian breakfast with our kids, who are attending Saturday supplementary school, Sekolah Komuniti Malaysia Manchester (SKMM). Malaysian community around Manchester will come here and sell Malaysian delicacies at this 'Kedai Kopi Malaysia'.  

Libyan also runs their supplementary school here on weekends. It is a good exposure for the students to mingle around with others of different nationality every week. We love to buy sandwiches made by a very nice Libyan lady.

Winter 2016 : Ancient Egypt Home-Learning Projects

So this is what Nazreen will learn this term. 

For Ancient Egypt, Nazreen chose to produce a book on River Nile.

First, we discuss on the content and layout. Then Nazreen will proceed with the work. He started with the world map showing major rivers in the world. He traced the map on my laptop screen.

Then he cut each continent, pasted them on the blue card and labeled each river with a pink paper.

These are what he managed to do that night. The world map, animals of the River Nile..

...and diagram showing how people lived along the River Nile longgggg time ago. This is a very detailed drawing and he spent more than one hour to produce this precious.

At the other corner of the room, Nabil pasted together 6 A4 papers to make one big sheet for his Ancient Egypt project. He produces a drawing on the process of pyramid construction.

Similar to Nazreen, he produced a very detailed drawing, however, I didnt manage to capture them because my phone was broken. I was using a very old phone with low resolution and didnt work well at night.

Nabil managed to finish his project that night.

Winter 2016 : Story Hunters

Year 4 students across the UK are so fortunate because they received free set of Story Hunter books from the Book Trust UK! I could not believe it when Nazreen received the first pack – the books are of high quality, interesting and they are not just for read. There are also activity books and stationeries! They will get a new pack every month and parents need to pick it up from the class teacher.

Image from BookTrust (here)

From Story Hunters - Book Trust UK : To encourage that love of reading, every pupil signed up to Story Hunters will get a monthly personalised pack of books and activities, for a six-month period. Every pack will include at least two carefully chosen books, plus engaging games and resources that children can share with their families – a rewarding way to make the most of pupil premium and build home-school links.

Nazmi usually would be very excited when Nazreen come home with the new Story Hunter pack but due to different reason. So he could do this.

Winter 2016 : I dont know.

I just don’t know. 

Winter 2016 : Brotherhood lagi

How I keep them close?

Do everything together and share everything (in this case, the warm blanket).

And sleep together. 

They can talk and laugh together for hours before they sleep. We usually make sure the lights out by 9.30 - 10pm because we dont want any trouble with the Council.

Winter 2016 : Coca dates drink

Blend together low fat milk, cocoa powder, banana, dates and oats.

Delicious!

Enough to keep them full for a couple of hours before dinner. It is already dark at 5pm and they keep asking when they could have their dinner.

Winter 2016 : Leisure Library @ Cheetham Hill

When they have new home-learning projects, this is how our Saturday looks like.

Nabil is working on a project on Ancient Egypt pyramid.

Nazreen is working on a River Nile project.

Mama has a lot of critical essays to complete, but equally excited to start the new projects with them haha #ohmypriority

Winter 2016 : Convenient online shopping for Papa's birthday!

I ordered some stuff from eBay and get them to send to Argos for me to pick later. Since I am in the campus most of the time and my husband is busy running errands and managing the kids, so we might not be home when the Royal Mail guy came.

It is truly convenient to be able to choose where to pick up the stuff we bought online, at our own time. I chose Argos at the Manchester Fort Shopping Park as I also ordered some perfume and men’s stuff for my husband at online Boots store. Argos have allocated special collection point for eBay orders.

I told my husband that I just need a while to pick up some stuff at Boots (and pray hard that we will not follow). He decided to wait in the car as it was cold outside. I emptied my backpack earlier and put the books at the backseat. He didn’t notice. I glad I did that because the boxes are massive!

That night, we blew some balloons for papa while he was sleeping, then we surprised him with a loud birthday song and showered him with a lot of birthday presents and kisses!!

Winter 2016 : THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

30 January 2016.
A day after the Storm Gertrude.

We were chatting with my parent via Skype when the guests started to arrive. My sons were so happy to see other kids came to their party. New friends in Manchester! They loves the cakes (of course!) and the M&Ms disappeared long before the whole cake finished, as I expected. haha.

 

We had a really fun art and craft sessions. I didnt mind seeing our living room like this as long as the kids were having fun and the guests were enjoying themselves, helping the kids to do some artworks.

My neighbour (who is also my junior in IIUM), a PhD candidate, was struggling to meet a submission deadline that day, therefore, she couldnt make it to the party. I asked her if she could send over her kids to my house and let them stay here until Maghrib so she could focus on her writing. I truly understand what she went through and that was the least I could do to help. And she did! 

It was good to see Naufal & Aesyah really enjoying themselves with crafts and the loud & colourful party poppers :) The kids made these, toilet roll ninjas (in our case, they were actually kitchen rolls cut into two) and straw sculptures.

I had so much fun baking, cooking and entertaining the guests! It is a good break from my study. Cleaning up that evening was a breeze.

I read the news online and surprisingly we are expecting Storm Henry the next day!

Winter 2016 : Borrowing books

After the Maulidur Rasul celebration, we went to the local library, register the kids as a member and borrow some books. Their teachers said they need to read more, so I asked them to choose and borrow 8 books each - the maximum allowed for 2 weeks. They were excited to use the self-checkout machine at the library (well, I did as well when I first borrowed books from my university library!).

Look at those I-dont-want-to-read-8-books faces. LOL!

Winter 2015 : Maulidur Rasul celebration in Manchester

There were built up events on Saturdays before the main Maulidur Rasul celebration in Malaysian supplementary school in Manchester. The kids participated in poster and card design competitions, learned about the Prophet Muhammad, watch educational movies and learned the selawat. 

On the real day, they participated in nasyid competition and Maulidur Rasul quiz. And they bring home a lot of present from the competitions and quiz. Well done! 

Our first photo in baju kurung and baju melayu together, taken in front of our house. It was freezing cold outside!

Winter 2016 : Meet the teacher - Nazreen

It was a pleasant session to discuss about Nazreen's progress with his beautiful teacher. Although he has a serious catching up to do (due to the difference between Malaysian & UK syllabus), but Nazreen is progressing well. He needs to read more.

Winter 2016 : Snow in January

We are going to miss this view.

From my bedroom window.

Our neighbours asked us to join them to the Heaton Park (a large park with hills covered with snows and you can sledge there) at 7am but I need to study. I am one day away from my final exam. 

Kids are having fun around the house, playing with what's left from yesterday's evening. So it doesnt matter if we dont go to the Heaton Park. Nazran went inside after 10 minutes because he cant stand the cold.

It was really hard to roll the snow to make a huge ball. I gave up half way. It was painfully cold working with a wet snow. Someone wore my snow gloves and I ended up with thin wool gloves. It got wet pretty quick.

They made these. 
They rolled the snowball at other area with thick snow and put the parts together in front of our house. I have a bowl of warm water ready for them if their fingers started to feel painfully cold.

The snowmen were still standing later that day (and the next day). I keep checking every 10 minutes because I was studying by the window. I saw passers-by took photographs and selfies with these snowmen. lol.

Winter 2016 : What is that? asked Nazran. Hey, it is snowing outside!!!

....and everybody ran out the door. Extremely happy to see and touch snow for the first time.

We were on Skype, chatting with my parent when Nazran asked me what are those white thing falling down outside. It took me almost 20 seconds to digest. Leaves falling? Autumn is over. Bugs? No bugs flying in the winter. Kids throwing confetti outside? Maybe. Hmmm... or maybe it is a big raindrop? ice? SNOW??

It is snow, alright.

We just spent a few minutes outside. It was freezing cold. 

Alhamdulillah the snow is sticking. At 8pm, it is getting thicker. We gave a chance for the kids to go out and play with the snow. We spend less then 10 minutes outside. No one can stand the cold so I asked them to bring the snow inside. haha.

At 11pm, we went out again. It was a pure joy seeing them running around, having a snowball fight (well, it wasnt fun to be the target) and giggling. 

Designer cowl in action *ehem* :)

 

My snow kids

 

Winter 2015 : IKEA, Ashton-under-Lyne

Our first trip there.

We bought a carpet for the living room last week. We have a laminated floor so it is extremely cold in winter. We cant even step on it especially in the evening if we dont put on our slippers.

We need more stuff to keep us warm. So we bought a carpet for our bedroom (GBP9), some throws (GBP5 each) for the sofa in the living room, TV cabinet (GBP9) and other small stuff. The current currency exchange (RM to GBP) made the prices of these similar items are more expensive than IKEA Malaysia.

Winter 2015 : The Anglo-Saxon costume

The last school project (well, this one is specifically assigned to the parent) before I could resume with my final essays.

The first night, I sew the trouser. I have brought a used light brown corduroy curtain for the trousers because the trip will be held in the winter. It must be really cold to spend the whole day outside.The Anglo-Saxons wore wool trousers wrapped around with a strip of cloth or leather. I have compiled a few photo/illustrations to give you some ideas on how the trousers look like (left), on the right is Nazreen's trousers. It was quite complicated but I am glad I've nailed it!

A few days after that, I did his tunic and other accessories. Alhamdulillah. I brought a used duvet cover for his tunic and another thick curtain for his cape (I designed it in such a way that the cape covers his chest, to keep him warm in the cold winter). 

The Anglo-Saxon has decorations on the neck and wrists. I found a haberdashery one day (Alhamdulillah!) and bought decorative fabric ribbon (for the wrists), rubber strip for the waist (before, he needs to tie it) and huge pins to imitate Anglo-Saxon's brooch. Photos on the left (below) are the Anglo-Saxon's brooches. The right is Nazreen's brooch. The round steel is actually a curtain's hole :) It is not the same but close enough. I am sure people in the Anglo-Saxon village would appreciate the details.

Well, I was glad to be able to finish this project in two nights. Nazreen was really proud running to his school in the morning in this costume, cant wait to show his costume to his friends! The initial plan was him to wear black shoes but the morning was so cold, he need to put on his winter boots.  

He asked me for a photo shoot session near our house after the trip.