Time for Some Herbal Healing Bi'ithnillah

As you may know, I am a trained and qualified herbalist (amongst other things) but never intended to get rich off of my herbal healing and as such I never charged for my advice. The way I see it, knowledge should be free and ALLAH subhanahu wa ta'ala sent down all these wonderful cures for every ailment and blessed me with the know how, the least I can do is teach other to heal themselves with the permission of Allah.

As the weather gets colder I am starting to stock up on my herbal remedies which includes me having to make more tinctures, syrups, and just general herbal medicines. To help you help yourselves bi'ithnillah I will post up some simple remedies that you can make and have on hand for when common winter illnesses occur. More complicated illnesses or if you are on medication I do suggest speaking with a trained practitioner or herbal doctor as although plants are natural, they are potent and could interfere with current medication or aggravate some symptoms you suffer.

So look out for my next post which will be on how to make an antibacterial rub to help combat the colds or flu virus, as well as any other bacterial/viral illness.

Trying something else with Maths

As I previously stated, we use and love the Singapore maths curriculum. Unfortunately my daughter N has struggled with it somewhat. Now when I say struggled, that is a bit of a stretch. If N was in school it would be completely acceptable as she understand and completes all the work correctly. The problem is her memorisation of maths facts. With the Singapore curriculum, a lot of emphasis is put on memorising basic maths facts and getting an absolutely firm foundation in the basic building blocks of maths. A lot of which they skim over in the regular British curriculum and find that is is just enough for the child to understand, and to be able to work with. With the Singapore the children MUST MEMORISE and well as understand. The first few years are vital to making the child's later maths studies easier and building upon.

I must reiterate that if you put the sums in front of my daughter she could work it out usingt he methods taught to her, but her mental arithamtics is not as well as I had hoped it would be. But the great thing about home eductaion is that you can adapt things to suit yoru child, you can change thinsg up a bit to bring out the best in your child. which is of course what we really want. We want our children to be the best bversions of themselves they can be.

This is where the Japanese abacus comes in, also called a soroban. It is a wonderful tool used for centuries to calculate both small and large mathematical equations. Studies have also shown that learning to use an abacus greatly improves ones ability to do mental arithmatics of LARE sums. the kind you and I (in the 'west') would use a calculation for. Just what I need!

So I have just watched a few videos on using an abacus, ordered my first abacus/soroban off of Amazon and am excited to start (ordered it Monday and it came Tuesday. Woohoo!). As for me, I will update with how she is getting on once we get into the motion of it all. Excited :)

There is also the Chinese abacus aka the suanpan if you would like an alternative but for us, I think we will stick to the soroban-for now.

How about you, Have you or your children use the soroban? How do you find it? 

22 Fun ways to help your child memorise maths facts

We follow the Singapore maths curriculum for our maths program which is based on the Singapore curriculum (surprise!) I don't want to go into the reasons why I chose this instead of the regular mathletics or those based on the British curriculum but in short, there students are way ahead of ours in the maths department so as I want the best for my child, I picked the best. Whilst I absolutely love this curriculum, it does not have much practice. So below I did a quick search of ways to help the child memorise math facts and here it is.

22 ways to help your child memorise mathematical facts

What does school really teach?

Suppliers

My supplier list. Always updated.

UK
www.riverford.co.uk  Organic farm subscription boxes. Suppliers of organic veg, fruit and milk in carton.
www.happykombucha.co.uk Water and milk kefir seeds to make your own soda.
www.naturalselection.co.uk Suppliers of oxygen bleach, borax substitute and citric acid
http://www.ethicalsuperstore.com 
www.naturalselection.com natural cleaning supplies



USA
www.azurestandard.com This has been described as an online Cosco's for hippies.

The harms of microwave cooking with research.

For a long time now I have been cutting down on the usage of my microwave simply because I thought radiation heating from the inside out can't be good for you, plus I don't actually like the microwave being on. Now I have come across some research dating back to the 60's and 70's proving my little lunch correct. Click the link below to find out why I am officially getting rid of my microwave.

The harms of microwave cooking with research.

I guess I shall start blogging about reheating cooked food using a conventional stove, because that's what I always used my microwave for.

Natural Window Cleaner

You can whip up one a batch of one of these window cleaners to leave your window clean and streak free.

Recipe 1
1 part water
1 part vinegar

Mix together in a spray bottle and use to leave windows sparkling.

Recipe 2
1/2 teaspoon of liquid soap (I use grated soap flakes from summernatural but you can use liquid or a grated bar of soap)
1/4 cup of vinegar
2 cups of water.

Mix together is a spray bottle and clean away.

Natural All Purpose Cleaning Recipe

You can find many the internet and books talking about the dangers used in commercial household cleaning products.From cancer inducing carcinogens to hormone disrupter, you can save money as well as your health with this simple recipe.

All Purpose Cleaner

I never use antibacterial cleaners around the home. They are unnecessary as well as help to contribute to the growing number of  anti bacterial resistant 'super bugs'.  This recipe I use as an all round cleaner, due to having a new baby in the home I make quite a strong 50/50 solution. You can make a weaker solution of 9 parts water to 1 parts of water.

Make it:
8 parts water
2 part vinegar.

Optional Extras:
Juice from half  lemon
 

Mix in a spray bottle and clean. I use this to clean counter tops, my babies high chair and to get streak free windows. 

The measurements in this varies from person to person. And don't worry about your home smelling of vinegar, the smell evaporates as soon as it dries. For those who try to avoid the use of plastics in the home, you can easily find glass or coated aluminium spray bottles online.

 

Just a quick one.

I haven't been keeping up with any of my blogs lately. With the business, home ed and everything else going on it has been at the back of my mind. Well I came across this website today whilst searching for some home ed resources and thought I would share. InshaAllah someone would be able to get enefit. This is not a muslim site so do go through everything carefully but I have found some very good resources and activities.

Homeschooling Ideas

jacobsm.ism-online.orgArt Ideas, lessons and tutorials.