al-Hamdu lillah

subHan Allah, a parent took her child to a learning center to see if he needed tutoring. She had heard that a private school isn't as good as a public school "academically" speaking. So she took her child to take a national exam to see how he was doing. Turns out, that not only did he do excellently and highly ranking in almost everything, but the one administering the test said that she hadn't had a child do so well in about a year and a half. His mom said he didn't score as high in one area, and when she told me what the area was, I was so shocked because we work on that everyday. She said, as far as the basics were concerned he mastered everything, but it was one test with the short and long vowels that he didn't do well on. That shocked me because I even have songs that we sing for those! My whole class memorized the songs, and we work on them, like I said, everyday. Khayr, al-hamdu lillah he did well though. She then thanked me for my work. al-hamdu lillah... and the thing is, her child, he's pretty average in my class, I have students that do much better than he does. I needed to hear good news, so al-hamdu lillah.

Last night a parent called me, she said, "I have a doubt about the homework you gave my son." I asked her, "What's your doubt?" She said, "Why does he have two book reports for homework?" I told her... "Your son wants a ticket for my reading raffel jar, everytime they turn in a book report I put their name on a raffel ticket so that they could win books and other prizes by the end of the month." Turned out that her child was giving her a hard time, he insisted that his mother take him to the library. -smiles- I'm so proud of those children, barak Allahu fihum.

Also, here's something my students love: if they want to go to the bathroom, or drink water they have to write me a note. When they do that, I sign their note, and they can go. Moreover, if they write me a note asking to sit by someone I'll move their desk to sit there, if they abuse the privledge, I move their desk back to where it was. If they write a note saying they want me to read a book, or take them outside, et cetera... most of the time I do it. Now let me tell you why I mentioned this... turns out that if it's a note given to me, I just can't throw it away.. so I've stored all their notes in a little box. In front of the class I told them, you guys are writing so much that I'm running out of paper. Literally, over 1000 pieces of paper have been used for their notes. I also have them write letters to the other grades, and they have penpals from 4th grade to 8th grade. They write so much, I had to take a stack of paper and cut it in half just so that I don't run out so fast. Anyways.. i got side tracked, so I keep all their papers, and I decided to show them the letters that they have written me from the beginning of the year, and they were shocked to see that I held in my hand possibly hundreds of letters from them... one student said, "teacher you're so fair." I didn't know what she meant by that until, I turned to see bright smiles everywhere.. then I reminded them about how much I care about them, and love them.

Oh, there's an activity that I started doing this month that has boosted up their reading and writing to levels that are... just sky rocketing. So, I have cards that have sentences on them. I give every student a card and then I say, Bismillah GO!!!! And they have to write the sentence while sounding out everything as they write. When they finish writing the sentence, they yell out, "DONE!" then I run to give them another sentence card. After the stack in my hand is done, I ask who has the most sentences written down, and the one who wins gets to be the one who passes out the sentence cards the next day. It's a lot of fun, al-hamdu lillah.

Also, I bought a register and fake money for my class. That's helped them a lot with the money chapter in their book, al-hamdu lillah.

Okay now I feel like I'm babbling. -smiles-

al-Hamdu lillah, things are going well with my class, and this week they have been excellent. Last week, lqtm, I felt like I was going to pop. al-Hamdu lillah, Allah does bring ease after hardship.

al-hamdu lillah.

Allahumma anta rabbi wa ana `abduk, thalamtu nafsi wa a`taraftu bithanbi, la yaghfiru al-thunuba illa ant. Rabbi ighfir li.