Congratulations on starting this journey!

Every weekly lesson of this package will open up once you have completed the previous part. You can go as fast, or as slow, as you like. Read through all the documentation, and you are set to go!

Your access allows you to use all of our materials for one student for 13 months. We trust our members to keep this amanah and not share this access with others.

Materials

The History Connections Book 2 – Middle Ages digital program includes the following:

• History Connections Book 2 – Middle Ages
• History Connections Book 2 – Middle Ages Maps &Worksheets (Needs to be printed)
• World Wall Map & Wall Icons (Needs to be printed)
• River of Life Poster (Needs to be printed)
• Usborne Internet Linked History Encyclopedia, abbreviated as UILE throughout this book
• History Intersections, edition 2

Elements

All lessons have scripted discussion questions and detailed instructions. The worksheets and maps needed can be found in the accompanying Maps and Worksheets book. In every lesson there are several elements:

The Task Card: on the first page of every weekly lesson lists an overview of the topic and the materials needed.

Materials: The teaching materials needed are listed in the first column. Usually these are pages from either the UILE or the History Intersections, as well as the Location Map that needs to be traced, worksheets needed for the activity and of course the World Wall Map and the Wall Icon Sheet. 

Time: This time indication is based upon twice a block of 45 minutes. Below we have explained the scheduling and proposed an alternative schedule. 

Notes: In this section we recommend you jot down notes about how the lesson went. Write down when your child seemed really interested, or when he/she seemed not interested at all. You can write down when you were unable to complete any activities or when the child struggled to complete the text. 

Inquiry: throughout this curriculum, the parent is modeling asking questions. The child also practices the skill of asking questions. At the beginning of every lesson, the child is encouraged to generate questions about a selected image and to extract the answers to these questions from the image itself. The questions that the student should come up with are all questions that can be answered by looking at the image. They are questions that they already know the answer to. The point is for them to learn to ask questions. You do not need to write the questions down. The student should orally come with a question then directly look for the answer in the image.

Learning to ask questions and extract information from images is an important pre-research skill. 

Reading: Learning how to read a historical text is a skill that will benefit a child throughout his/her life. The goal is not to read as many lines as possible, but to read each line with attention, looking to comprehend the text.

Children are encouraged read a few lines and then answer a direct question about it. Initially, reading text as well as comprehending what is being read will require a substantial effort from the child, depending on their reading level. Therefore, going slow is not a problem, as the goal is to master the skill of reading and comprehending what has been read.

However much a child manages to read, please praise and encourage the child for their efforts, with a focus on the effort to understand the information embedded in the text. Reading a text phonetically, without understanding is not the goal of this program.     

Discussion: In the Middle Ages book, the seerah of the Prophet (saws) is covered in the form of a story read to the child. We recommend you use our Super Servant Series: Seerah as an additional resource that is fun for kids of all ages to read. If you do not use our Super Servant Series: Seerah, then you can alternatively use our History Intersections book. Simply read the pages from the History Intersections that are specified in the lesson plan out loud to your child.

Discussion questions, that come after the story, help children recap the major events covered in the story. Remind the child to use full sentences in his/her answers. Brief answers have been provided for the parent, in between brackets, after each question.

These questions are not an exam or a drill. They are intended to consolidate what the child learned from the story. The child can look at images in the book when answering the questions. 

Narration: Narration is intended to practice retaining information from a story. Should your child have much difficulty with narrating two things from the story, simply ask the child to tell you what happened. If this proves to be too difficult, practice a few stories with the questions only, and then try narration again.

Activities: Every week the child will complete an activity that relates to the topic of the week. This will help children to internalize the information covered. Activities are varied and alternated, in order to keep children engaged. We recommend doing all activities as best as possible, as they teach children different skills and abilities, such as strategic thinking, hand-eye coordination, and deduction.

Tracing a Map: The program asks the child to trace the Location Maps (provided). The action of physically tracing, assures the information in integrated into the memory. Please make sure you have tracing paper available. The mapping activity allows children to get familiar with geography and teaches them to pay attention to certain geographical landmarks, such as rivers and seas, mountain ranges and oceans.

World Wall Map & Wall Icons: Every week, the child will cut out and stick small icons on the World Wall Map to remember the events that have been discussed. It also gives a sense of where most of the events are happening on a global scale. The World Wall Map can be assembled from the pages in the Maps & Worksheets book. The icons are provided in the Maps & Worksheets book as well. The Lesson Plan book will have the icon placed in the Overview Box at the start of each week. When using the World Wall Map, always show what part the child will be tracing on the Location Map. You can do this by making a ‘photographer’s bracket’ with your hands: simply hold your hands together so they form a rectangle. Then show the child on the World Wall Map, where the Location Map is located.

River of Life: The River of Life poster is used with lessons that are directly about Muslims such as lessons about the Prophet (saws) or about Muslim powers that emerged after the Prophet (saws) died. At the end of the year, the child will have a timeline that depicts all the important Muslim events in the Middle Ages, one after the other. This helps children visualize information.

Sticking the names of the Muslim powers and images of these selected topics in chronological order is a pre-time lining skill and such tangible activities help in the consolidation of information.

Extra Resources: At the end of every lesson, there are extra resources listed. We recommend that if your child expresses a particular interest in a topic, you allow extra time for the extra resources. Extra resources are optional and not part of this curriculum.

Visual Elements

Every lesson also has visual elements to help guide you through the lesson. There are several approaches to using this book. The easiest is to simply follow all of the instructions. The lessons are set up to be repeating the information. However, should you feel your child is simply not responding to a certain element, there are ways to differentiate the teaching method. 

Highlighted text contain instructions to the parent. Normal text is supposed to be read out to the student.

Bold text are the questions asked, and these should be read aloud to the student.

Text in Italics should be read to the student as well, as it explains the images. This is often a repeat of what was mentioned in the stories.

Fun Facts & Did You Know... boxes are meant to be shared with the student, but are not an integral part of the lesson.

Dashed Text Circles are alternative suggestions for parents.

Different Types of Learners

The lessons are written in a such a way that they cater to different types of learners. Ideally you will take the lesson as is, and your child will learn several different skills. 

However, some children are not auditory learners and they struggle with listening to a story. On the other hand, some children are not visual learners and they need to hear a story to get a sense of structure. In our program we cater to both. If you do the entire lesson, your child will practice both skills, which we recommend. For some kids, this may prove difficult and may lead to less engagement. As a parent, you know your child best, so if you feel a certain element does not work well for your child, here is what we recommend.

You can read the stories and look at the images in the resource texts to reinforce what was mentioned in the story. Often, having the child look at the image while reading the story will greatly help. After this, you can continue with the questions in bold, and skip the lines in Italics.

On the other hand, if you child is not engaged when hearing the short stories, but enjoys the images instead, you could skip the stories and focus on the questions in bold and explain the image with the lines in Italics.