My 2 sons and dishes

Assalamo aleykum,

This week both my sons have taken up some activity that involves plates. Alhamdulillah.

Yusef is nearly 5, and here he is doing his very first load of washing up: (I know I should have started him on it ages ago, I was lazy I admit it...)

My "baby" on the other hand, who is 19 months old, this week has realised he can reach the kitchen worktop (just the edge, but that's enough to pull stuff down) AND he has learned to climb onto dining chairs. Here's some casualties of his achievement masha'Allah:

 

 I had bought that glass that very same day, Qadr Allah!

 

I have decided that I will keep the biggest bits on broken plates and glasses until we have enough to make something with them.... I'm thinking Gaudi, Parc Guell (Barcelona)

 

 

You think that's ambitious? Never underestimate the amount of stuff your kids can break ;)



Snow

Assalamo aleykum,
a couple of weeks ago we had quite a lot of snow here in Leicester.
Now, it must be said that the mere prospect of snow transform me from a 30-something year old that should be worrying about the disruption and inconveniences that "bad" weather might cause, to a young child, excited enough to keep giggling and clapping her hands to herself. And no, I don't care who sees.

Yusef and I were doing du3a' for snow because we were studying the seasons and everywhere winter is characterised by snow, and we really wanted to see that happen... in His great mercy, Allah granted us what we wanted. [This was a golden occasion to explain to him about Allah sending the rain/snow exactly where He wants, and giving this job to a particular angel...]

Here's Yusef's first, and quite distinctly Muslim, snowman (and also Abu Yusef's first = man of the desert, masha'Allah):

^^This was only the very first snow. We had much more alhamdulillah. So I looked for some snow themed crafts easy enough for a 4 year old. This is what I decided to try:

These really simple but fun lolly sticks and buttons snowflakes from Handmade Beginnings (here's our attempt):

 

 

Then we had a go at these Pipe cleaner snowflakes (by Martha Stewart). I must admit this were completely lost on Yusef, who only wanted to collect the pipe cleaners in his hand, feel them and comment on their colours and he only accepted to help me here and there. Fair enough.

 

That evening I sat on the living room on a carpet of colourful pipe cleaners - that my boys were picking up and collecting in bunches as though they were flowers - making snowflakes. Good times alhamdulillah.

 

More Qur'an flaps for lapbooks

Assalamo aleykum,

I have only just realised that in the previous post I had promised mushaf flaps that opened up the "wrong" way (as an Arabic book would) but the ones I posted didn't. So here's the Arabic version for all purists out there  *masha'Allah, I like you*

If anyone uses them, it would be nice to have links to your posts to see how they look in your lapbooks insha'Allah :)

RED
GREEN
BROWN
BLUE
BLACK&WHITE

Qur'an flaps for lapbooking

Assalamo aleykum,

For me personally, the main point of home educating my children, rather than sending them to some of the academically excellent schools out there, is that I want to give a distinct Islamic perspective on everything they learn and discover.

Allah (Subhana wa Ta3aalah) has created everything, so He has to do with everything. As simple as that.

This is why I made these little "Mushaf covers" to be used as flaps for lapbooks, in order to insert pertinent quotations from the Qur'an. They are not perfect... probably due to the fact that I am not a machine...(I like it like that, alhamdulillah)

Remember that it's supposed to be an Arabic book, that's why it opens the "wrong" way ;)

 

Here's the other colours I made to match your chosen colour scheme and a black&white one for little ones that (unlike mine) like colouring in:

 

Here you can download the GREEN one , the RED one , the BROWN one, the BLUE one and the BLACK & WHITE one

 

Enjoy insha'Allah

 

 

I've been drawing ...

Assalamo aleykum,

 

I haven't posted in a while, partly due to the fact that - on top of the usual commitments - I have taken on a few learning endeavours of my own (may Allah increase my knowledge!), and partly because I've been busy exploring some software (with only marginal success) in order to transfer my love of drawing into the digital world. Since my computing skills are very basic (and I have no interest in further them, to be honest) the more sophisticated design software were lost on me (let's just say I now know why there's one called "ArtRage" !!!).

 

So I went back to the simplest thing, which, I found, works quite well for what I want to make.

 

I will be posting in here some samples of my work that can be useful in home education and general Islamic activities to be done with children, in the hope they will be beneficial in increasing their understanding of Qur'an and their attachment to it insha'Allah.