Eid-ul Fitr 1432H

Eid Mubarak!

Taqabbal Allahu, Minna Wa Minkum.

 

Ramadhan Moon – in a bowl?

This morning as I was feeding Zakariyya (2) some oats porridge, his older brother made an interesting observation Masha-Allah.

Ilyaas (4) who was standing behind me exclaimed,”Look Zakariyya, the moon is disappearing. It’s gonna be Eid soon. Quick eat it up!”

When I looked down into the bowl, Subhanallah . . .

The mushy porridge did looked like a waning crescent with the way I have scooped it out. There was an awkward sense of accomplishment that our moon centered activities earlier in Ramadhan is paying off. Alhamdulillah, only Allah can give the understanding of things.

The one book though that I have to mention here that we have been reading all these days of Ramadhan has been Ramadan Moon by Na’ima Robert.

I discovered this book last year at our library and instantly fell in love with it. Even though I placed an order via Amazon.ca months ago, they have got no stock of this book. Alhamdulillah I was able to get it from the library again.

This is a delightful book that weaves the phases of the moon to the progress of the month of Ramadhan. The author ever so simply explains the daily rituals while injecting examples of virtues that is to be uphold in this month. The phrases are poetic and the pictures by Shirin Adl are interesting for young and old. I am a fan of collage and this book delivered it tastefully.

As for Ilyaas (4) the best part of the book was to point to the changing moon that appears on most pages. Sister Nai’ma, your Ramadan Moon has made such an impression that it even showed up in our breakfast bowl.

 

Battle of Badr Lapbook

This was a project Ibraheem (8) completed just before summer. I wanted to share this here,remembering the great event in our history in this month of mercy. Insha-Allah I hope it will benefit others as well.

The main reference for this project was The Sealed Nectar by Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri. You can access the English version here. I have the book Alhamdulillah. It has all of the duas and Quranic verses in Arabic as well.

Cover page

Cover Battle of Badr

Inside layout - 3 flaps

This lapbook was made by gluing one flap of a file folder onto another. You will end up with three letter sized flaps. Pictured above is the inside of the lapbook. Below are the individual parts and the corresponding files that we used to create them.

This is a simple flap style presentation that has all the important facts of the Battle of Badr.

Inside the trade caravan - story of the cause of the Battle of Badr

This is the template for this part of the lapbook - Cause of Battle of Badr. My son wrote the incident out as a copy work. The printout could be used instead.

Two more flap books

Inside - Face Off at the Battle of Badr outlining who took on who and representing which side.

Inside - Dua of Rasulullah during the battle

This dua was from The Sealed Nectar book.

Tab book outlining the different forms of help that came from Allah during the battle

We used the tab book template from here to create this book. Again all of this information is in the Sealed Nectar.

We categorized the help into four; rain, fear, angels and sandstorm. For each category we pasted the related verse and wrote a short narration of the happenings.

Rain – verse 11, Surah Al-Anfal

Fear – verse 12, Surah Al-Anfal

Angels – verse 9, Surah Al-Anfal

Sandstorm – verse 17, Surah Al-Anfal

Story of two young sahabas killing Abu Jahl

This is just a print out of the story of Muaz Ibn Ufra and Muaz Ibn Amr killing Abu Jahl. We made in into a sort of a pull out and housed it in a CD sleeve. You can print this out here - Killing of Abu Jahl.

Outcome of battle

This again is just a simple flap style presentation.

Back flap of the lapbook

This is the back flap of the lapbook showing the significance of the Battle of Badr. The template for this is here – Importance of Badr

 

DIY Eid Cards

Alhamdulillah this was a little project my son (8) and I did last night. We used mostly supplies that you can purchase at most dollar stores. The fanciest material we used were some embossed cardstock that was made using Cuttlebug.

This was a special card for NaniMa. He used tearing technique for the blue paper. He pasted some butterfly and flower embellishments, stickers for the word Eid and used a gold marker to highlight and fill in some details.

The pink cardstock was embossed.

Jannah Steps featured some Eid Card templates that was done by artist Melani Putri. For this card though I printed the greeting from Memelograph, Melani’s own blog. We use the same greeting in Malaysia with a slight spelling variation, so this works well.

DS1 chose to use a paper doily for this card. He then added details using gel pens that he has been getting in his advent calendar this year. He also used a craft punch to make stars as anchors for the greeting.

The centre of this card was from an Eid card template from Jannah Steps. There are embossed details on the top, middle and bottom part of this card. DS1 then highlighted them with a gold pen. He then pasted the greeting in the centre as the focus of the card.

Insha-Allah we hope these ideas and links will get others to make some Eid cards this Ramadhan as well. DS1 seems to be on a roll and wants to make more

 

Ramadhan Good Deed Tree (Topiary)

I meant to post this sooner, unfortunately just did not get around doing it.

This was a little project of mine to make it for fun (and pretty) for the children in encouraging them to perform more good deeds in this blessed month. It is basically a tree that when they do a good deed a flower blossoms. Below are the steps of making one.

Material for the tree (topiary)

You would need a flower pot, a styrofoam ball, florist foam, stick (I used a dowel) and some pipe cleaner to wrap around the stick. I had all these supplies at home except for the styrofoam ball that I purchased from a dollar store.

You would start by cutting the florist foam into shape so that it fits tight into your chosen flower pot. Then, push the stick through the florist foam making it stand out of the pot. At this point you can wrap some pipe cleaners around the stick if you want to. Lastly push through the styrofoam ball into the other end of the stick till it is about three quarters through.

Good deed tree (topiary) ready to blossom

I stuffed some tissue paper into the base of the tree to hide the florist foam. I also used some sticker letters I had to decorate the flower pot.

Material for flowers

To make the flowers, I used a die to cut out flower shapes out of card stocks. Made a little hole in the middle of the flower using a paper piercer and pushed through a coloured toothpick for stem.

Simple toothpick flowers

There are several other options for this. You can purchase precut flower shapes made out of cardstock or foam at most craft stores. Also you can purchase flower punchers to punch out flower shapes. Here are some sample flower punchers.

The idea is to reward the child a flower for a good deed. The bonus (Insha-Allah) is that there will be a fully blossomed good deed tree to put on the side table by Eid

Blossoms on good deed tree

 

Lil Muslims Magazine

I was looking for some hands on Ramadhan worksheets for my eight year old and found Lil Muslims Magazine – Ramadhan Edition.

You can purchase the printed version or a PDF version at MagCloud. This magazine has decoding activities, recipe, craft, math, surah base activity and of course stories all themed around Ramadhan. Alhamdulillah it was a great find for us.

 

 

Organizing Kitchen Cupboard

Just before Ramadhan, I was going through my spice cupboard and reorganizing it. For years now I have been using floral foams to create tiered shelves to store my spice bottles. I thought I will share this here. Insha-Allah it will benefit others as well.

Florist foam

I use foams like the one above. This idea Alhamdulillah came about when I had to buy a pack of eight foams when all I needed was two. This is how I repurposed the foams and used them all up.

For the first tier that sits right at the back of the cupboard, I used the whole foam brick as is. For the second tier, I cut the foam brick into half lengthwise. I found a serrated knife works best for this. I then wrapped the foams with some pretty wrapping paper.

Florist foam tiered shelf

You might want to check the width of the bottles you have before you cut the foam for the second tier. Usually one side of the foam is larger than the other.

My cupboard rearranged

 

Ramadhan Window Cling

I have always been fascinated about festive window clings. Ramadhan has given me an excuse to try painting some.

I got the instructions for this from Disney Family Fun. The instructions call for the design to be done on wax paper. Instead what we did was to print out Ramadhan related pictures and place them in a page protector. Ramadhan themed coloring pages work well for this activity. We then painted the picture right onto the page protector using the printout within as a guide.

We used Scribbles 3D Dimensional Fabric Paint for this activity. If you are in Canada, you can purchase them at your local Michaels store (yes use the coupons )

Using Scribbles paint on page protector

After letting the painting dry overnight, I carefully peeled it off the page protector and placed them on our window.

Ramadhan window clings

This was a bonus inside our living room Masha-Allah.

Window clings shadow inside the house

 

Ramadhan Advent Calendar Using Cloths Peg

I wanted to make an advent calendar for my four and two year old as well. This was actually an idea I specifically wanted to make for DS3 (2 years old). It was to help him practice pincer grip. And I would have love to have made DS3 (4 years old) something that involved button skills.

I ended up making one calendar for both of them just to avoid this is mine, that is yours bickering.

Gluing scrapbook paper onto cloths peg

I started off by gluing on strips of paper onto one side of cloths pin. I used some coordinated scrapbook paper just to make it prettier. I then glued Hershey Kisses chocolate onto the plain side of the cloths pin using a glue gun. Once that is done, clip on the pegs along the rim of a suitable container showing the paper side out.I used a plastic popcorn bowl.

Pretty paper facing out and chocolate hidden inside

I also got a charger plate and attached a stack of sticky note in the middle. I them stamped the sticky notes starting with the number 30.

The idea is for the children to remove one peg each day from the bowl. Of course devour the Hershey and then clip the peg around the charger plate. They can remove one sticky note each day to reveal the number of days left before Eid. Insha-Allah, the aim is to fill the circumference of the plate by the end of Ramadhan and create an Eid wreath.

 

Ramadhan Advent Calendar 2011 / 1432H

Alhamdulillah this is my fourth advent calendar that I have made for DS1. He looks forward to this every year. It has become a sort of tradition for us.

This year I used paper doilies (one of my favourite craft supply) to hold the favours. I made 30 paper doily cones. The pictures below shows the step.

Fold up the bottom bit of the doily

Shape the doily into a cone. Tape the edges to secure. It is easier to use sticky tape rather than glue.

I then used a fabric covered corkboard that my son already had in his room to pin the cones onto. For the numbers, I used some cut out squares and stamped them.

The Ramadhan title was from Ramadhan Planner Family.

This is the finished advent calendar.

Ramadhan Advent Calendar 2011/1432H

Close up

Besides little favours, just as last year I have placed a Ramadhan related question in each cone.

I just realized that I had not posted the advent calendar I made a couple of years ago. Below is a blurred image of it taken with a cellphone. I must have not had a working camera.

Ramadhan Advent Calendar 2009/1430H

This was basically made using white paper bags. One bag for each day of Ramadhan. I pasted some Ramadhan themed graphics on each bag. I then clipped them onto a string over the window.

Since that year school was on for Eid, I also made these paper bags as favours for my sons entire class.