Eid Lantern / Fanoos

As a book activity for The White Moon of Ramadan I had planned to make fanoos as a craft. However my DS1 was not up to it as he was not thrilled with the story that he equated to Halloween celebration.

If anyone is interested in making fanoos with your children, Insya-Allah you can find a template here. SmartArk has a printable Eid Mubarak lantern template that is ready to go as well.

Since DS1 was not up to making fanoos, we made simple Chinese lanterns instead as Eid decoration. Here is a picture of a basic one we made.

You would need:

6 square construction papers (ours was 5×5 inches)

Glue, scissors, tape, some kind of tassel and string to hang lantern from.

Steps:

1. Fold each corner of a square paper into the center. Now you will have a paper with four triangular shaped flaps. Repeat this with remainder 5 squares.

2. Using glue attach each flap to another piece of square. Repeat until you have used up all pieces of square papers that you folded earlier. Essentially this is building a cube by using the corners of a square rather than the sides.

3. Attached tassel. We made ours using strips of construction paper that we taped together and attached to the lantern.

4. Make a hole in one flap and thread string to hand. We used a pipe cleaner to hang our lantern.

5. Decorate the sides for whatever celebration you are having.

We used to make these lanterns for fun around Chinese New Year time. You can make lots of these and attach them to one another to create bigger, more intricate lanterns. Usually ang pow packets (money packets) are used to make these lanterns. You can view a lot more beautiful ang pow lanterns here.

This would be a simple craft to do if you are looking at introducing a child to the Chinese culture . . . say in Social Studies may be.

 

The White Nights of Ramadan

I ordered this book from the library during Ramadan.

Let me first say that the illustrations were beautiful. The story line was simple and captured the thoughts and actions of the child in the story – Noor.

This book is about a Ramadan related celebration in the Arabian Gulf region. The celebration itself is known as Girgian which translates to sweets or candies. It is a good book for those who want to learn more about the Gulf Arab traditions and culture. And we did.

Based on the title though I assumed that it was going to have an Islamic perspective of Ramadan. To be fair it did speak a little about charity and showed Noor praying salah and made mentioned of terms like muezzin and suhoor. However I would not pick this book if you are looking to create some conversation with your child about how to live Ramadan.

These are some of the pages from the book.

Noor and her brothers making colourful bags for Girgian night.

More colourful more candies.

Noor and her brothers, all dressed up and out on Girgian night collecting candies.

Now did this book create a conversation between my son and me? It actually created a discussion and a loudly voiced opinion from DS1. “This isn’t for us. This is like Halloween!”. That was the end of that conversation.

 

Eid Stained Glass Craft

This craft Subhanallah came about after I discovered a stack of Quality Street cellophane wrappers that I had saved ages ago. I had the idea for the craft but did not know how to execute it. When I googled I came to Fauxed Stained Glass. This website gave me some ideas. However I needed something more simplified and one that catered to Eid greetings without investing in a Cricut machine.

This is how I did this project with my children.

Materials:

Overhead transparencies, cellophane papers, mod podge, paint brush or sponge applicator, black construction paper, scissors and a craft knife.

Steps:

1. Create a template of greetings that you want and print it on an overhead projector transparency. The rough side of the transparency usually faces up on the printer tray.

This is my template. You are most welcome to use it. I bolded the frames to make it look like stained glass. Easier than using electrician tape I guess.

Eid Stained Glass Template

2. Turn the printout the wrong side up. Apply a thin layer of mod pogde. Place a piece of cellophane paper. Keep repeating this until you have covered the entire surface of the template. You will have to apply mod podge over existing cellophane paper to apply more over it. The more random it is, the results look better.

Just a tip. Try to cover the Eid greeting part with lighter colour cellophane. This will allow the design to show better when light shines through Insya-Allah.

DS1 trimming cellophane paper. His was more squarish cellophane pieces than random. He liked them that way.

DS2 applying mod podge. I did say a thin layer of mod podge. Don’t worry ours was a mod podge pond! But Alhamdulillah the end result was fine and the children had fun.

3. Once you’ve done the gluing down of the cellophane. Let the transparency dry. Meanwhile you can cut out the shape of your “stained glass” on a black construction paper using a craft knife. Once dry, attach transparency to the construction paper. The “right side” i.e. smooth surfaced should be on the outer side within the construction paper frame.

4. Hang it up on your window or sliding door and enjoy. Alhamdulillah this was our finished work.

I have made the above templates and a couple more with the Eid greetings in Arabic as well as in English. Insha-Allah I hope this will be of a help to those who do not read Arabic or for those who want to make this craft in a class with children of different faith as well.

Stained Glass Template – English & Arabic