Our home-activities these days

Aside from AR's school, his tracing practice, most of our time is just spent on creative and imaginative play. I have always been a big advocate of arts and crafts as one of the most important tool for young children to learn through. Some mom's have said to me that we don't have time to do too much crafts with kids or some say they just can't stand the mess! Well if one plans on having children, mess is part of the package.

I would recommend this wonderful book to all homeschooling mommy's and also non-homeschooling to encourage them to think of "Art" as an important part of learning and growing. InshaAllah this book will help you all to look at Art in a different way, it will help you see how art promotes critical thinking, problem solving, gives confidence and creative thinking. This book has helped me as much as I found the authors techniques working with my children.

Susan Striker is the author of the famous book "Anti-coloring Book", 200,000 copies of it book have been sold.

I would also like to clarify the concept of art, art doesn't just mean painting on a canvas. When the word 'Art' is used in the concept of learning, it can consist of anything that promotes creative thinking. Like for instance, knitting is an art, sewing is an art, wood work is an art, so on.

These are some things that have been keeping us busy at home.

• Knitting and crocheting - When I was young I knew how to knit, crochet and also use to make latch hook projects. However, its been years since I had done anything of this sort. I think it was also because when we moved to the west, these things are "grandma's things". Very few institutes and parents encourage  these activities in the west for their children. So for now we are all learning together and will share some of our projects.
• Mud
• Weaving - is also another fun activity we are practicing and learning together
• Lazure wall painting - ALL kids have a dream to scribble or paint on the wall. So here is a great painting techniques, which is safe for children of all ages and they love it. InshaAllah we will be converting one of the Rawdah's wall into a children's masterpiece. (Will post about it later inshaAllah)
• Small sewing projects
• Clay
• Play-stations/stands - We made play-stations around the Rawdah, so they spend sometime on each one.
• Canopy - We are in a process of making a playstand with a canopy, but for now we are using their igloo tent as a canopy.
• Nature's touch - We have been renovating their playroom and Rawdah and we tried to add a nature's touch to it. InshaAllah we will be sharing the picture soon.
• Beeswax modelings by stockmar - It's fun to play with, smells nice, its natural and it can be made soft easily and even I enjoy it. We also have stockmar's crayons, and they are really fun as well.