Hajj Activties # 7, 8, 9 and 10

And for the last round of activities!

7. Educating ourselves before we educating our little ones: I listened to a couple of lectures to re-remind myself about the details and and virtues of Hajj and these 10 days. Here's one that I really benefited from when talking to the kids about the rituals of Hajj.

HAJJ WORKSHOP

8. Hajj ritual setup: By using the kids blocks, making a few things and printing Day 1 to 5 cards from Islamic Bulletin Board, we setup our Hajj table. This was by far the best teaching tool we had about Hajj. It was very hands on for them. So many people did Hajj on our table, AR took almost everyone he knows to Hajj. 

Make a Kabbah and learn the hitory though story telling. You can use cardboard box, construction paper. I played safe and painted a wood box black and added some gold to represent the kabah. it. Its very sturdy. Make some hujajj in ihram we added  their wives. 

Using the kids wooden blocks we made Mina and Jamarat. You will be able to find many things to represent these if you look around the house.

We used 2 big rocks from our rock collection to represent Safa and Marwa mountains 

The empty area is where Arafah is, the Hujjaj stand there and make dua. Muzdalifah is where the people are sleeping.

Felt sacrificial animals, the camel is missing.

This project is very easy, frugal and green. We try to keep things around our home as pure and simple as they can be, the goes for play, learning, cooking and cleaning.

9. Hajj Felt story board: Using our felt story board we did some hajj related stories and a life time journey of Hajj in our imagination. Unfortunately I was not able to take pictures and now we are out of town. It was a time consuming project for prepare for me, because I had to cut out each part separately.

10. Memorize and Chant the Talbiyah, Tahleel, Tahmeed and Takbeer : The Prophet SAW said: "There are no days on which righteous deeds are greater in the sight of Allaah and dearer to Him 

than on these ten days. So, intensify Tahleel and Tahmeed."

  

• Tahleel - La IlaahaIllaAllaah "there is no one worthy of being worshiped but Allaah"
• Takbeer -   Allaahu Akbar "Allaah is The Greatest"
• Thameed -  Alhamdu lillaah "praise be to Allaah"

I pray and hope that you all find these activities a good idea and helpful teaching tools for you families inshaAllah

I pray that Allah SWT gives us all to the taweeq (ability) to benefit from these best 10 days. And also accept  all our acts of worship in these day. Ameen 

Hajj Mabroor to ALL the Hujjaj inshaAllah. 

Hajj Activities # 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6

Since we normally travel during the hajj break, I have to do Hajj based activities and learning before we leave. So we started last week and break starts in two days. I thought I would share some things we have been doing before we head out inshaAllah.

Its really important for us to make children feel a change in the home environment as we approach these important occasion, marked in our religion/life, i.e, Ramadan, Hajj, both Eid, the fast of Ashura and so on. It should be a special festival like feeling in the home.

I thought it would be best to start of from the foundation, which are the pillars of Islam and some other activities.

2.  Make a pillars of Islam model: We used cardboard rolls same as toilet paper rolls but a bit hard and sturdy, to make this. Our focus was Hajj, and inshaAllah I plan on covering others one topic at a time giving it its time to be absorbed into the kids.

3. Read a book about the pillars of Islam: We read over our "The Pillars of Islam" book. I recommend to every Muslim family. Its beautifully illustrated and written in very simple words. It comes with a partner book "The Pillars of Iman".

4. Learning Roots Pyramid Pillars: We made the Pyramid Pillars and talked about them a bit, again the main focus was Hajj.

5. Watch this video.  

Part 1

Part 2

6. Listening and singing these Nasheeds everyday. 

this

this 

And this our favorite <3! 

InshaAllah stay tuned for the last few.

Hajj Activity #1: DIY Hajj Banner

Last week we made this Hajj banner to welcome the ten best days of the year. The theme of course is Hajj but I also added the Hajj Rituals. Every morning we talk about each place and see some pictures we have from our trips to Arafah, Mina and Muzdalifah. When we did Hajj last year we took AR with us to do Jamarat, so he remembers a lot of the things very clearly.

To make the banner I used felt, needle embroidery floss, a stiring and some templates. Then I cut out the Hajj route (Arafah, Mina, Muzdhalifah and Jamarat) and the sacrificial animals using templates I had printed. You can draw yours if you are good at it. I found the templates easier and faster! I used assorted sizes and colors for the base and glued the sacrificial animals and the Hajj route on them.

AR suggested to write the names of everything on it, of course Mama loved his suggestion and thought of embroiding the names on the base. H is in love with the little felt kaba we had to represent haram.

Banners can be made from any medium, paper, fabric, foam sheets in any design, I chose Grey, yellow, white, black and blue to match our living room colors. Banners can be fun, beautiful decor and educational, H has learned so much about the Hajj with us in the last few days mashaAllah through just being part of the morning Hajj discussion.

Nurturing children: Why "early learning" doesn't help

Great Article. 

Nurturing children: Why "early learning" doesn't help 

5 Powerful ways to connect more deeply with you children

5 Powerful Ways to Connect More Deeply with Your Children

Take a 2 minutes and read these 5 beautiful points of great reminder. We tend to forget these little things in the daily hassle and bassel of life whether we want to accept this fact or not! It is the truth. 

I like point 5, its a very different prospective.

Homemade Eczema and Winter Salve

With winter around the corner I thought it would be nice to share a recipe for this Homemade Salve we make to help H with her dry skin/eczema she gets here in Tabuk's dry weather. The best part is you ONLY need three  ingredients!! H has been using it for 3 years now. One badge lasts us a bit over 6 months, because its applied to her whole body almost.

This time we added one more ingredient to it and found even better results. After consulting with my homeopathic doctor and sharing with her H's positive experience with the homeopathic calendula ointment, I added  Calendula Mother-tincture too the salve to the original recipe.

MashaAllah!! In less then three days her skin got smooth again. The only place she's having an issue with is her little bum, every time she uses the toilet, the water makes it dry. Its not at all as bad as it was before we made the salve.

So, what is this recipe you all must be wondering?? Well, here  it is, its shared Sonoma Garden Blog,. We have tried a lot of her wonderful easy and simple homemade recipes she shares, from food to personal care products. The Lip balm is really nice too and works great with my and AR's dry lips.

DIY: Felt Bean Bags

I made these bean bags for us to play different games. They are great for outdoors and indoors. They are super simple and fun to make. It's a great feeling to see your child play with something that's especially handmade  for them. The kids love the way they feel and the little sound it makes when its moved. We used felt, but they can be made with other fabrics as well. Hope you enjoy making them for your little ones.

Here's what you'll need:

Felt in assorted colors
Scissors
Strong thread or embroidery floss
Needle
(Optional: Sewing machine if you don't want to hand stitch the pieces together.)

Once you have all the supplies cut 2 pieces of felt in the shape you would like your bean bags to be. Then start stitching the side using the blanket stitch (I really like the way it looks on the finished bean bag). Before closing the bag fill it with rice/beans/ lentils and then stitch it close.

Here are some fun things that can be done with bean bags.

1. Balancing game - walking with the bean bag on the head, we count, say our letters, Haroof and recite while playing our balancing game.
2. Bean Bag toss - in baskets or in a scoring bean bag toss we made from a cardboard box.
3. Pass the bean bag in a circle - we made up a few fun ways to do the passes
4. Played catch the bean bag
5. We passed them saying colors in English and Arabic. Its a great for color recognition.
6. Counting by 2s, 5s, 10s can be made fun too with bean bags.

We're back!

Bismillah,

Assalamualikum wa rahmatullahe wa barakatuhu

It's been a looooong time! The last few months have been very busy and full of Summer fun. We were on summer vacation in Toronto, Canada, and now back home and settled and in a rhythm Alhumdulillah. As most of our time was spent outdoors, running errands and meeting friends and families, I had no time to blog. As much as I missed it at times but everything kept me so busy. I am happy to be back and blogging.

Alhudmulilalh, after all the unpacking, we a back in our daily rhythm. The beauty of having a rhythm in life is, it can travel with you where ever you go (at least some parts). This was one thing that really helped me in on our vacation too. Although it was not always easy, but if we did some of our main activities, like the morning circle, our bedtime ritual even if they were a  condensed version. the kids were much more collected, calm and content on those days. The days we would miss them it would be totally apparent in there behavior.

Lakeshore! Miss it!

A small herb garden in Royal Botanical Gardens

Another wonder of Allah SWT's nature, Webster falls. no matter how many times you go there, it still  refreshing

Our road trip to Orlando in Pictures.

The Swan family we met while canoeing in a river in Ann Arbor,  Michigan

Peach Honey sticks we bought at a farmers market in Atlanta Georgia for a healthy sweet treat!

Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The falls were a sign of Allah SWT Qudrah. SubhanaAllah  they are a beautiful. You have to walk in a cave for a mile and then the Fall comes. It was beautiful!

Gem and stone search at the Falls.

Children's Museum in Tampa, Florida

Animal Kingdom, this was the kids favorite place.

Animal Kingdom, we didn't want to take the kids to Disney, so we found other places.   Although Animal Kingdom is part of Disney, its still has a touch of nature.

This tree is 2000 years old 

Sea World

Fascinated by Dolphins as usual!

On the way back we drove through Washington and we stopped to see the Native Indian museum which had a really nice children's area where they had there own personal passports, they really enjoyed stamping there passports. We also went to the Natural History Museum and the Space Museum.

Natural History Museum

So this was a little picture summary of our summer trip. Of course there a lot of other things we did and places we went and people we met, it hard to remember and go through every thing. These were some main highlight of this Summer.

Ramadan prep, decor and family Eid gift exchange night is a huge part of our annual rhythm.

Until next post please remember us in your duas

Summer Nature Table

Our summer nature table. Felt Garland AR insists on putting around the table.

We have a table set in the Rawdah as our nature table. Mostly, we use it for seasons but since we don't have all season here we also use it as a general nature table where the kids put things on it from our nature walks, or anything that reminds them of Allah SWT and His creation.

Nature table's are a great way to let kids explore Allah SWT's creation and the beauty He has add in everything thing He has created. 

Some yummy sweet and juicy hand picked apricots by the kids from a farm field trip we had with a some families a few days ago.

Extra large figs, also hand picked from a farm. Felt strawberries I had made as a their Jummah special for food play.

We also have sea shells and corals that the kids have collected on their beach trips. MashaAllah we have a HUGE colletion of some amazing looking shells.

A day at the Farm

Farms are a great place to visit for the whole family. Every one can find something of their interest. They are full of signs from Allah SWT. I feel whenever we step outdoors and explore the nature; the sandy and rocky beaches, the gardens, the farms, the mountains which were hidden under the deep oceans centruies ago, the desserts filled with sand dunes or even just staring at the blue sky that fills with twinkling stars at night... you can't avoid feeling The Power and Might of the One who created this all. SubhanaAllah!! These are indeed signs for those who have reflect, as Allah SWT reminds us again and again in the Quran.

We recently visited another farm with my parents and my brother's family, who were over for a stay. We thought it would be nice to try to go together and take all the kids (mashaAllah 6 of them) for old times sake. The kids have visited farms 4 to 5 times together, all over the world. It was a wonderful day... except I came home with red bulging eyes, sneezing and runny nose, it was an awful allergy attack. Alhumdulillah much better now.

Here's a sneak peak of our Farm adventure.

Figs are in season!! If you have ever eaten fresh figs you will know how addictive they are!

Yum! almost ripe.

Fuzzy peaches.

They were so sweet and ripe, we practically had dinner with them!

Pomegranate flower and buds which turn into Pomegranate. Did you know Pomegranate flowers make really delicious tea?

Under the shade of grape vines... Reminded me of how in Jannah Allah SWT says the fruit will be hanging  from above us and we will just reach out to eat it. 

Plums

Baby Dates 

Wheat fields

In love with the goats and sheep! She kept Maa-ing and Baa-ing with them.

Kids feeding the goats. They also got to pet a baby lamb.