Book Review: The Content of Character Copybook Ethical Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad

Sandala.org just came out with their new edition

"The Content of the Character" is a Hadeeth (sayings of Muhammad peace and blessing be upon him) compilation which is translated by Shaykh Hamza. It is phenomenal in many ways, its a book children can use to memorize, read and write Hadeeth in arabic and english that will help shape thier character, inshaAllah. The best part is that not just the kids but even I have benefitted very much  from the book by using it as calligraphy practice. This book is also a part of Kinza Academy Curriculum (now known as Education Revisited) by Elizabeth Hanson. 

The only thing I would like different in their future editions would be, if they could use a different and more child friendly binding, to make the book easier to use.

Sample from inside the book

We don't write inside the book we use separate paper to write on, so we can use the book in the future. I love this because we can sit together and take one hadeeth per week or two and actually focus on memorizing, sing it, writing it and most of all encourage each other to put the knowledge into action.

Product review: Arabic Alphabet Blocks

We found this a great learning-through-play tool for the kids to learn Arabic. We had been looking for a good quality wooden Arabic Haroof block set for the kids for a long time and we finally found  one, alhumdulillah. Its an awesome toy!

AR matching the shapes to form a word. Its like puzzle with endless possibilities of word formation.

H lacing the blocks.

Its comes with pictures and word that they can match, I  am not too big on this write now, right now they are just enjoying the different shapes.

DIY reusable workbook sheets

I cut opened the kids workbook to laminate it for reuse. It's hard to find nice letter tracing workbooks. We found a really nice Arabic workbook as well and I had been looking for something like this for so long. Alhumdulillah Allah SWT guided us to it.

Although I prefer writing with pencil for kids but I found that AR has been able to practice his curves and straight lines on these sheets without getting too stressed from writing. I never forced or force him to write, we have to help him sharpen his fine motor skills, it gets a bit challenging for all of us due to his strabismus (lazy eye).

It's an eye condition, where the brain sends less single to one eye and it starts to drift in wards or outwards. The other thing it does is, it makes it a bit challenging for him to make hand and eye coordination. He also has weak eyes sight, which has improved and inshaAllah will improve more. MashaAllah we are still proud of him because he has come a long way with making good hand and eye coordination. He sometimes feels frustrate when he can't get to fit one piece of puzzle into the other because he misses it due to the drifting of his left eye ball. 


A lot of time people expect a lot from him, even me and my husband, but sometimes I feel, we should think of him more gently, think of him as a child with a weakness in his body...which is not something small. We take these things (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, and feet) for granted, we us them as if we had the right to have them. 


InshaAllah I will be starting him on Homeopathic remedy course and also a natural eye support supplement. I am currently giving him sunflower seeds and homemade carrot juice almost everyday.

sorry about the tangent :)

I even took a set of these with me to Canada and we would practice them there, whenever he was ready to sit with me for a bit.

While AR practices H wants to imitate him so we give one to her as well to scribble on.

May Allah grant him complete shifa (cure), and teach us the proper manner to deal with his situation. Ameen.

AR goes to school...

We have decided to put AR in school for this year, which I was totally not ready for, and neither was he or H. He goes to school 5 days for 4 hours in the mornings. The reason why we made this decision is to help him pick up Arabic (inshaAllah). Its a good school Alhumdulillah, he really likes his teacher, he keeps talking about his friends and Abla Emaan (his teacher). 


It took us two weeks to make our final decision, we did istikharah (Praying 2 rakkah and reciting a dua, seeking Allah SWT's guidance in a any matter) and Allah SWT has put contentment in our hearts. Alhumdulillah, we can already see him picking up Arabic, he said to H earlier today "istani" meaning wait! Those words assured us that inshaAllah there is khair in it for all of us. Researchers of the bilingual field suggest that, if a child it to exposed to a language for 3 hours a day for 18 years by a mother tongue speaker of that language, it becomes the child's mother tongue.


After AR's school hours at home we are doing the same stuff we were doing before, different activities, islam in life, quran and play! We don't want to over exhaust/burden him so most of the activities are light and fun. I am making it a point to ask him  if he wants to continue, or just watch him closely to see if he is interested or not.


For the first week I went to school with him, I would sit outside in the playground and H played in the park area. Second week I went with him the first day only, since then he had been going on his own. However on Wednesday last week, he wouldn't let Baba drive away, (my husband said it was too painful to see him cry so he brought him home) which I think was a good decision he made. I took him to school last 2 days, I talked and explained to him that he will enjoy a lot inshaAllah. Alhumdulillah he came home very happy. Today they had a little party and gift exchange, following the hadeeth of Prophent Muhammad SAW "Give gifts to one another, and you will lobe one another" Sahih Bukhari. 

As for H and I at home...we miss AR soooo much. For me, I had some things in mind to keep myself busy and productive, some goals to reach. I think about him often while working. H on the other hand really misses him. She keeps bringing things that AR plays with and says "baee's" or "bhaiya ka" or point to his belongings. I think its harder for second and third child to entertain themselves because they're used to having company from the beginning. InshaAllah she will get better, I have things to keep her busy now. We started a few activities together (I will post about this subject in detail later).


We are all really proud of him, as a mother its hard to let go of our children sometimes, however we have to realize that it's an important phase of life. It will help them be independent, strong and more confident with the permission of Allah SWT. We canNOT possible run after our kids in every aspect of their lives, as much as we would want to, we have accept it as a part of them growing up. The thing that we should do and teach our kids to do is seek Allah SWT protetion at ALL times, if we can succeed in teaching them this then even when they are far from us we know deep down inside in our hearts that Allah SWT will protect them.

In the morning before AR leaves I make him say all his protection duas, if he's getting late then, he does them in the car with Baba. We repeatedly tell him even if we are not there with you, know, that Allah SWT is ALWAYS with you, and He will protect you better than us, because He loves you more than us.

May Allah protect ALL our kids, from any evil of His creation, from the whispers of Shaitan, from the fitnah of others, O Allah protect us all from the Fitan (trails) of this duniya and grant us Your Shade on the Day of judgement. Ameen!

We Miss you Ramadan!!

As the blessed month of Ramadan is approaching close I really wanted to do something with AR to teach him about how special and important this month is.  We will be traveling soon and will be away from home for Ramadan and Eid. So, I decided to do somethings with him before we left, because I will not be able to do all this where we are going, since all our teaching resources are in our home. Alhumdulillah for being able to travel!

These are some things we have started of with:

He has been listening to this beautiful Nasheed by Zaky says "We Miss you Ramadan, we love you Ramadan"

A beautiful nasheed about Ramadan  in arabic, I translated the nasheed for him a few times. 

SO CUTE! We all enjoyed this a lot! It was also nice for him to see kids fasting

Aliya's Ramadan Dairy by Abdullah Puppet, checkout a his website.

Ramadan came..

Abdullah's Arabic letters, one letter each day Ramadan. MashaAllah AR really enjoys Abdullah Puppet. 

These are some videos we have been watching and listening to recently to bring in the kiddies (and ourselves) in Ramadan spirit even Hanan is starting to enjoy it MashaAllah!

Train track letters

Letter practice using train tracks. We used AR's train track set we bought him last year for Eid-ul-fitr and made letters with it. I showed him that if he connected the tracks in different ways they make things, shapes and letters. He was thinking so hard to figure how to connect the tracks to form letters, it was really nice mashaAllah. We also practiced letter tracing using the trains. We also had H trace the letters and make them/break them with us, however she was more interested in breaking then making. :)

Arabic letter puzzle

We bought this Arabic puzzle for the kids... it was a bit expensive (by that I mean $5) but they will inshaAllah benefit from it. I was looking for the pegs one but didn't find it!

I find puzzles a great learning tool, wouldn't you agree?? InshaAllah we will be sharing it with him on Friday... this will be his Yawm ul Jummah special!

Learing and playing

We used  play-dough to learn letters and to learn the shapes of the letters.

we used fridge magnets to imprint the letters in play-dough.

 My letters kept getting stuck in the alphabet frame, so AR taught me how to press it in gentle and lift slowly!

We made letters out of play-dough

We also wrote letters on a ziplock which I filled up with hair gel and added a few drops of food coloring. Initially it took him some time to learn how to press on the gel to make letters or shapes. We also used the decor crystals to trace the letters we had made by pressing on the gel filled ziplock.