AR has always had chipped lips issue, many underlying issues for that. However, I also wanted something topical to use. We tried many different brands, both organic and non-organic but nothing seem to help really. Then I started making our own at home after the eczema salve we made for H. I have made many different variation until (I think) I mastered the ingredients blends to get the best results and here is my recipe.
Ingredients laid out for kids
Ingredients:
5 tbsp Beeswax
6 tbsp Coconut oil
4 tbsp Olive oil / Almond oil
4 tbsp Coco Butter
2 tbsp Shea Butter
Containers to pour into, you can find many options, we recycled these mini honey jars and previously used EOS old containers.
Instructions:
Melt ingredients 1, 2, 3 and 4 in a microwave (15 seconds intervals, because can get really hot) or a double broiler.
Add shea butter at the end to the hot liquid to avoid it from turning into beads.
Add essential oils (keeping in mind what oils are safe for children) and vitamin E at the end because heat destroys their properties.
Pour into containers, let it cool and they are ready to use.
I usually add a little shimmer for H using broken eye shades (which I save for this)
Final product. Notice the messy edges... I love the beauty of kids hands.
If I make Homemade body products for gifting or selling, I prefer not letting the kids help much to keep things clean. Beeswax can get quite messy when mixed with greasy ingredients, so be prepared for the mess when kids taking part.
Learning points
We also talked about, smiling is sunnah Hadeeth
Purifying intention to have beautiful smiles when making to please Allah SWT
Instill the idea of making your own things so you know what you are using.
Be producers not consumers
For older children great math lesson on how much you save by this and how much one lip balm container cost.
This year our main lessons have revolved around writing and reading year (not reading and writing). We approached literacy this way because this is how AR liked and enjoyed it. Plus that is how language evolved, through storytelling, writing and then reading. Alhumdulillah, AR has gotten good at writing (still learning) and now reading... He has written many of his own small books and really enjoys reading them.
Recently I introduced word families in an interactive way to see if he would be interested in them. He totally loved them. I just leave them out in a bin on the table and he just picks them up randomly and tries to play and read the words.
Here is the link to these great interactive word family houses. And the second picture is from a book I just had to cut and color them.
How and when did you introduce literacy to your little ones? Please share in comments.
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.
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.
Balancing game - walking with the bean bag on the head, we count, say our letters, Haroof and recite while playing our balancing game.
Bean Bag toss - in baskets or in a scoring bean bag toss we made from a cardboard box.
Pass the bean bag in a circle - we made up a few fun ways to do the passes
Played catch the bean bag
We passed them saying colors in English and Arabic. Its a great for color recognition.
Counting by 2s, 5s, 10s can be made fun too with bean bags.
A great project to do with kids at home to introduce woodwork. Its a great tool to learn Math through play. It gives children a chance to practice holding yarn and weave it around the nails, they can learn yarn tension before they actually start knitting.
AR helped me mark the wood circle and then hammered the nails in place with me. Then we made many different shapes on it using different colored yarn, I chose bright spring colors to go with our spring theme these days. Even H played with it.
A few months ago I made H this baby sling for her dolls, at first she didn't understand it but when I made one for AR and she saw him using it she started enjoying it a lot more. Its a super easy and fun project to do for our girls. I stitched this one with a pattern I have made myself. I also really like this easy tutorial at Progressivepioneer for a different style of a sling, maybe I'll give it a try when H is a bit older.
The whole thing cost $0! I used scraps left over from some other projects. The printed part is cotton and the black is jersey.
I have always wanted one of these baby wraps with both my babies but they were just too out of budget for us both times. Plus we got 3 of those backpack carriers, so we just used that despite the fact I did't really like them. Now that its so worn out, we might get this wrap. Simply love them! I love how the baby has such closeness to the mother/parent compared to the backpack carriers.
Has anyone used one of these baby wraps? How was your experience with them?
I have always wanted to these German dolls (also known as Waldorf dolls) for H, they are very expensive, they cost $130 to $250 a piece. I love this one from Etsy and this one from Nobby Organics.
A month or so ago I had a newsletter in my email about a Doll Making workshop in London Ontario offered by Waldorf in March, for only $95!! Its cheaper then the doll itself! I would love to attend this workshop and make my own dolls for my kids and relatives. Check it out here, if you are interested in taking the workshop and live in Ontario.
Since I had made the felt puppets for story time for the kids (will share inshaAllah), I thought, why not try making a doll. I looked up some tutorials and made my first handmade doll for my doll!! Of course I didn't have all the things needed and neither do I have craft store like Loomis or Micheals to ran to for crafty needs. This was a project that made me pull out my creative side and I was able to complete this doll making project, Alhumdulillah. We are officailly becoming producers from consumers.
Here is how I made in a few steps:
I used a old skin colored t-shirt of mine from our donation box and cut out the arms separately, torso and legs together and a big circle for the head. I stuffed an old sock of H, (small size) with the filling. and tied it close, and then I tied a strong thread in the middle of it form an head. You can see a curved in line by the eye area. I then cover it with the skin color fabric. If you can get the proper equipment, it come with a tube for the head, which works great and doesn't bunch up at the back. I stitched the arms and body on the machine, and the kids helped me stuff the whole thing. They are in love with it.
Stitched it all toegther, arms, then the body. Its a very easy project if you have little bit of back ground in stitching you can do it. It took me total one hour, and i did it over 2 days, and ofcourse the kids were a great help so I had to slow down for them, they stuffed the doll for me, mashaAllah.
Took this old dress of H form the donation box and cut out 2 dresses for H's dolls.
It cost me $0! and my little doll is so happy with it mashaAllah. Homemade toys can be super frugal!
We have been wanting to get the kids an easel, but haven't found one that we an get here for a reasonable price. So I decided to designate a wall space for them as an easel. We put an old table cloth on the floor to catch any spills and drips from their masterpieces. Alhumdulillah they're enjoying their DIY easel.
Kids love paints and painting, it give them a creative outlet and also encourages imagination. AR loves talking about his artworks, and we love displaying them. They also make wonderful gifts and gift wraps!
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.
Alhumdulillah, so far we have had a great vacation, except the fact that we are missing my parents a LOT! (Alhumdulillah A'ala kuli haal).
With the blessed month upon us, and almost half way in it and our busy Ramadan routines, I feel the Ramadan spirits are going down. I think its very important to remind ourseleves again and again that this whole month is blessed and its not going to come back till next year. And, who knows if we will live to see the next Ramadan or not. So to ALL my beloved readers keep up the spirits and don't let your nafs take the best of you this month. Remember! "The devils are chained and Jahnam (Hell) is locked for ALL of Ramadan!" so WE are in-charge / responsible for our actions this month.
Spending the month of Ramadan away from home can me very difficult! I miss my kitchen, home, rounitne, and most of all my resourceful 'Rawdah'. Alhumdulillah, we are still having a great time here with my inlaws and friendly sisterhood. We have not done much sit down and learn stuff with the kids but did lots of other things to make them feel the importance of this holy month. I had so many things I wanted to do with them, so many ideas to celebrate this month... Qadr Allahu masha fa'al
Here are somethings we did... and are doing.
1) We made a Ramadan banner for the house before Ramadan started to Welcome Ramadan. I stuck to my '20 minutes a day' rule and we were done in 2 days!
2) We attended a 'Welcome O Ramadan' playgroup/Ramadan Party that my friend had hosted. They kids had a great time, they did crafts, circle time, Ramadan nursery ryhmes, and had lots of healthy snacks.
3) We have been going to lots of Iftar parties! Everyone waited till Ramadan to invite us over and now mashaAllah we have invitations almost everyday! Alhumdulillah.
4) We had prepared a Ramadan special gift for both the kids, so they feel that its something very special for us.
5) AR has been reading "The Gift of Ramadan" and "The night of decree" with me and Baba. Since he is older I try to have a little discussion with him here and there about
Ramadan being a special month
The moon
The extra hasnaat (good deeds) we get in this month for doing the same acts we do in other months.
7) Ramadan crafts... coloring a masjid, and setting a pretend iftar table. AR painted a wooden car we had gotten him and we wrote Ramadan 2011 on it as a keep sake.
8) My friend gave me this amazing Ramadan chart from Little Explorer. Its a bit advance for AR but he still tries to go through the list by doing what he can do.
9) I wanted to give a Ramadan mubarak gift to family and friends, so I thought why not write the iftar dua on a nice paper and give it away. It was very inexpensive from our last year Ramadam mubarak gift. We gave out dates coated with coconut on a plate with a Ramadan Mubarak note.
10) We made a sadaqah jar for our brothers and sisters in Somalia. This has been great to teach him about the concept of charity/donation. We also played the game 'charity shop' by smart ark. I found it to be a great learning tool.
11) We made binocular to see the Ramadan moon and lanterns to lighten the house at night.
12) InshaAllah we'll be learning about the moon cycle.
So these are somethings we have been up to this Ramadan and this vacation. I pray to Allah swt that all of us can make the most out of the last half of this blessed month of mercy. We should strive utmost to get His mercy and our sins forgiven and recite the book of Allah as much as we can. Make the most out of this month and the last 10 days!
Living in Saudi Arabia I really realized the value of recycling and decomposing facilities that are available in the west. I pray they implement this over here too soon inshaAllah! Although, however, with the recycling system we also tend to recycle a lot of stuff that we can easily re-use one way or another. Today, I will share with you, how I have reused / up-cycled sturdy boxes from things we bought and turned them into storage solutions and homes for varies items. Its always convenient, easy for children and their Baba! to access items when they know where something belongs, keep things from mixing and getting lost.
You will need:
Recyclable boxes of different sizes
Scissors
Contact paper or fabric. We used fabric contact role, which cost us about $7 for a giant role. I was not too particular about the color and design, because the nice design ones were TOO expensive.
A pen for marking
Decorative ribbons and flowers (optional)
This is a great way to instill eco-consciousness in children as well from a young age. everything doesn't need to be bought. They can even personalize their own storage bins.
For the steps... I will let the pictures do most of the talking.
So I bought this box on sale for ONLY 6 riyals, slightly damaged, decided to up-cycle it by covering the burn on the lid.
This makes perfect storage for our future fabric flower projects, inshaAllah.
I have a book on how to make different types of flowers from fabric, felt, ribbon and paper and some childhood experience. There are many wonderful blogs with tutorials teaching how to make flowers. Here is a link to one, she has a tutorial for a ribbon rose, you can use the same tutorial for fabric. The turquoise flower I made is the similar style but with a long piece of 2 inch wide fabric. Enjoy!
BTW, this is another project done sticking to the 20 mins a day rule, Alhumdulillah.
AR's first ever book, illustrated by mama! I have to add that this was lots of fun and it also turned out to be a GREAT learning aid! We are definitely going to be making more inshaAllah.
You will need:
Foam paper
Permanent marker
Hand single hole puncher
Fiber yarn (from the rice bag)
Colors to color the pictures
Construction paper to cut the eggs, leaves and caterpillar out,
On the bookshelf I used colored-popsicles and wrote on them with permanent marker. This way all the subjects remain separate and easily accessible. I have all math related books, workbooks, activities and puzzles in one shelf and so on.
I use this "paper tak" to stick things on the walls and things. I like them more then tapes or double sided tapes because it doesn't effect the walls/leave marks on them. They even stick Bristol Boards!!
What are some ways you label your items at home for your children and adults?
