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. 

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.

Introducing embroidery to children

As a little girl growing up in Saudi Arabia in the early 90's life was very simple. People found happiness in little things such as, going to the park, picnic, going for a walk, biking, playing with sand, and lots of crafts to explore. One of the things I got to introduced to very young was thread and needle and the wonders it can produce. I learned most of it on my own, through making mistakes and then correcting them. When we moved to Canada, it took me sometime to absorb the fast paced life and the lack of barakah in time. It wasn't long before I found myself running each day to complete one days tasks just like everyone else.

During summer vacations was when I was able to find time for myself and my hobbies, I would mostly go back to thread work. Till this day I love embroidery and bead-work. I love the feelings and memories of childhood it brings back for me. I always found thread work very therapeutic, I think that goes for all forms of handwork.

A few months ago I started an embroidery project and one evening when I sat down to work on it, AR came and asked me what I was doing and if he could do it do. I asked him if he would like his own embroidery loop and he was so happy and excited about the idea.

He helped me prepare the embroidery loop with a square cotton fabric piece.

We went on for 30 minutes, he helped me thread the needle every time. H give it a try too,  however I feel shes still too young and she pulls the needle too close to her eyes. We embroidery once a week, when she's asleep.

He has instead to work on the same piece. MashaAllah he's so proud of his hard work, he shows everyone and tells them "when ALL the yellow thread is finished we will cut and glue the fabric at the back and hang it on the wall!" I was impressed to hear his sophisticated idea. InshaAllah we will hang it, and it will be hung in our living room like some of their other art projects.

I feel it encourages children and builds their confidence and shows them their master pieces that they worked on with their tiny hands and creative minds are valuable and worth being hung for display on the walls. And that they give life and bring beauty to their house/walls and that they are not just for the study area or the fridge.

Boy or girl both should learn how to handle a needle safely and work with it. Since we very well know our beloved Prophet SAW used to sew his own clothes and mend his own shoes. So its important to encourage these essentials of life from the very start. Especially because a child is physically more involved in these activities its more satisfying and pleasurable to (most) children then being forced to or bribed to write.

The best part is... its so cheap!

This where we normally keep their paintings. Its hard to hang stuff on the walls here so we placed them on the shelves until we bring in the construction worker to drill in the walls.

Ramadan is around the corner once again!! Can you believe it??

DIY: Wood Math board

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. 

We got the idea from this video. 

DIY: Kid's doll sling

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?

DIY: Baby Doll

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!

Knitting away...

I had posted before (Click here) about how we have been knitting and crocheting. So here are some or our projects we have been working on. I will also share some resources that are available to learn knitting and crocheting for beginners. Although I knew how to knit a little bit these tutorials were a great help for those who know how to work with yarn. We will also disscuss why and how we should introduce these skills to our little ones.

There are many reasons why we should introduce knitting to children. I feel its a skill that teaches a great deal of patience (I am talking from experience here!!). Children feel a great accomplished and confidence when they make something with their own hands (and so do adults). It also teaches problem solving, you make mistakes while knitting and you have to correct them with patience. Great for fine motor skills especially in boys. They make amazing gifts for children to give to family, friends and relatives. Its imporatnt to teach our children from the beginning to be producers then consumers as much as we can, also a it frugal.

However, before we start knitting with our children we might want to consider some steps to introducing knitting. I will inshaAllah share with you how I slowly introduced knitting and crocheting to my children step by step, we started in after we came back from our summer vacation, I had brought some tools and yarn back with me, Ihad purchase some stuff here too and it was easily available here too, Alhumdulillah.

1. Be a silent role model - Knit and crochet in front of them, and they will ask you what you are doing, take that opportunity to introduce the yarn, crochet hook or knitting needles. Children are more likely to do things they see parents doing. Whenever we go outside I keep the knitting (or any other) project with me in a drawstring bag, so when we are in the car I work on it while reciting/memorizing with the kids or just looking outside.

2. Getting comfortable - Let them get comfortable with the yarn and other tools by letting them touch them and experiment with them making sure you are with them to be safe.

3. Yarn craft - Doing yarn crafts, glue yarn on paper in different shapes,  paint with yarn, nailed wood panel yarn activity, inshaAllah I'll share this one later. Its a wonder math activity as well. You can also practice cutting yarn, we did a measuring cut yarn activity as well.

4. Introducing knitting - Now that the kids are comfortable with the concept of knitting and yarn, you can start knit with them. And the best way to start is finger knitting! No hooks or needles! From whatever research and asking around I have done, I found that the best age to start knitting with children is ages 6 to 7 but some children can start earlier, if the parents have focused on handwork at an early age. Wood weaving tools are also a great way to start knitting with young children
Here are some of the resources we used to start finger knitting. 

• Knitting with kids
• Famly Fun - DIY colorful Jump rope - we are working on this one right now together, we used some old tees and made yarn balls out of them we are still short on old tees. 
• Video 1 - A boy teaching finger knittiing it was a good way to get him encouraged

• Video 2 - Earthschooling finger knitting tutorial... love it how she does it with a story. Since AR is still young I keep him in my lap when we knit and we do it together, so far we have just made strings and he's still learning, it a great bonding time for us. We stop as soon as he says I am done, if we are singing then we get many stitches! MashaAllah its really fun!

Resources:

1. Online - Great knitting tutorial for beginners and those who know how to knit a little, uploaded by Cital 86, They have 12 tutotialsand they are very easy to follow

For crocheting these videos are very helpful

2. In person - Find a teacher who can teach you, knitting is very common here in Saudi, I was able to find someone who could teach me but it was not working out so I started using the tutorial I gave above. If you are living in North American you can find cafes and centers where they teach knitting, crocheting and felting and if you have kids they will teach them needle felting as well. Some even offer private class, all that will cost of course and its not always easy to go. Learning in person is a great way, if you can find someone who can teach you for free, that's great!  Knit-o-matic is a great place to start looking into for classes and more info.

3. Buying - In Saudi almost all stationary stores carry knitting tools and yarns. I buy ours from these two online stores, I bought some in summer last year, it has great variety and great prices. 

• http://www.herrschners.ca/
• http://www.knitpicks.com/knitting.cfm

Here are some things we have made:

My first knit project, A purse for H. MashaAllah TabarakAllaha she loves it and takes it everywhere with her.

Ball for AR

This was a fun and easy knit project. I knit with a garter stitch 6 squares in 3 colors. and with a needle and yarn I hand stitched the pieces together same colors opposite to each other. What you see is the ball inside out, I left the yarn pieces un-cut, they added to the fill.

Turned it inside out and filled it with wool roving until it felt firm, and then stitched it close. The good thing about knitting squares and rectangles is that you can acctually put them together and make so many things about of them, rugs, floor chairs, baby blankets and throws.

A colorful handmade ball!

Baby Bennie for H's doll.

One of the string AR made, this was a gift for H from him.

I felt like making baby booties, so I started..

One completed and still working on the other one, thinking of giving it to preggo friend!

I am making more toys, a rug and a blanket inshaAllah its a slow and long process. I want to inshaAllah make this pouf for our living room (check them out) one day.

DIY Tutorial: Monogram Pillow Case

Our 'Jummah special' for AR this past Jummah was a handmade monogram pillow cover made by Mama. I think this was by far the best gift he had gotten, his face was glowing mashaAllah, he took it from my hand a hugged the pillow and said "it says A  R mama... JazakaAllah khair" he was just so happy and excited about his new handmade by Mama pillow case.

The pleasure of taking time and making things to give your family and friends is priceless. And when done for  our children its truly worth seeing the expression on their beautiful faces "you MADE this for ME". When my husband came home from Jummah AR ran to him and said "Baba you know Mama made me a special A R pillow case..she made it last night even though she was sooooo tired". My husband and I were suprised to hear what he said, SubhanaAllah children are so caring and loving by fitra (nature)...its our duty as parents to nutrure this fitra they have.

I have always enjoyed makng my own things, I still have a skirt I had stitched in high-school. Last year I had started an etsy store named 'Handmadebits" alhumdulillah made a few sales but it was really taking from my time with the kids becoming a bit challenging from here, so I had to close it for the time and hope to go back up when Allah permits it inshaAllah.

InshaAllah if time permits I'll be sharing some of our previous handmade and future 'Jummah specials' and some tutorials.

Here's the tutorial for the Monogram pillow case. I didn't buy anything for this project, thats the best part!

You will need:

• Fabric (used or new) for the pillow case or cushion. (I used a fitted  i had lying around)
• GOOD fabric scissors
• Printed fabric for the monogram (I used an old dress of H)
• sewing machine!
• Iron

How to make it:

Step #1

Cut out two same size fabric pieces (square, rectangle,  circle) . Then iron it, when I stitch I  iron my piece after every stitch, it really helps balancing the whole piece.

Step #2

On a piece of paper draw a picture of how you want your final piece to look like and then stick to it. Trace your monogram letters on a paper free hand or print then if you want it to look perfect. I simply drew them straight on the fabirc with a fabric chalk free hand (you can see the orange marks), it washes of right away. Plus I like the natural look it gives when done free hand.

Step #3

Cut and pin your letters on the right side of the fabric. Design it how you want - you can just put the letters in the middle and leave the rest plain or add stripes on any side to give it some accent it will look amazing regardless...because you made it. If you choose to use trips or fabric for accent make sure you pin it to the fabric as well.

Step #4 

Stitch the letters on by keeping the setting of the machine on the 'zig-zag' stitch, this helps the letter stay firm and it looks nice. For the strips I used a straight stitch. 

Step #5

Put the right sides of the pillow case together and stitch the 2 long side and one short side close. Start stitching from the corner of the long side. Now stitch the fourth side half ways leaving enough space for the pillow to go in. You can hand stitch the opening close or use the machine, it up to you.

 You are all done!!

TA DAA!!

To be honest with you, you can make these any way you like... change the size, color, font, style and if you are feeling confident even the fabric! I used 100% cotton. This tutorial was just to give you an idea.

Stay tuned for our girls version of the monogram pillow!

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.

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.

Life cycle of a Butterfly

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,
• Stapler