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.

Learning through play

I still remember when I attended the homeschooling conference in Toronto, I met a sister there who said to me "Oh, your son is still too young, don't worry about anything right now, just let him play till he's about seven. After seven is when children are actually able to learn, at that point you can start academic work with him." At first, what she said came as a shock to me but as I learned and researched more, the more I started to agree with what the sister had said. 

A lot of you have asked me what do I do with the kids all day anyways?? InshaAllah I will answer that one day! However, I would like to say one thing that are many AMAZING mommies out there that inspire me every single day one way or another. Some online, some in person and some by phone. Love you all and May Allah increase you (us) all in your (our) good righteous efforts and accept them from you (us). And chose our children for His deen Ameen

Until I post about what kinda stuff we do at home, here's a great article that will inshaAllah help those with little ones enormously and also give you an idea what we do around our home most of the time. The author talks the importance of learning though play.

The levels of Jannah

Today morning the kids and I were playing with their blocks while talk about Jannah and fantasizing about ALL the things we can have in Jannah. We also talked about how to get to Jannah and the different levels of Jannah. We never mentioned the different levels of Jannah before, so when I started talking about the levels and how if a family member will be in the higher level of Jannah, the lower level family will be raised to the higher level to be joined with them. AR was listening to me very careful and he was so amazed. We talked in great detail about it for about 20 to 30 minutes and then I went to do some work.

5 minutes later AR called me to show me this and he said

AR: Mama look what I made.
Me: mashaAllah really nice, what is it?
AR: These are the levels of Jannah Mama. The mother was on the lower level (the blue tower) and the little girl was on the higher level and Allah raised the mother to the girls level. They were both sad a bit before and now they got soooo happy to be together mashaAllah.  

I was speechless. My eyes filled with tears at the way he explained the process to me, lifting the mother with joy and raising her at the girl's level. MashaAllah TabarakaAllahu, he not just understood the concept but he gave it such and amazing visual from his imagination. I didn't do anything like this with him, it was all verbal with hand movements. It an amazing feeling to see your child grow in understanding step by step.

This really made me think something at very deeper level, by fitarah (nature) children want to learn about Allah and the Messenger (saw), Aakhirah, Jannah and Jahanm, good and evil, and they find a satisfaction in learning these concepts, a contentment, just as we do.

As parents when we are passionate about something, unknowingly we transfer it our children and they absorb our passion in themselves. So if we choose this duniya (life of this world) to be the most important thing to us, they will too and if we choose the Aakhirah (the hereafter), they will too. This absolutely doesn't mean we should become monks and go live in the forest! And have nothing to do with this duniya and the things in it! No, this is not what it means. We need to find a balance. We need this duniya to attain the Aakhirah and Allah swt's pleasure, but we should find a moderate path between the two and our inclination should be towards the Aakhirah more than the duniya.

O Allah fill our heart and minds with Your love and the love of the Prophet saw. And increase us in the desire to meet You. Teach us those ways by which we can instill this in our hearts and the hearts of our children and our spouses. O Allah protect us from the blazing fire and unit us in Jannah and raise our ranks in Jannah so we can unity in with our families and friends. Ameen Ya Rabb!

Glitter Art

In AR's school they made them memorize the hadeeth "Tahabu Tahadoo" "Give gifts to one another, and you will love one another." He took gifts for his friends and he got lots of gifts as well. One of our favorite thing he got was this....

It was a sticker sheet with glitter on the side. He had to peel a sticker area and then spread the glitter. All three of us enjoyed it a lot. 

DIY Children's Easel

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!

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.

Book review: Priddy Books

My favorite toddler picture books. 

We bought these for $2 when AR was 2, from Buffalo, USA. Both our kids simply love reading them or just looking at the pictures. I have also labeled some of the pictures in Arabic this way they get to increase their Arabic vocabulary. This can be easily done to any picture book with a permanent marker.

The best part about Priddy books publication is they are very green about their products. They use 40% recycled paper, they use fewer chemicals and toxins, resulting in less pollution in the environment. Their is soy based not petroleum based, which means easy recycling process and safer for children.are very kids appropriate. They use sturdy books, and are made from recycled materials (mostly).

Click here to check out their other products.

Toddler Activities: Color Recognition

H has been practicing her colors. We did this simple activities together, to have fun and learn our colors. I would place one cube of each color on the floor and then helped her sort the colors and from their she made towers of each color. Then she would get to drop them all, which she loves doing.

In the middle AR joined us too so we practiced colors in Arabic and used their color pencil rug to sort wooden cubes and their pretend food matching the colors.

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!

Welcome spring art

We made a spring art piece with water bottle bottoms and caps. AR really enjoyed it alhumdulillah. We talked about how Allah swt brings one season after another, and how we feel cold at on time and hot at another. We talked about Allah swt for a while, and also how he changes different season and what they are. It was very informal.

We watched this 4 season time lapse video. 

We got this idea from, MPM School supplies.

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. :)

Book Review: Father Loves His Little One

A great bedtime/storytime book. AR, H, I and Baba all love these books. The best thing is they are board books, so its very sturdy for H.

Book Review:The Gift of Jummah

InshaAllah from now on we will be adding this book to our Jummah checklist. "The Gift of Jummah" is a very well written book by "Shazia Nazalee", who has also the author of "Little Explorer" Magazines click here to see their website. My friend is a distributor in Canada for the LE Magazines, mashaAllah she is done a great job. You can also check out her blog Aasiya's Homeschool.

May Allah accept all of our efforts to please Him and live our life according to The Quran and Sunnah.
Ameen

Jummah special tent

We bought this Igloo tent for my friend's boys during this break, but turns out they already had one! So, she insisted that we keep it for the kids if they don't have one (which they didn't). We ended up keeping it and I thought it would be a nice Jummah special treat. We ended up opening it on Thursday because the kids discovered it. lol.

The kids LOVED it, they really enjoyed it Alhumdulillah. I was thinking of making it his nook but its too big for the Rawdah so we kept it in their playroom. I have great idea for the nook but it will be a LONG time till I actually come around it.

Blow the candle!

Today we did a very random activity which AR really enjoyed and H tried it as well. We blew candles!!! It was a great practice for H to learn how to blow, she tried to imitate us SO hard.

 

The kids had a great time blowing them out, since they were scented candles we worked our smelling senses. We had to guess what  fruit or flower the candle smelled like. I loved the excitement AR had on his face every time he blew the candle and watched the smoke swirl in the air. He was so worried about his little sister, who kept trying to touch the candle, he would spontaneously respond and hold her hand back mashaAllah!

Popsicle Labels

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? 

Laminated Labels

We have been working on some labeling items around the house. My goal is to label as many things as possible for ALL the family members to know where things go. For the Rawdah and children's play-room I made labels with pictures to help them see the images and know where something belongs, since they cannot read yet and even H can eventually catch on to the idea. This will inshaAllah be good phonics practice as well.

To tie the labels I used rice bag yarn from the rice we bought to give the labels a shabby vintagy look.

Our color printer is not working so I used pictures from the magazines and did some free-style drawings. We looked for pictures together and then cut & paste them on the labels. This became a good learning experience for AR. I also laminate them to make the more durable.

Car obsession!

AR has 2 obsessions! one is the above and the other is books (alhumdulillah)....when he was younger he loved shoes too but not as much anymore.

We bough him this rug for the Rawdah and...the first thing he thought of doing with it was park cars on it! LOL! I love his creativity on the parking. He called me to show me how he had parked the cars on the carpet and he called it "the color pencil parking lot". I like to sometime plan his lesson around cars...he really enjoys them.

Calendar Activity

This is what we do every day for the calendar activity.

1. Put the date on and then say the date
2. Sing the Days of the week
3. EXERCISE to the months of Islam/year. In our highschool daycare we would do months of the year to "The Macarena" song, I asked a around about this from some students of knowledge and concluded that there is nothing wong with it as long as you are not doing it with the intention to dance. I decided to do it without telling AR anything about the "Macarena". I simply just say "Morning exercise" time. I have to say that MASHAALLAH he memorized both sets of the months in 3 weeks with this great technique! now even H tries to imitate us.
4. Recently we added the weather and seasons in Arabic and English.

Straw Painting

Okay so today after a normal routine stuff we had some great paint fun! We did straw painting! AR loved it but got REALLY tired since it required a lot of facial muscles for blowing in the sttraw reall hard to get the paint to spread.  It was a very creative type of painting and of course lots of fun He was very fascinated by how the colors were blending. He then suggested if we could use a dark color paper and use white paint...I added some purple to it too...It turned out beautiful! Definitely a keeper! My friend suggested on getting the keepers laminated...I am really considering that since he really enjoys painting and paints.

After the colors were all dried! I love it! Such a master piece!

After the kids went to sleep...in my "ME" time I pulled out my canvas paper and did the straw painting myself. I have always really enjoyed painting so it was a lot of fun after a LONG time! Alhumdulillah!

Mama's Masterpiece. Doing this reminded me old times!