Book Review: Learning to Listen, Learning to care - A workbook to Help Kids learn Self-Control & Empathy

We have been using this book "Learning to Listen, Learning to care" by Lawrence E. Shapiro, as a family to help better ourselves. It is a great Character building book. Initially, I purchased it for the kids, interesting now we have a family session where kids and I sit together and go over one question or one whole activity, then together right our responses. 

It ends up being a great writing and literacy session. This author has a series of similar books that covers many different topics on character building and helping children be better human beings. I highly recommend this book, especially for boys who are not too keen about discuss their emotions. We don't write in the book we answer the question in our personal diaries.

Here is a sample Activity lesson to give you an idea. 

Activity 7 - page 1

Activity 7 - page 2

Actvity 7 - page 3

DIY - word family house.

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.

Book Review: Oxford Picture Dictionary

Baba bought this OPD (Oxford Picture dictionary) in English and Arabic. AR and I have been in love with it, we both learned SO much from it.

Some good things about it

1. Covers all of lives things: Home, Transportation, Animals, Health, food, clothing, workplace and many more
2. Its available in 13 Bilingual editions
3. Illustration is VERY close to real, which makes it easy for children to relate to really life.
4. Very simple to follow and understand for children, although its aimed for older people. We all are loving it!

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.

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.

Learning names

Prophet Muhammad (saw) said "Keep the names of the noble Prophets, Allah loves most the names Abdullah and Abdur Rahman. The most truthful names are Harith and Humam, while the most disliked are Harb and Murrah (war and bitter)."


Well considering this hadeeth we decided to name our son Abdur-Rahman. MashaAllah it really suits him <3. 


I have to add that its been a challenge to teach him his names spelling. So these are some things we have done to make learning his name fun learning experience.

I made these to togehter with AR, we spelled the names  and stuck them on the foam boards.

He loves hand and foot prints (I let him do them but i personally don't find them too educational). We did this one on a black construction paper with white (non-toxic) water acrylic. Ad the end I added hi name and we spelled it out together a few times.  

This one was a lot of FUN! I printed his name out in ful and with it I printed each letter of his name separately. First he glued his full name (we sang the spelling of his name). Then under it he had to glue the letters by looking at the full name... first 'a' then 'b' so on.

Had some glue and glitter fun.

I am doing more things with him, I will be adding about it.

Jumbo Alphabet puzzle

We bought the kids this jumbo wooden alphabet puzzle, its so easy for there tiny hands to handle! Its also a very durable, since the kids can not really chew them up or peel them apart!

Cool Spelling Book

Last week I made this little three word spelling book for Abdur-Rahman to help him spell words and recognize them but also have fun InshaAllah.

I saw these Flap cards on brillskids.com... So I thought if I could make it myself so I googled it and came across a blog and saw this great idea.

 I cut a sprial index card 3' x 5' notebook with carpet cutter and then wrote three sets of abc...

You can make endless 3 letter words out of it. I might make a 4 or 5 letter letter one when AR's a bit older.