1 Zul Hijjah 1435 Activities

Alhamdulillah, It is great bounty of Allah that he grants us opportunities to reform ourselves and renew our Iman by granting us some special occasions and months as he is The Most Generous. I thank Allah for granting us the chance of reaching the month of Zulhijjah this year too, whereas most of our sisters are not among us this year.

Allah mentions the virtue of these 10 nights in the beginning of Sura fajr and Numerous Ahaadeeth mentioning its virtues Subhanallah!  These days reminds us the sacrifices of the friend of Allah Ibraheem عليه السلام. It is a great pleasure to discuss the stories of Ambiyas with kids and to make them understand that success of both world lies in total obedience to the commands of Allah.

Masha Allah my kids have grown and each one needs the story in different angle according to their ages. Yes, it is exciting and interesting to watch them how they understand and grab it. There is nothing more valuable than nurturing their hearts with Imani stories which is going to provide them support throughout their lives Insha Allah. 

The elder girls worked with this bulletin board which mentions the virtues of the first 10 days of Zulhijjah, Thakbeer-e- Thashreek, The qurbani meat, Sunnahs of Eid and Hajj day by day rituals by our dear sister Umm-an-Numan.

And the bulletin board in the first of the post is our little soldier’s, all the subject in pictures as the little boy has not yet started reading.

Then comes the “I am learning about hajj” a wonderful game for little ones. This is for our little sister who is quite advanced and in the middle of all our activities, repeating words and imitating her siblings.

Finally I made the girls to write an essay on what they learned. This is what they wrote.

It is what we have done so far. The time passes so swiftly and I have so much in my head to do… May Allah grant us the ability to practice whatever we learned and accept the good deeds we do!

2 Prophet Muhammed صلى الله عليه وسلم Lapbook

Little Princess is turning 6 around in few months of time Insha Allah. Though she was a slow learner at the beginning now she is catching up well Masha Allah, the problem with her is a bit lazy to write but a good reader.

Subhanallah, now I really realize the precious time I had when Big Sister was a little girl and the projects and hands on activities we used to do. But now…… oh, I have to attend to so much of things along with maintaining and paying attention to each one of them with different mentality. But still I regard each and everything I do to be an Ibadah hoping the reward from Almighty and sincerely have the intention that I am raising heroes of Islam Insha Allah.

This is the first lap book done by little princess. She herself wanted to do about Prophet Muhammed صلى الله عليه وسلم. It covers the family tree of Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم , the birth and death, the wet nurses of our beloved Nabi صلى الله عليه وسلم the names of his chaste wives, names of his beloved children, his exquisite character, and his blessed appearance etc…

Subhanallah it was very interesting and they were curiously asking me questions about the seal of prophecy which Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم had between his shoulders, the eleven wives, about the wet nurses and so on… we wrote down only the names of the wives and children of the holy Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم to make them familiar so they will know whom they are later when they read about them. The learning roots companion quest is a compact pack which mentions about each of them in a simple way for young learners. I explained to them strongly about the Khaathamun Nabi as we are living in a corrupted environment.

They questioned me particularly about the wet nurses. Their question was why wet nurses feed babies. Breastfeeding for two years is a very familiar matter in our home Alhamdulillah.  I had to explain to them that it was the Arab custom. The sad matter nowadays is that this valuable custom of wet nurses has been neglected and the formulas has become alternative for innocent babies. 

Finally, we are here to cast a glance at our little princess’s lap book. The
great job was that she wrote down everything when I read and explained it to her Alhamdulillah. This is the awesome book that we used for the project.

I sincerely thank hubby for the photograph and video jazakallah.

May Allah accept it and make us among the sincere followers of our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم !

0 Supermoon 1435 (2014)

And He has subjected for you the night and day and the sun and moon, and the stars are subjected by His command. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason. [16:12]

A supermoon happens once or twice a year when the full moon is closer to Earth than during other full moons. We had some fun taking picture of the super moon. Subhanallah! How perfect are the creations of Allah.

August 10 full moon was a so-called super moon. It is when the moon being at perigee. You can see a comparison of apogee and perigee of moons below.

Now, let us enjoy some great pictures of the super moon taken by our astrophotographer hubby; LOL…. Photography is one of hubby’s hobby that he enjoys a lot.

I was amazed at the beauty of it when I looked through the binoculars. For me the moon symbolize the very beauty of women, as its charm highlights the sky. Similarly women charm highlights her groom’s desired life with her delightful spark and enthusiasm.

0 Eid Cards 1435 (2014)

Alhamdulillah, we are almost at the final days of this blessed month. Hoping the rewards from Almighty for all our little deeds we did as he is generous and merciful….

As usual the kids prepared their cards for pen pals wishing for a happy and blessed Eid. We had tried different designs for last two years and this time was a different style most of the stuff was done by big sister and I helped the little ones to complete their cards. 

Above one was done by Big sister

Little Princess’s lovely flower card 

Cute masjid card is for our little soldier’s pen pal. The little boy is fond of masaajids and he wanted to make a masjid design card .May Allah keep him attached to the masjid until the last breath!

And this was done finally for another pen pal of our Big sister,

Wish you all Happy Eid and at the same time we shouldn’t forget our brothers and sisters in Palestine and other places as well… The least we can do is include them and their families in our duas.

May Allah accept the striving of the Mujaahideens and give high rank for the Shuhadaaas! Make us among those who adhere totally to the command of Almighty Allah!

0 Ramadan Prep 1435

Subhanallah, we are here after a long time. Though I couldn’t post anything in my blog we were doing our activities and studies Alhamdulillah. The days were hectic due to some other reasons and my son is also throwing tantrums wanting my total attention.

Qaddarallah, whatever it may be as a Muslim we do have the belief that whatever befalls us is the divine decree and we have to build up our courage and proceed for our Aakhirah along with it.

Alhamdulillah, we are glad to meet another Ramadan and let Allah bless us to achieve what he expect from us through this month. We made a Ramadan bulletin board with the duas to be recited during Ramadan, Oh! If not I’ve to spend half of my energy reminding each one of them the duas. LOL… the tracing and coloring was done by Big sister. The Ramadan calendar dates will be added each day by Little princess so, they will know how many days have passed and how many more days are left to do more and more good deeds in order to get closer to the creator in this great month.

 

I know that time is passing so swiftly and I have to spare my precious little time I’ll get for my Quran, no time for crafts and activities during Ramadan.
And then both of them wrote down their plans how they are going to spend their days in Ramadan. GREAT…. If they follow up their plans. Little princess is turning six around in few months’ time Insha Allah, she is hoping to fast the whole month. The option is hers, no force, no discouragement.

My boy” little soldier” wanted to participate in the activities too, he did the Ramadan pronunciation in Arabic and decorated it. I know that little boy don’t have the idea of fasting at all but always wants to take part in Ifthaar…

Finally I pray that let Allah Th’ala guide us in the straight path and bless us with Baraka in our time for our Ibadah! And most importantly let our good deeds be accepted by the Almighty, if not we will be the ultimate losers, may Allah save us!

1 The Day My Dream Came True!

Is it a matter that is going to happen…? Will my kids get an opportunity to get together and share their emotions with other homeschooling kids as I see in other countries…? What about my kids feeling that they are the only ones who are at home…

These were the thoughts that I was going through since I was homeschooling them.

Alhamdulillah, by the grace of Allah my dream came alive and we had our homeschooling workshop last Sunday with 7-8 families who are homeschooling their kids. Masha Allah it was awesome and kids enjoyed a lot.

 
Indeed, it was something that I never imagined of, due to the fact that the challenges I faced in our society was as intense as homeschooling being very rare.

The problem is that the lack of understanding of what is parenting and what is the role a parent plays in educating their children. Concept of whole child approach (physical, intellectual& spiritual development) is not at all considered to be important than the lesson plans. And it’s a deep subject which cannot be explained in detail whereas it is a subject that each parent should educate themselves before they bear this great Amaanath of raising kids.

I prepared a Powerpoint presentation with some important features to make us understand why we are doing this and I whole heartedly thank hubby for his designing and helping me. Jazakallah 

 (click here to download the presentation)

Kids prepared cards in order to remember their first joy of homeschooling get together while we were doing our program.

 

 

And then we had our quiz session where each mother had to ask questions for kids age around 6-8 to bring an enthusiasm among them. The questions:-

1. How many surahs are there in the Quran?
2. What is the planet we live in?
3. Where was Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم born?
4. Which creation of Allah gives us light and heat?
5. What are the five pillars of Islam?
6. How many letter are there in English alphabet?
7. What was the name of Rasulullah’s صلى الله عليه وسلم beloved and dearest daughter?
8. Who was the first muazzin of Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم?
9. Name any creation of Allah that gives us egg?
10. Who was the first man and prophet of Allah?

Each of them were given a paper to write down their answers and by the grace of Allah the quiz winner was “Big sister”.

 

Little princess too wanted to participate in quiz session though she was out of age group. Her answer says that there are lot of pages in my Quran, It was for the question that was asked “how many surahs are there in the quran” LOL.

The quiz session ended up by giving gift for the winner and the other kids. Finally we had our nutritious refreshments with variety of fruits, Alhamdulillah.

Jazakallah Umm Bareerah for all your efforts and organizing this wonderful day who was insisting me to do this program.

Also I wholeheartedly thank and appreciate the presence of Umm Haani, Umm Haajar and Umm Hamdh for making our program blessed by being the wives of Great scholars of our community as well as others.

I cannot end up this post of mine without expressing my gratitude to my respected midwifery teacher who mentored and guided me on how to conduct programs by opening up our minds and inspiring the imaginations.

And finally thanks for all fathers for taking care of the little ones.

May Allah shower his mercy upon us and help us to raise our kids in a way that pleases him and accept our efforts!

0 Visit to National Postal Museum

Last Thursday the girls wanted to spend some time out with hubby. Hubby was wondering where to take them, finally they went and discussed all what they saw and felt after I saw the pictures as they thought that hubby didn’t mention to me where he was taking them.

What I felt at this moment was the father/daughter relationship which is an interesting and utmost important subject that each father should know if he wants his sweet daughters not to go behind a stranger when he says words like ‘I love you” and “You look so beautiful’ which is going to boost their emotions if they haven’t heard these words from a man before it.

An open communication and spending time together, especially a father with his daughters (as he is the first man they are dealing with) is definitely important during these days of corruption. All of us are familiar with the stories of how our beloved Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and his dearest daughter Fathimah رضى لله عنها were close to each other, amazing! What a wonderful example for dear fathers.

We discussed that exchanging letters is an action that was taking place from the times of Prophets also the Quran speaks about it too. Ex: The letter of Sulayman عليه السلام and Bilkees, also the stories of Sahabas رضى لله عنهم which mentions the letters exchanged between the sahabas and emperors etc… 

some of pics....

0 Moon Sighting

As we all know moon sighting is an important aspect in Islam to determine the months and most of other Islamic obligations and rulings.

Last Sunday was the day for sighting the moon for the month of Jumadhal Ula. Usually hubby goes for sighting whenever it is possible for him, this time kids were insisting to take them as it was a Sunday.

It changed into a family moon sighting day, They wanted to join Abi for the task.

For me it was a first-hand experience and it took few minutes for me to identify the moon because it is just a blade of curve. The best part is Big Sister could see it long before me. The other kids were too small for it and they enjoyed playing and having fun watching kites fly high in the calm breeze.

Fascinating thing for me is, it is a part of homeschooling as it is considered to be developing new skills and observations.

The days and months are passing and we are getting closer and closer for death,

May the day that we meet our Lord be the best of our days!

1 Arabic Alphabet Craft (1)

Alhamdulillah, Little Soldier has completed the Arabic alphabets and moved onto combining letters. “Oh, now starts my great job”.  Any way I am convinced what the hadith says and I do hope that I will be listed among those who spend time for Quran about whom the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was proud of. Insha Allah.

I wanted to make the learning interesting by making alphabet crafts. But as the little boy is already familiar with the Arabic alphabet song which goes as:

Alif is for Allah
Baa is for Bismillah
Thaa is for Thaqwa etc…

Link to the video 

So, we couldn’t make appropriate craft for the word and finally ended up with this stuff which worked out well for him to remember each alphabet well and improve his fine motor skills too. The alphabet will be on the bulletin board until he is familiar.

Hope that the stuff what they make now will remind them of the past sweet childhood memories in future Insha Allah.

 (Click on the image for larger view)

May Allah bless them with a healthy, long life!

This is what was gifted by Abi for completing the alphabets.

May Allah accept our efforts and make us and our off springs among the followers of the Quran and Sunnah of the beloved!

0 Mini Chef - Fruit Rice

Oh! The kitchen is messed up with two young chefs. It was not a planned cookery day; we had some fruits and wanted to make something different with kids as I have not done any extra activities with them for last few months other than daily school lessons because I was stuck up with some of my midwifery class stuff.

Training children how to prepare simple meal for themselves is a part of homeschooling; obviously this isn’t something a 5 or 6 year old should do. The great news is that we can count this toward our required school hours since preparing meals is a life skill.

We had green apples, mango and pineapple any fruits of your choice can be used and colorful fruits will add up the beauty.

Big sister and little princess chopped the fruits into cubes and these are the other items we used:

Yes, this is what the young cooks prepared and they enjoyed it well’ the fruity rice” Masha Allah.

I used my precious wooden spoon to serve them. I value it so much because it was carved by hubby and gifted to me. Here is a full picture of it