The benchmark of being a grown up in the eyes of a 2 year old!
Grown-up
Reply
Monthly Archives: October 2017
Letter N Crafts
Last week we did letter N crafts, Kids loved the night, abi made a separate Night craft as well. Ib (of course) loved the hammer the most (N for Nail craft)!
What I have begun loving about these craft series is that kids love to go back to all the crafts and read them, since we are doing phonics these days Abi is practicing phonics with our Letter-craft-book that we made ourselves. She even loves to teach it to her younger sib pretending that she is the teacher, and he loves it all already too 🙂
I can’t wait to put up my energies and do rest of the letter crafts and also begin our Arabic letter Crafts too. Continue reading
DIY Touch & Feel Arabic letters
One of my favorite Montessori pre-writing activities were sand letters, or for that matter, any touch & feel letters. These are incredible tools because they guide the child’s finger onto themselves enabling the child to grasp the shape of a letter which will help him/her recognize letters and then write them.
But they were expensive! so I thought of trying few methods of making my own touch and feel letters. Here are the first type of Arabic Touch and feel Letters:
Probing the depths of Garrulousness.
Three days of absolutely absurd conversations that begin right at bedtime and last for hours, usually ending with me yelling at them to sleep – I for once in my life, truly understood the EXACT meaning of this childhood favorite word “Garrulous”.
Here is what I learned:
The pursuit of In sha Allah
Yusra Saqib, Theexpatmommy mentioned this incident at her Instagram. And it just resonated with me so well, in her words:
“Ammi you have to buy me toys
“Ok sure”
“No I want them today!”
“Not today, but we will buy them soon Insha Allah”
“But Insha Allah means no; when you say Insha Allah you don’t do that”
She said she was stunned speechless at this incident –
Kids today are demanding. They are always asking – for a bag of candy, for playing in the rain, for an ice cream in the middle of the night, for letting them watch cartoons, perhaps, for the rest of their lives. A real living Horse and a sheep and turtles and sometime even a dolphin 
Or a moon and a rocket for commute.
And most of the time they want everything RIGHT-AWAY – they want to go to the park NOW, they want TOYS now, and new frocks and shoes with heel and dolls and dollhouses Now, and cars and motorbikes and a bat and million balls, all NOW.
The list goes on. And many Muslim parents, including myself, are guilty of making this classic mistake – saying Insha Allah at the wrong time.
When we are not sure about something, or very sure that we don’t/can’t/won’t let that happen, or weare just plain distracted and have no idea what their tiny tot is going crazy about – we say Insha Allah, and then totally forget about it because mostly it is not important for us.
The kids don’t forget. They look and interpret it differently because it is not insignificant to them. They read our Insha Allah as ‘no’.
It is very careless of us that we are giving our kids such a negative message about a phrase that encompasses so much faith, hope and trust. Insha Allah, If Allah Wills.
We can’t rewind life, but let’s Resolve today that we will try to be an example to our kids, we will make it something they can love. In Yusra’s words:
“I don’t want them to be afraid of this beautiful phrase but to say it fearlessly, confidently and with full conviction.”
– Insha Allah.
This incident gave me the idea of this pie-chart below: Pun-intended, obviously 😉
Also, Erika’s, aka Dorky Mom Doodles, piechart What Parents mean when they say Maybe was also another inspiration.
Enjoy 😉
Letter M Crafts
This week we finally finished our Letter M crafts, abi had been insisting we do a Masjid craft, since “Masjid” starts with ‘mmm’ it means “M’ is for Masjid – so we did a M for masjid too – the mosaic one was their favorite and Ib liked Moose too because ‘Duck Duck Moose’ (their fav ipad games are by DDM) the rest of the crafts? well, here they are:
5 ways to create a Kid-Friendly Bathroom
Guest post by Catherine Collins
To an adult, a bathroom is just another room in the house. It is a place where one usually starts and ends their day. For a child, however, the situation is entirely different. For them, this room is not only functional but it is also filled with so many new things and fun activities – and that is the problem. Usually, the various forms of hazards that might be awaiting a child in a bathroom are things easily overlooked by adults.
In order to avoid mishaps and accidents, especially when you have young children living with you, we have gathered few handy tips that might help you create a kid-friendly bathroom.
5 ways to Teach kids Months in Islam – (with free Printables)
An article I wrote in collaboration with Team Ayeina:
A calendar, as Wikipedia explains, is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial or administrative purposes. Wherein the time period is divided in days, weeks, months and years. These periods are usually synchronized with the cycle of moon or sun.
Islam, being the complete guidance of life, also takes into account the importance of having a time & calendar system. Allah SWT mentions in the Holy Quran:
It is He who made the sun a shining light and the moon a derived light and determined for it phases – that you may know the number of years and account [of time]. Allah has not created this except in truth. He details the signs for a people who know.” [Quran, 10:5]
It is interesting to note that Allah SWT has mentioned the phases of both the sun & the moon in respect of formation of calendars as both are used by mankind to mark their days, however speaking specifically of Islamic calendar, Allah SWT mentions:
“Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve [lunar] months in the register of Allah [from] the day He created the heavens and the earth; of these, four are sacred. That is the correct religion, so do not wrong yourselves during them. And fight against the disbelievers collectively as they fight against you collectively. And know that Allah is with the righteous (who fear Him).” [Quran, 9: 36]
Letter L crafts
The frequency of our letter crafting has reduced to one letter a month from one letter a week. Hopefully in the upcoming weeks we regain our older frequency and finish up fast.
Also, It is now that I have begun seeing the fruit of all this effort, my 3 yo is picking up phonics by recalling the craft we did. her steps are:
- she recalls a crafts e.g. we made a Door
- then she recalls the letter e.g. D is for Door.
- then she tries to figure out the sound the letter makes – e.g. (if D is for door and dog) Daa is the sound of D
This enough had motivated me to resume doing our letter crafts and here are the crafts for letter L.
AMuslimMama 
