ALIF Arabic letter crafts for Pre-schoolers

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We are close to ending our journey of English letter crafts. During the process, I found crafting has helped my kids learn their letters and phonics so much faster. It turned out that my kids are so engrossed and engaged in crafting the letters that they are automatically learning them.

This discovery has made me wondered if I could do the same with Arabic letters too? and then maybe with Urdu letters – since I want to raise bilingual or maybe trilingual kids insha Allah – teaching them multiple languages would be much easier once they have a good grasp of their letters.

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Letters Crafting has also helped them gain their vocabulary. My kids are always asking for the urdu/arabic/english alternative word of things, and they are learning them very quickly too. Continue reading →

Harbouring Hobbies.

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My article for the Muslimah Bloggers.

Holiday

It’s not just your name; a lot of things, if not everything, change when you get married. Sometimes even as much as your whole outlook on life, your idea about yourself, your priorities, your dreams, your goals, your career aspirations in addition to the change in relationships and circumstances and homes and lifestyles! Allah o Akbar.

And in the pursuits of settling in a new home, learning to live life with a new human being, even giving birth and nurturing more human beings, and all the mayhem marrying and the consequences of marrying bring, us women, somehow forget that once upon a time, we used to be our own idiosyncratic individuals ourselves. We used to don our own colors with pride and carried a soul wild with our passions and desires.

In raising families, many women often neglect the most important thing – taking care of themselves and pursing their own interests. Even if they had hobbies before, they think that now that they are married, they don’t have the time, the energy, the desire or even the need to have a hobby. Continue reading →

Letter N Crafts

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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)!Toddler & Preschoolers Letter N Crafts (9)

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

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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:

DIY touch & feel Arabic letters (2)

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The pursuit of In sha Allah

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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 😉

What Muslim Parents actually mean by saying Insha Allah1

Letter M Crafts

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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:

Sunset chaser

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5 ways to create a Kid-Friendly Bathroom

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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 create Kids friendly Bathrooms.png Continue reading →

5 ways to Teach kids Months in Islam – (with free Printables)

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An article I wrote in collaboration with Team Ayeina:

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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]

Continue reading →