The Page Pals Book Club with Maimoonah!

 

       بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Introducing a Special New Project from Maimoonah!

We are delighted to finally reveal what we've been working on behind the scenes—a project that aims to solve a real need in our community. Our children deserve a safe, guided, and nurturing environment where they can enjoy reading secular books while strengthening their literacy and language skills.

We all know that our children must excel in Islamic knowledge first and foremost. But simultaneously, they will eventually face English examinations, literature studies, and a variety of books: including classics and modern texts. And yes, many of these materials can include grey areas that make us hesitant or unsure.

That’s why this initiative was born. With proper guidance, a clear lens, and a space where harmful or polluted ideas are not entertained, our children can learn, read, think, and enjoy books in a wholesome way.

So we proudly introduce… The Page Pals Book Club!

A joyful, safe, and engaging reading circle created for our budding readers. We aim to begin in March, after Ramadhaan, in shaa Allaah, and continue as an ongoing club for girls who love books and learning.

Details:

Start: March (after Ramadhaan), in shaa Allaah

Ages: Girls 8–11

Level: Participants should already be able to read comfortably, as we will begin with children’s classics

Format: Online, interactive reading club

What will we do in this 15-week course?

📚Read aloud a chapter of The Railway Children every week (kids will take turns on a rotation basis) - The digital book link will be provided. But it is nice to have the physical book (not the abdriged version)
✍🏻Reading comprehension worksheets
🖌️Writing exercises
📝Book report project
🌱Companionship to discuss and learn in a safe environment

Course Time: 7pm - 8pm KSA/Qatar Time
Course Dates: Saturdays from March 28th to the 11th of July (15 classes)
Cost: USD 45 per student for the full course ($3 per class to be paid in full)

Who is the teacher?
The course is designed and taught by Maimoonah. A young English language enthusiast, and passionate creative with three years' experience of teaching girls, who holds a BA in English Language and Literature, as well as a Diploma in Editing and Proofreading. She is currently an MA student studying Creative Writing. She loves hot cocoa and orange cats! 

The course contents are checked by Umm Maimoonah.

Why should you join the club?

 

 

Registrations Now! — and spaces are limited!

Every child who loves to read will have the opportunity to participate, share their voice, and grow in confidence. More details about how reading rotations will work will be shared upon registration.

We truly hope this initiative becomes a bridge — helping our children develop strong skills while remaining grounded, guided, and connected to their values. Your support means so much to us, and we look forward to bringing you even more beneficial projects in the future, in shaa Allaah.

KS3 - Grammar Bytes

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

We are continuing with KS3 this year and the resources we are using are almost the same as last year since we were unable to get on with it full time. So inshaa Allaah we hope we can complete the KS3 year 7 work this year with Maimoonah.

KS3 is, what shall I say, a bit more challenging than previous years more for me than for Maimoonah. I need to recap, look into information to teach her certain concepts.

When I looked at the Grammar book we are using, I realized there are a lot more to learn, and these Grammar terms and rules have not been the ones that stay in your head for long years.

So make it easier for me as well as for Maimoonah we started a "Grammar Byte" Notebook. 

We use the internet or other reference books and note down each of the grammar rules that we study. The textbook does talk about the grammar rules but the explanation is very short and I found this site for grammar bytes which gives a clear explanation with examples. This way Maimoonah is able to understand and remember as I keep saying a sentence to her and ask her to identify the subject, object transitive verb, intransitive verb etc, 

This notebook will be handy for quick reference as well to check something.

 

So as we go on we will look for the "bytes" and stick them or write them and continue the activities in the Grammar workbook Inshaa Allaah.

How do you go about your Grammar Lessons? 

Baby Diary - Beautiful way of Bonding!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Alhamdulillaah it has been over a month now since little Ramlah arrived and she has been keeping us busy, Maashaa Allaah. 

Maimoonah started a cute Baby Diary, where she records all about her little sister Ramlah from day one. Since her birth itself was an adventure and a pleasant surprise for Maimoonah as she was able to witness it, she was eager to have a journal ready for Ramlah to read when she is grown up Inshaa Allaah with all her different phases of growth and memories recorded. Journalling in general is delightful.           I have always encouraged free writing and I do not interfere in her journalling and writings. Making mistakes is fine, in the sense that kids must be confident, in order to boost this confidence it is best not to edit or correct their journalling. It should always remain as an enjoyable activity which is stress free. Even a toddler will for sure love just a small folded book with pictures to paste and colour, inshaa Allaah.

At times I see Maimoonah reading her old journals with a smile on her face, which in fact brings back all of us lot of memories. She loves that we read her journals and feels happy in sharing her writings.

I usually read her journals while she is asleep and the whole house is quiet. Reading her entries with a cup of coffee makes me understand her feelings, her thoughts and her interests as well. This in turns gives me an opportunity to change certain ways within me in order to benefit her more. Plus it helps me evaluate her strengths and weaknesses in grammar, language and writing skills. No doubt this is far better than exams and worksheets to improve a child's skills. Inshaa Allaah will share more facts and ideas about journalling and how to get started in a separate post later. 

As for this baby diary, I noticed that she is writing with passion and love. She decorated the cover pages using some crafty ideas including origami, Popsicle sticks and stickers. I like the point that she remembered to put knowledge into action by beginning the diary with "Basmalah" knowing the reasons of starting something with it. (In the name of Allaah, in order to receive blessings and benefits - Learnt in Usooluth Thalaathah - The Three Fundamental Principles). 

Her introduction and the first chapter reflects that this baby diary is another means of beautiful bonding among the siblings. Maashaa Allaah! Maimoonah adores Ramlah. May Allaah bless both of them and increase their love for each other for His sake and protect them both. Aameen.

 

Inshaa Allaah Maimoonah will continue this diary and we hope Ramlah will appreciate her big sister's efforts in keeping a sweet diary full of her adventures for her to read when she is older. 

My Latest Poems!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم

I love writing poems. The following poems are my latest and all of them are done by me without any help. Enjoy!

Fish

Cat fish long and floppy,

Goldfish small and happy,

cod fish in the wild,

Tuna fish in the wild,

Huge sea bass,

fighting with a Goliath Groper,

Who will win,

of course the Groper,

Sword fish playing hide and seek,

with a baby shark

Pollocks eating,

And OH, hark

a big baby Whale! 

Oh help,

the whale is eating some fish,

like sun fish, and rainbow trout,

the fish that i wanted to see was gone,

and that was a MAHI MAHI. 

So I'll go home now!

Bird

Laughing dove in the morning,

Laughing dove eating in the road

Laughing dove tricking cars,

Bicycles with heavy load.

Bubbling soft bubbly cooing,

Doo,Boo, Do,Booh.

In hidden corners,

Still cooing.

Glorifying its Lord,

Giving us reward, 

Eating from our garden, 

Without a burden. 

Flying at the last minute,

flapping at the lovely country,

In peace to lie,

Right down at the farm!

Flowers

Coloured poppy in the field,

Creeper on the farm,

Jack in the Pulpit at the wood,

And in the meadow calm,

Is the lovely violet blossom,

And the very useful plants,

The beautiful tulip,

Which gives comfort,

And the black moss,

that is often used for a cushion,

Never are flowers at loss,

Cat faced pansies say good bye!

Meadow Mouse

Sweet little Master Meadow Mouse in play,

At spring time when the Farmer starts the corn growing,

Master Meadow Mouse will soon be at the corn field,

And won't the Farmer be angry to start again the field sowing!

Mice

Toothy little house mouse,

Nimble dormouse,

Squeaky Field Mouse,

Cousin to the Meadow Mouse,

Water rats,

Trying to eat mice,

Gobbling up like dice,

At last the Farmer,

Kills the Rats

The mice think he is a nice harmer,

And they are HAPPY!

For the Farmer,

Doesn't harm them,

The Mice are Omnivores

because they eat plants and meat,

And even oars.

DEER

Baby deer,

Sweet fawn,

playing with it's mother,

in the dawn.

Munching leaves,

Timidly looking,

At last,

Running nimbly.   

السلام عليكم

Maimoonah

Sea Birds - Poem

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم

Since I also like to be an ornithologist, I decided to publish a poem of sea birds. 

Hope you will enjoy!

Maimoonah

The Hungry Reader!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Alhamdulillaah with Maimoonah growing by the Grace and Mercy of Allaah challenges grow too! One major challenge that I am facing now is supplying enough appropriate materials to contend her hunger for reading! When she was small it was easier to satisfy her with few books here and there and it was much easier for me scan through the materials before she get them on to her hand.

As a vivid reader from an early age she can just survive only with books from the time she wakes up till she goes to sleep this without wanting to play or do anything else except salaah. I would be so satisfied if she could do that if all the books she reads would be based upon Islaam and all are beneficial.She is fine with it too as long as the books are interesting and gives engaging information. But sadly as you all know it is not that easy to find such books that would be pleasing to our eyes!!!  Few months back I became more and more concerned with what I want her to read. 

Children do love fiction, mysteries, adventures and the likes. As there are differences of opinions with regard to reading fiction books amongst the scholars as much as I would like to totally eradicate such books, I just did not want to do more harm than good by taking that stance, especially because Maimoonah is brought up without TV and exposure to other entertainments like games and etc. She does go online for reading online or do some educational activities. She has no toys except for very very few little things. Of course we take her out to play and engage her in acceptable edutainment activities. Other than all of this most of her time is spent on reading. The challenge for me is no proper library, and even if I am to buy some books they are pretty expensive plus how should I provide something that is balanced and would benefit her?

This led me to consult one of the students of knowledge and discuss my concern. Alhamdulillaah the naseehah I received:

 "Focus upon always finding them some forms of beneficial non-fiction, from historical to practical to craft (knitting crochet sewing, cooking ) etc." 

"In terms of fiction books there is some historical fiction  that seems to not have the dangers of modern books. And Allaah knows best. Because things creep in unnoticed. Here I think you just have to use your discretion and always , make sure to read/skim well before hand."

So I have been thinking on those lines and making some effort to make it beneficial for Maimoonah. We do not have a fully fledged Library here where we can choose materials and benefit and very rarely you would find some good books in the stores and even if you do find some they would cost a huge amount. But Alhamdulillaah my dear friend here in Doha who has 3 girls and are also homeschooled and faces similar challenges invests in books and readily shares everything with us. Last week Maimoonah borrowed these books and this really made me write this post in spite of all my commitments!

These books keep her occupied for hours and she learns too. When she talks about what she read we try to relate that back to the perfectness of Allaah's creation. 

Opening more than 80 odd flaps and looking through the little details makes it fun and exciting indeed.

Working on those lines here are some of ideas that have occurred to me that I hope to make it work when I am relieved of some commitments soon Inshaa Allaah. I thought I would share them here for myself first and for others out there who are in a similar situation.

Islaamic Books

Alhamdulillaah the QMuslimah Library has some nice Islaamic books. So we keep borrowing them in and off. Other than them we focus of the Golden Series of the Companion Books by Darus Salam. I think now they are having a new edition on those series that look much more attractive. These books along with the Sealed Nectar, Stories of the Prophets, Darul Kitab Books, When the Moon Split and the Noble Qur'aan are what Maimoonah reads and re reads especially when she has ran out of other books I am happy to note that she can hang on to these for some hours! 

Non Fiction Books

Look for these kinds of non fiction books that can be useful for a long time. Checkout this website for some nice books as they seem to be much cheaper than others. Science Books and Encyclopedias are doing the job too! Having some hands on experiment guidebooks and sp[lying some of those items to use and try things out would occupy them for sometime and helps them to investigate and discover while acknowledging the ability of Allaah to Create everything. 

Arts and Crafts

Girls this age I think are very creative and love to do more and more arts and crafts activities. Those days just painting would be more than enough but now I find that Maimoonah loves to explore some creativity coupled with imagination. Having some Arts and Crafts books and sewing projects would be a lovely idea with some materials to explore. Especially with the Community Project at the Tarbiyah Classes she is learning how to perfect her crafts and make use of them. So I would want to have some craft supplies and Arts and Crafts books to help her explore Inshaa Allaah. 

Sewing

This is something we need to work on again. Due to time and other commitments we have not being continuing sewing for a long time and hopefully Inshaa Allaah I want to start on easy projects with her soon. Little sewing idea books would also help in this case and would love to get her some supplies soon Inshaa Allaah! 

Fiction
To have a balance I also lookout for some old fiction books with good language and give her those books. Some of the books she has read are some of the famous five books, Sheltie, Animal Ark and few others. Almost all of these books have some thing or the other unislamic contents, so we make sure that they are explained and corrected.

Cook Books
Cooking books and projects are next online. Maimoonah is trying out her cooking skills but I need to make her more independent soon Inshaa Allaah. Reading and understanding some cooking and homemaking skills would benefit her. Need to work on those lines soon Inshaa Allaah!

Trying some healthy snack after reading a recipe! 

Those are few of the things that came to my mind. I am sure many of you are doing these already and please do share what more you do to keep you little reader occupied.

Alhamdulillaah every situation we are in is indeed a blessing and mercy of Allaah that we keep remembering His Greatness and we keep learning many things too. As children grow we need to think ways and means to emphasise more and more the purpose of our creation and make them contend with worshipping Allaah alone and inculcate the passion to do so with whatever is available. May Allaah make it easy for all of us and may He keep our children firm upon His Straight Path. Aameen!

Enhancing Reading Skills!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 

 Alhamdulillaah Maimoonah's reading is going on well and she is able to sit for hours reading a book until she is asked to do something else. Giving her the right reading materials has indeed become a major challenge for me and inshaa Allaah I will write about it on a separate post soon.

While seeing her read so much I was pondering over few issues about her reading skills. Does she really understand what she reads? Is she reading for pleasure or is she really learning something? Does she get the message or core information of the book? How is her comprehension? Is she able to put out what she got out of that book? Does she understand what she needs to look into and pay attention to while reading a book to get the maximum benefit?

If she is to read a book from the Ulama (scholars) or even a book on the seerah is she able to note down the benefits she has got out of the book? Most importantly when she reads the tafseer of the Qur'aan does she really able to comprehend what Allaah says and does she get the message?

She does talk to me very informally about books she read and relate to me information that she has read, but I have really not made it a point to sit and ask her about each book nor have I given that amount of time sitting and discussing a book in a very formal way. I figured she does have a good command of the language and does have the comprehension but was not too sure if I am directing her correctly with regard to all of my above questions.

This led me to talk to a sister who is a qualified English teacher and in fact uses the techniques to get the child think and make the child understand what he or she should look into a book to get the best out of it. So she was willing to start an Enhancing Reading Skills weekly class at the QMuslimah Children's Library.

We have had few classes so far. We gave each child a notebook, folder, pencil and an eraser. 

The sister started with something very interesting. She introduced "Title" "Illustration", "Author" "Narrator" all by giving the kids a task. The task was "You have done well and made your mom happy. She wants to give you a gift and she has asked you to choose a book from a store." How would you do this?"

So each child came up with different answers. To make it short she then explained the importance of a Title in the book. She displayed different titles and asked the kids what they thought about the contents of the book by just reading the title. She also gave them a title and asked them to write all what they thought about the book. she used this book and had a an interesting discussion with the kids. 

Before reading the book she asked the kids to think what the book would contain? Then she read part of the book and asked each kid questions like Who are the characters in the book, what are the personalities of each of them, what was the setting, and so on...

 

The next classes included talking about description and descriptive words, parts of a story such as setting, beginning, build up, conflict, climax, resolution, ending, characterising and mood. The sister also reads a story at each class and asks questions from them and makes them attentive listeners and stresses the importance of paying heed to details while reading. She also continued with reading part of the Story from the book "Who Knows" and stopped before the resolution and asked the kids to come up with their own resolutions. After discussing she read them the author's resolution and ended with "Only Allaah knows Everything" including the Story of Moosa alaihisslaam and Khidr. 

Now they are learning how to write a story with a message.

This is how the classes are going so far. I have not penned down every detail here but wanted to keep a record of when we started these classes and what really led me to it.

When I witnessed these classes I thought to myself I really do not give so much of time for Maimoonah on these aspects. And this was just an excellent opportunity for me to get her into thinking and most importantly learn something from another sister who I trust would do her best in sticking to the same principles I hold and connecting all what she teaches back to Allaah and His messenger.

Apart from this Maimoonah is now learning to understand how she should be in a group class. The sister is also teaching her how she should focus on what she needs to do in a class even though she may get distracted by others. All the kids in the class are nice children but all are school going children except Maimoonah, therefore she is facing some challenges but is enjoying the company Alhamdulillaah. 

As we go on I will update on the progress Inshaa Allaah. I hope to use these learnt skill and start something with Maimoonah in the near future after I settle with few issues which will be learning to write down benefits from listening to lectures of the Ulama and reading the books of the Ulama. I want to give her a notebook and make her listen to one 30 minutes lecture and ask her to write down just few benefits from the lecture she heard. This way she would slowly learn to take notes and understand the benefits Inshaa Allaah.

I have not updated our study on Usooluth Thalaathah and Important lessons for Every Muslim for sometime due to time constraints but she is learning to do the scrap booking by herself and we have done a lot even though going slow Alhamdulillaah. I presume these skills that she is learning would enhance the scrapbooking of these two books as well Inshaa Allaah.

Hope this would benefit other sisters too in some way. You are welcome to share your thoughts on this by leaving a comment and would love to hear what you think about this!

Nature Challenge - January

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

We entered the Nature Challenge organized by the Qatar Museum Authority for the month of January as well.

This month Maimoonah wanted to submit a Poem as well as an Artwork as the topic was "Under The Sea".

So for the Artwork she did the Under the Sea scene using the foil technique.

And for the poem, she picked up this wonderful book from the library and got inspired.

 

And wrote this poem. 

Amazing Seabed

What do I see,

Under the sea,

Awesome rainbow fish,

fearsome great white shark,

Enormous blue whales,

Notorious Manta rays,

Scanning hammerhead sharks,

Snouting seahorses,

Stinging jellyfish,

Hiding on the coral reef,

Five armed starfish,

Dive and calm dolphins,

Rumbling sea volcanoes,

pouring out sea lava,

Amazing seabed,

gift for eyes!

This month's challenge could be found here. Certificates and awards will be given to the winners in April, so next month will be the last Challenge I guess. Those who are in Qatar could still participate Inshaa Allaah!

Nature Challenge - December

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

This month for the Qatar Museum Authority Nature Challenge Maimoonah had to write a poem on 

"Imagine and look up to the sky. What shapes do you see?  What stories are the clouds or the stars telling?" 

Since her success in the last month poem, she has been into looking for rhyming words to write poems and awaiting this month's challenge. 

So I asked her to write down all what she sees when she looks up in the sky. She went to the window looked up in the sky and wrote what she sees and what she used to see. Then I asked her to write what each of them look like for her and what she would want to do with them. She wrote on her note book. Then I asked her to put everything together and make the lines rhyme. So she wrote...

The Sky Like a Canopy

I see..............

Clouds like woolly sheep,

to cuddle and keep.

Sun like the yellow bright ball,

to play and crawl.

Moon like a rocking cradle,

to nest and label.

Twinkling stars like sequins,

to sprinkle the penguins.

Far away planets like tracing dots,

to doodle on the pots.

Flashing lightening like zig-zag,

to stop all our chit-chat

Colourful rainbow peeks out like an arch,

to go under and march.

Glory be to My Lord,

and hoping for His reward.

 

Nature Challenge and First Poem!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Qatar Museum Authority has invited us to participate in their Nature Challenge that would be going on for the next 4 months and we are hoping to participate Inshaa Allaah. Each month they give us a topic or a challenge and the participants Ages 4 - 12 residing in Qatar can submit (online) a poem or an artwork based on the monthly theme. A child can submit any number of entries. A winner will be selected for each month. Winners would be awarded a Nature Kit in April 2014 Inshaa Allaah.

Here is a brief detail about the Challenge taken from their website

This competition is intended to engage children in Qatar with nature and the world around them.

Our hope is that children will create a community map, showing the world as they see, imagine,

and dream it to be. Please support your students and children by helping them to understand the

monthly challenge and encourage their creative responses with artwork, poems, or short stories. 

Please remember, each entry must be a child’s original work based on the monthly theme in

order to be valid. 

More details could be found here.

This month's Challenge is 

"Imagine your favorite green space in Qatar. What does it look like? Why do you enjoy going there?"

I told Maimoonah about this whole thing today and explained to her and showed what other kids have uploaded. She was very excited and liked the whole idea. Since I know Maimoonah does not write poems, I have been cracking my mind thinking what kind of artwork would be best for the theme and in fact asked another dear sister to send me some ideas from a book that she had with her as well. (Jazzakillaah Khayr for sending me sis it was helpful for us even though we did not do them). But surprisingly she wanted to enter the competition but opted to write a poem for this month!

Now, we have been studying about few poems in the Nelson English Book for the last few months. I like the way they introduce this subject in this book, where they make it easy for kids to attempt writing poems. Especially this one!

 

But even though she writes many stories and uses lots of new vocabularies, so far she has not written any poems. Any way Alhamdulillaah I though this is an opportunity to enhance this skill as she is saying she wants to submit a poem and an artwork every month Inshaa Allaah.

So the first thing I did was asking her to choose her favourite green space in Qatar. She chose Dahl Al Hamam Park. This is a beautiful park known as the "House of the Doves". If you go to the link above you will know the history of it!

Then I told her to write down the two important things that she needs to include in the poem according to the theme and list them. 

While she was writing, we were discussing about all what she used to do in the park, her feelings, what she sees there and how well we use poetry to express this and so on... I have been thinking for sometime when is she really going to embark on writing poems and Alhamdulillaah this challenge came at the right time.

Then I told her now think of lines and rhyming words and include all what you have listed in a very nice interesting way and reminded her not to forget the Creator of all those lovely things she has listed.

So she wrote.

Dahl Al Hamam Park

A Feeling of Bliss,

Happiness in this,

Bending trees greet me,

Cats eating popcorns,

Looking cheekily at me.

Little spooky woods,

Mysterious cave,

Grass like waves,

A sandy playground,

All make me laugh.

I adore....

sledding down the hills,

Rolling over with pals,

Picnic with family,

Feeding chirping birds,

play with sand

And dawdle back home

Thanking my Lord!

Then we went outside on a nature walk to collect some items that we could use for decoration. She collected dead grass, sticks. feathers and fallen flowers. Thats all we could find! 

Then she used them to decorate her poem. This is the final product!

 

Then she typed out the information and a brief description about her entry and uploaded a picture for the competition.