Some Questions Answered!

Assalaamu Alaikum Ya Akhawaat,

This is a long awaiting post. Many sisters have asked me few questions on my schedules, Qura'aan memorization, teaching Maimoonah the Names of the Prophets, etc etc. And I replied to all of them I will write a post with details to their questions, but delayed it due to all sorts of things : ) So finally decided today to write something Insha Allaah!

Qur'aan Memorization

I have never asked Maimoonah to repeat any soorahs after me. I started reciting to her the Qul Soorahs and the Aayathul Kursi from the day she was born before she goes to sleep. When she was 1 and a half years old she recited the 3 Qul Soorahs Independantly. Then She heard her Abi reciting Soorah Fatihah while he lead the prayer and one fine day she recited that on her own. I officially started memorization with her when she was 3 years. This is what I did and still do..

• I recite the Soorah at least 3 times during 3 sessions every day.
• 3 days later I can hear her reciting it while she is playing.
• we listen to the audio of the Imam reciting
• And she corrects her pronunciation
• If the Soorah is long the time taken is also long
• And if I do not know the soorah by heart, she listens to the audio of the Imaam reciting at least 3 times 3 sessions a day and she will learn the soorah.
• I do not correct any pronunciation all the time. If I know she is able to pronounce then I correct or else I leave it because I find when I correct her she looses interest and does not want to go ahead. But most of the time she corrects the pronounciation on her own after listening to the Imam.
• We listen to Shaikh Hudaifi as I feel he is very clear and slow enough for a toddler, hafidahullaah
• As for revision she use to recite on her own all the soorahs she knows before going to sleep or while playing. But now she knows a bit more soorahs we do revision of few soorahs each day during our circle time.

Lately as all of you know Maimoonah has been going through a phase of emotions with memorization and we had to go slow. She is still struggling to overcome this. But Insha Allaah she is doing pretty ok these days. And I have raised my hands all the time and asked Allaah to help me when I face such events and He has always helped me. So I hope to go slow a bit now and catch up later when she settles Insha Allaah!

Learning the Names of the Prophets, Wives of the Prophet ,Etc.

This I take a print out of the list put it on the board, read it to her every now and then I pass the board and she will repeat after few days all in order. Then go on to the next and next. But to keep all of this fresh in her mind every now and then I ask her to tell me the list. My way with Maimoonah is never ask her to repeat anything. I just read and she will do it on her own. I learnt this from Glenn Doman : )

Dua

From the time she was born we said all the dua to be said in all situations. And she learnt only from us. After sometime she told on her own. She first said bismillaah when she was 11 months I think. And then when she was 1 year she said the dua after eating and so on.

Our Schedule

We learn Sunday to Thursday. But if we had missed some days in between due to some reason we catch up on weekends too. As for timings I actually do not stick to any time. I plan the schedules for a week and I have in my mind each day what I would do. Here is a rough schedule Insha Allaah!

• She wakes up at 7.30 am
• By the time she has her wash, change, milk and breakfast it's about 8.30am
• We start our circle time at that time and finish by 9 am (this will include changing the date, Quraan listening, Revising the Qur'aan, Aqeedah etc etc)
• Then we do the topic related activities for the day till 10.30 am
• At 10.30 am I start cooking and by the time I finish it's Luhar. While I cook Maimoonah will be cooking with her toys or will look at a book or make a puzzle or eat my head in the kitchen lol
• Then after salaah I feed her lunch and at 1.30 pm she will have her afternoon nap till about 3.30 pm. Some days she wakes up late if she had had some sleep issues that night. For example she might wake up at 9 am. Then no afternoon nap. We will continue to study after lunch.
• After the nap and after Asr we go out to the graden and play till Magrib, that is about 6 pm during summer. And for some reason if we do not go out then we will learn during the evening as well. Or she will be online on Star fall or any other power point presentation.
• Then after Magrib we will read a little and have dinner and she will talk and talk and go to bed by around 9 pm

The Morning Learning includes, reading encyclopedia or theme related books some days, and worksheets some days and MEP maths some days. These I do with her according to her moods and some days we do not do anything much like today because she was very crochety. So we leave that day and do the next day. And there are some days we only do just one thing and there are some days we have actually finished half the work for the week.

So basically we are very flexible and do not follow a cut and right time table. But Alhamdulillaah work gets done for the week. Blessing of hoe schooling!

As for getting the resources and materials ready then I do all this during the weekends and keep everything ready for the whole week. Searching, browsing, cutting etc etc take lot of time and children get bored. So best is to keep everything ready and supply activities for them Insha Allaah!

I hope this would have answered your questions in detail. And please do remember sisters every child is different and every house hold is different. And the best thing to do is to do your own schedules according to the capability of your child and according to your house holds Insha Allaah! I know the ones who newly enter into HE have many many questions in all these issues. Please start from some where and you will eventually know your schedules Insha Allaah!

May Allaah guide us through this path of Cultivating and Educating our children to please Him alone!

Summary - Week 18 - Allaah Gave me Clothes

Allaah Gave Me Clothes

I think one year ago we did this theme when Sis Umm An Nu'man produced some lovely activities. So most of it we reviewed and this time Maimoonah could do her own revision as she is able to read now masha Allaah!

I explained to her that human beings need 3 essential things to survive, Food, Clothes and Shelter. And Allaah provides all of this for us. So I asked her why do you think we need clothes, She said to cover our Awrah". So discussion continued from there. We talked about different kind of clothes and whaat Muslims wear and all that. This lead us to the Darul Kitab Book on "Our Clothes" to learn more about what Allaah and His Messenger has said about clothes. We read the book. Maimoonah was reading too and we discussed the contents, like boys not wearing girls clothes, avioding figures on our clothes, Women's clothes when going out and men wearing clothes above the ankle. She was constantly saying her father "Abi men should wear clothes here okay, above the ankle nothing below". Children really wait for an opportunity to boss you : )

We read the encylopedia and learnt about cloth0e0s in different ages and clothes worn by professionals like doctors and etc.

Then we reviewed this what we pasted and learnt one year ago, Girls Clothes and Boys Clothes.

We watched few you tube videos on how they manufacture clothes. Showed her the machines they use to make these clothes, yarn and few factories. Then we got a nice vedio on Arab clothes. We learnt about different styles of thobes Qatari, Omani, Emirati, Saudi etc. Also learnt about how they make Jilbaabs.

Then we watched more videos on what people where all over the world. National costumes of different countries. She was more concerned about whether the clothes she saw were covering the awarah or not : ). She watched different styles of costumes and was pretty happy when we saw a fully covered one like the kimono of Japan. lol

Then we did this seasons and clothes matching activity from Montessori for Everyone. I pasted the seasons on her environmental studies book and asked her to cut the clothes and paste accordingly on each page. She was saying the seasons in Arabic this time to my surprise! (Circle time has done the job: )

Language

We did few worksheets from the British Council Website on clothes.

This is a worksheet with description of clothes worn by people on the sheet and you have to identify the correct picture. She could read the description but wanted me to do it for her as she was more interested in finding out the correct picture.

Then this is another one where you use the pictures to describe your favourite clothes.

This is a worksheet on how we get dressed. She had to follow the steps and identify the pictures and at the end of the worksheet she has to match the opposite words like dress - undress and so on.

We also had another book on opposites and along with the worksheet took this opportunity to make her understand the concept of opposites. She caught it well this time.

We made this little book on "What I wear in Winter". Gave her some pics and she had to read the sentences and paste the Pictures accordingly.

Qur'aan Memorization

We are revising the old soorahs.

Asmaaul Husna

We learnt Al Haqq and Al Mubeen. pasted only Al Haqq as I need to do Al Mubeen.

Aqeedah

This week we spoke about the right of Allaah upon His Servants. Explained to her a bit on the topic. I am not sure whether she understood the whole of it but she is able to know that the right is that we do not worship anyone other than Him.

Maths

We learnt to count 8 using fingers and some activities in MEP

Made this paper dog and played this game. I do not use the dice in MEP activities as the Messenger of Allaah has forbidden using dice I just right down the numbers randomly and ask her to close her eyes and point one number.

Reading and Writing

She read another Noddy book this week masha Allaah.

We also read this book which we made a year ago on the topic

And Allaahu Baarik Laha she has reached another mile stone in writing, Alhamdulillaah. She has started writing sentences now independently and I have not taught her phonics but she writes

She wrote this on a piece of paper...(I asked her to read it to me, here she goes "Abi is Muslim" (she has not spelt Muslim correctly though), Abi is a boy"..)

She also uses the white board every now and then and writes some funny things like "Abi is Milk" Abi is Ummi and so on and laughs!!!

She traced this

Arabic

We learnt two more letters.

Also made this book from A Muslim Child is Born to go along with the topic and she did the pasting. I used Google Translator to help me with this.

Montessori Activity

Blowing Bubbles

Maimoonah has learnt to blow bubbles and enjoying every evening doing this.

Kindergarten ?!

So now that we have come to the end of our Pre School Curriculum, I am browsing the net these days to see what I should do for the next whole year with Maimoonah. As always I went into Sis Umm Ibraheem's site and found some useful tips and Alhamdulillaah I was content that I have something to look forward to and guide me through out the next year's curriculum Insha Allaah!

May Allaah reward sis Umm Ibraheem for all her sharing. I always consider her as my big sister who is always there to help us out in every where when it comes to home-schooling. She is such an asset and may Allaah make all her efforts Sadaqah Jaariyah. Aameen.

Here is the link for that page and Insha Allaah.

Kindergarten Homeschool Resources

I will be thinking on these lines for the next year for Maimoonah. I feel Maimoonah falls into this category after Ramadhaan as she will be 4 years Insha Allaah. So what do you think? I need your naseehah sisters who are teachers and home educators with experience, please let me know if I am on the right track Insha Allaah. All your comments and suggestions are always welcome and whatever I do for the next year (curriculum and lesson plans) will be available for you for download as usual free of charge Insha Allaah! : )

Marine Festival - 2011

Marine Festival was held early this year during winter but actually forgot about these pictures till Umm Suhailah reminded me of this, Subhanallaah! We did not spend much time at the Marine Festival as there was music and went only to sections that did not have and here are some pics Insha Allaah! Enjoy!

Pre School Curriculum - Weeks 19 - 22

Alhamdulillaah here is the last four weeks (19-22) Islaam is My Life Pre School Curriculum lesson plans and details Insha Allaah.

You can download the weeks 19 - 22 here and the whole curriculum from week 1 - 22 from here Insha Allaah!

So this has brought us to the end of the Curriculum and now we have a whole year's curriculum done with the grace and Mercy of Allaah!

Jazzakumullaah Khayr to sis Umm Ibraheem at http://talibiddeenjr.wordpress.com/ and sis Umm An Nu'man at A Muslim Child is Born for all their hard work.

So I hope to finish this Islaam is My Life Curriculum with Maimoonah before Ramadhaan Insha Allaah which will end a school year Alhamdulillaah! And we will resume our school after Eid with a new Curriculum lesson plan for the next entire year Insha Allaah!

I have still not decided what I am going to do. So if you all have any ideas and suggestions please leave a comment and we can discuss Insha Allaah. Maimoonah will be 4 years old in Ramadhaan masha Allaah!

So looking forward for your comments in helping me Insha Allaah!

I see lot of sisters using this curriculum with their children and I am so glad to see all the kids progressing well. May Allaah reward all of you. Barakallaah Feekum!

PS: Something I came across after I completed the curriculum and uploaded it, is that I found this site with beautiful unit studies all for free and some of the topics are included in our curriculum. So please be sure to benefit from it Insha Allaah!

Prophets Sent by Allaah - Nuh Alaihissalaam

We used the Darus Salam book on Nuh Alaihissalaam and Ibn Katheer's Stories of the Prophets to learn about Nuh alaihissalaam.

We read the Darus Salaam book and I explained the story to Maimoonah. And Masha Allaah she too read the book with me. She could read many words she was familiar with Allaahu Baarik Laha. We pasted the Prophet's Fact Sheet and the review questions.

Then we did the Story sequencing cards which we got from easel and ink. Alhamdulillaah Maimoonah was able to read these cards 90% independently. I was not very sure if she could read them as they contain many different fonts. But She could recognize different fonts and read. This was a very good reading practice for her and a good means of testing her reading ability for me as well.

We learnt the origins of Shirk and how Shaitan trapped the people who were upon Tauheed. We discussed about the Nuh's alahissalaam son who disbelieved and drowned and how his wife too disbelieved later even though he was the messenger of Allaah. We laso discussed about his patience to call the people to Islaam for 950 years.

We learnt a little more about Floods in the encyclopaedia and watched the recent Tsunami video clip on the computer. We also went through fatwa-online Nuh's Ark pictures and the Mount Judi.

She did this animal matching activity and some colouring. She was bored and did not colour the ark : )

Then we painted this ark and made impression of rain with tooth brush and made clouds with cotton balls. She cut this ark on her own. Masha Allaah did well with the curves too.

We also did another ark craft with animals.

I got these craft templates from here

A Blog Award - Alhamdulillaah!

So this is the latest news within the blog world of Muslim Moms, masha Allaah! It was indeed a surprise for me to get a mail from the sister at American Muslim Mom and actually first I thought it was a spam : ) as I receive some mails every day with incredible stories. But when I read the contents it was indeed a sweet surprise that my blog has been ranked within Top 50 masha Allaah!

And I was happy to check out the list and see many blogs that I visit were also listed.

May Allaah reward the sister and her family for taking the time to put this list up with great research and efficiency to please Allaah alone. It is not easy to embark on such a project. Jazzakumullaah Khayr wa barakallaah Feekum dear sis. May Allaah give you the best in this world and the hereafter. Aameen.

It has been just over a year since I started this blog with the inspiration from our dear sister Umm An Nu'man at A Muslim Child is Born, Alhamdulillaah! And coming to think of it Subahanallaah it has benefited me and enabled me to see my daughter growing up in front of my eyes and learning every aspect of life with me here at home. Alhamdulillaah! And above all I am thankful to Allaah for enabling me to share our journey and encouraging, guiding and helping other sisters to educate their kids upon the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah of His Messenger upon the understanding of the Sahabahs the Taabieen and Atbaaut Taabeen.

May Allaah reward the sisters who have generously shared their journey and resources and helped me out whenever I needed help in every way. Barakallaah Feekum for all of you.

And May Allaah reward all the sisters and readers who come here and benefit, leave lovely comments and encourage me and my family and also advise and guide me through out. Barakallaah Feekum for all of you too!

And May Allaah reward you all those who come by and those who are silent readers and benefit from here. I know and Understand all of you , masha Allaah! Barakallaah Feekum for you too!

May Allaah continue to help us to educate our children upon the straight path and guide us right along. Aameen.