Children's Library Project and a Library Visit!

Part of the Young Learners Area at the British Council

The other day Maimoonah got an opportunity to visit a Library for the first time Alhamdulillaah. She has only read in books about Library so I took her to the Colombo British Council Library for the young Learners just to show her the atmosphere of a Library. She observed children and adults reading and the quiet atmosphere, the books categorised and labelled  She read some books there for  sometime as she was not allowed to borrow books since she was not a member.

I was not impressed with the collection of books (which also made me realize the need of the below project that I will mention) though as usual lot of unislaamic stuff, and no quality living books from what I saw, Allaahu A'lam. But I was happy that Maimoonah could at least visit a library Alhamdulillaah!

Now coming to the most important thing that I want to share with all of you readers and want you to help us in this noble Project. 

There are only few Libraries in Qatar and as far as we know most of them do not allow to borrow books and do not have a rich collection of books any way, so we homeschoolers are really lacking this great resource. So some of us sisters in Doha have got together to build a small library for our children in Doha Inshaa Allaah. This is not going to be an ordinary Library where everything and anything is going to be available, rather by the permission of Allaah this is going to be a Library that will have books and activities that would adhere to the Islaamic guidelines as much as 

possible. So the books will be Inshaa Allaah

• For kids 0- 7 years initially.
• Realistic fiction that do not go against the teachings of Islaam
• Non fiction that do not go against the teachings of Islaam
• Authentic Islamic books covering different topics

For now there will be books in English and Arabic and may be later we can expand with books in other languages.

So far we have about 445 English Books and 145 Arabic Books Alhamdulillaah. Some books were donated by sisters and the rest were purchased with the money we collected in Doha Alhamdulillaah thanks to some wonderful sisters and their efforts. 

Alhamdulillaah we have also found a place for the Library for now where a sister and her family opened part of their house for this worthy cause. May Allaah reward them immensely. 

We hope to Launch or open up the Library Inshaa Allaah early next year and currently we are busy with the following

• establishing a stamp for the books 
• covering all books with a plastic cover to protect the books
• categorizing the books and making codes for each book
• establishing a membership application form
• establishing membership cards 
• establishing a software with all the books titles, status, codes and members data

So what we need and how you could help us out here is what comes next! We need plenty of money to buy books. As you know Doha is very expensive and to get down books from other countries cost us more than the cost of the books. Subhanallaah. We are trying to find cheapest shipping but still the cost is very high.

So please do contribute to this project according to your ability, every penny counts bi idhnillaah. Those of you who are in Qatar and would like to contribute please contact Dina at dinakhattab77@gmail.com and those who are outside Qatar please do contact me at ummmaimoonah@gmail.com and I can send you the link for online payments Inshaa Allaah.

This is a non profit project and all earnings through memberships and other means will be used for the Library itself Inshaa Allaah. 

We are also in need of the following for the Library: 

• Children Islamic posters
• Soft toys, fruits, vegetables...etc
• Bean bags

So if any of you are interested in sponsoring them please do let us know Inshaa Allaah!

I sincerely hope and pray each one of you who are reading this post would contribute something towards this and help in this noble community project and earn the pleasure of Allaah in this world and the hereafter. Aameen.

Umbrella!

Maimoonah is crazy over Umbrellas and loves to use them. She is getting opportunities to us it here Maashaa Allaah.

Since we have not yet started homeschooling she is sometimes bored too.

So one day we decided to do some painting. I got this kit from a local store and both of enjoyed this project.

Temporary Relocation.......South Asia....

So, we were silent and missing over here for few weeks. Jazzakumullaah Khayr for all those who were concerned and for inquiring about our absence. Allaah is the best of planners and we are now in.....guess where? I am sure you all know by now! 

While it is nice to be back after a long break we are still getting used to many things especially Maimoonah! She is busy with seeing her relatives and enjoying her babyhood memories around.  

Maimoonah is slowly learning many many things and we are gradually explaining to her the changes she sees in this part of the world! But within her I know she loves to get back to Doha and yearns to live in the land of the Muslims..... 

We have still not got back to homeschooling but only doing the Usooluth Thalaathah and the Qur'aan for now. Maimoonah is missing her work boxes and home, Inshaa Allaah we will start soon.

We were down with flu as when we arrived it was raining and thundering all day and night. Alhamdulillaah the weather is turning good and waiting to go outdoors and explore with Maimoonah Inshaa Allaah! 

So here are some of the pics taken indoors so far!!! 

Just a peep outside from the bedroom window.....

Enjoying the traditional Mango, Pineapple Achcharu (traditional pickle made with vinegar  salt, pepper, chilli) while down with flu... gives some taste while having the cold and cough....

My mum loves her garden and maintains it so well at this age as well.... May Allaah bless her with good health, Aameen!.............

She wanted me to give her some work to do as she was so bored one day... So I wrote some of her old work as revision. She insisted she wanted to do Seerah. She found her baby feeding chair what her Grandma got for her and sat on that and did her work...

 

Alhamdulillaah for Homeschooling, wherever you are the journey continues... we hope and pray Allaah blesses us with great learning experiences and opportunities here and we get back to Doha and our home and our beautiful small community there to continue our journey, Aameen. 

Updates of our adventures will be posted as and when we encounter them Inshaa Allaah!

Hajj Resources!

Alhaamdulillaah, Our Lord the Most Merciful has blessed us once again to witness the best 10 days of the years. All Praise in indeed due to Him alone. 

This is the best time to teach our kids the importance of these blessed days along with Hajj and Eid Inshaa Allaah.

For those of you who want to do some activities with kids here are some of the resources I found to be beneficial. We will be also doing most of the activities from below Inshaa Allaah as we have completed 6 weeks of school and will be having a break from formal school till Eid. 

• The Darul Kitab Book on The Story of Hajj
• Prophets Sent by Allaah - Ibraheem alaihissalaam and Ismail Alaihissalaam Sequencing Cards
• Story of Ibraheem Alaihissalaam Activities
• When the Ka'bah was built 
• A nice story about the Ibraheem alahissalaam and the bad king
• Sis Umm An Nu'man as usual has put out this wonderful Hajj Activity Pack
• Hajj Bulletin Board
• Hajj Lapbooks
• TJ Mini Book 1st 10 days of Dhul Hijjah
• Some Hajj Activities for toddlers and Preschoolers
• Hajj Worksheets
• More activities at TJ Hajj
•  Geography Activities on Saudi Arabia, and the world
• Make a Dhulhijjah Journal with arts and crafts
• Hajj Exhibitions. Some Museums or Islamic centres have Hajj Exhibitions these days and you can take your kids and learn Inshaa Allaah. If you are in Doha there is an exhibition going on at  Moza bint Mohammed Centre in Al- Waab, so check it out if interested.

I hope you will find the above useful and May Allaah make it easy for us to teach our kids the importance of these blessed days and make it easy for us to make the best out of this opportunity. Aameen.

Qur'aan and Hifdhl Progress!

Now that Maimoonah is 5 years old the methodology and ways of her memorising the Qur'aan has changed. And Alhamdulillaah it has taken a good turning point and most of the time is spent on Qur'aan.


She uses the ipod for memorisation. We have downloaded the Qur'aan Majeed Apps for her. It has many features for memorization, like different Qaaris, repeating soorah or aayah, book marks for soorahs, translation of the meaning of the Qur'aan Aayah by Aayah.


I have also printed out little cards that sis Fehmida did for me which is also now available here for downloading. (so far you will get only the soorahs for Juzz Amma) This is mainly for revision.

So this is how it goes.

• Qur'aan/Hifdhl is part of our school Time Table, so it has one work-box.
• Each day I place about 4 or 5 cards with old soorahs for revision and the card with the new soorah in the work-box.
• She will listen to the soorahs for the day and when she is ready, she will call me to check her memorization of the old soorahs.
• She must listen to the new soorah 5 times during this session.
• When she starts a new soorah, first I will recite to her and then she will listen to the Qaari.
• Then we read the Tafseer of that Soorah.
• After few days she would tell me now she has memorised the new soorah and she is ready to be checked. 
• I check her memorization and if it satisfactory I stick the sticker on the Hifdhl Shelf.
• This whole process takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour every day or sometimes more.
• Except for reading the Tafseer and checking, the rest is done independently by her.
• Later in the evenings after we finish school, she will listen to all the soorahs she has memorised while she is busy with playing, or some days she would listen and recite with the Qaari while she in engaged with her own work.
• Also sometimes while she is listening to the soorahs she would read the translation while the aayahs are being recited. This way she has learnt the meaning of many Arabic words and when she recites she knows what she is reciting. This has become a great plus point with the Mercy of Allaah. Every now and then she would talk about an Aayah and tell me the meaning and will start asking questions about it which will lead to a fruitful discussion.

This is how it is going so far and one thing to always keep in mind is that with age and maturity things change, and if you had read my previous posts of Qur'aan you will know the stages and phases Maimoonah went through with this journey, where she used to have melt downs as well as losing self confidence to recite and memorise, and I had to stop Qur'aan completely with her for about 6 months fearing that she would start hating the book of Allaah, Allaah forbid.

And this is something that happens to other kids too as many sisters have written to me with regard to this and asked advise. Each child is unique and forcing anything onto them is going to be disaster, especially the book of Allaah. We need to handle each child accordingly and our goal should be to make the child love the Book of Allaah. Memorising the Qur'aan in the early ages is the best but we got to be careful as to how we are doing this without stressing the child. 

Lots and lots of Duas are the main key to success Inshaa Allaah. And then when a child listens to the audio again and again the memorisation comes easily and effectively without any stress Inshaa Allaah. 

I ask Allaah to make this task easy for all of us and make our children love His Book and act upon it till the end. Aameen.

Science so far!

Since I could not find any particular science book to go along with the Cambridge Primary Curriculum I made my own Science Topics and lesson plans, but Alhamdulillaah few weeks ago I could get hold of CGP Science books and Work books  that identically follows the Cambridge Curriculum.

So now we are using this book as a guide and including my lesson plans, and the books mentioned here and and exploring additional things.

We do Science every other day in a week.

So far we have covered

• Scientific Enquiry - asking Questions, Prediction, Observing, Collecting Data, working safely, Answer the Question
• Living and non Living things
• what all Animals Do
• Differences between Plants and Animals and Humans
• Differences and Similarities
• Plants, Parts of a Plant
• What Plants Need to survive
• Life Cycle of a Plant
• What do the Roots and Stems do?
• Plants Make Food

We used the experiment of how dish-washing liquid help things clean, to fill in our scientific inquiry worksheet. First we asked the question, predicted the answer recorded them. Then observed by doing the experiment and answered the question.

 

Here are some of the activities she did for Animals and Plants and differences and similarities from CGP books.

 

 

She also wrote the differences between the Living things and the Non Living Things. Then we drew a Venn diagram and wrote the similarities and the differences between human and animal. She came up with all these on her own.

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As usual studying about plants once again was pretty interesting. We together found many aayahs from the Qur'aan where Allaah says about the growth of plants and she chose to write the Aayah from Soorah An'aam and Soorah Abasa. When I wrote down the English meaning of the aayaahs of Abasa she was reciting the Arabic to me. She also named and coloured the parts of the plants.

We learnt what roots and stems do. and we did this experiment to see and record how roots take in water. We used a carrot and put it into a glass and marked the water level. Each day for five days she measured the water levels and recorded. At the end of the fifth day we also noticed water has decreased and Alhamdulillaah the carrot had leaves on top, she was so surprised.

We learnt the life cycle of a plant.

Also this lesson coincided with a play group she got to attend and they had to paint their own pots and plant basil seeds. Allhamdulillaah. She managed to plant and we recorded the growth on the book. Abi taught her how plants use their senses and how to be kind to the plants. She has taken the whole responsibility of taking care of her plant. And here  are the stages of her plant and this is what she recorded.

 This books is one her favourite books by one of her favourite authors, non other than our dear sister Umm An Nu'man and one of her pals gave this book to her sometime ago.

She just loves this book and when she planted the seed, from that very day she started making dua so much up until now asking Allaah to make her plant grow. She was so happy to see it growing and she knew for sure it was only Allaah who was making it grow. This books is such a wonderful book that teaches children about plants and that indeed with all what the plants need to grow, it will only grow by the will of Allaah. As of today basils are like this Maashaa Allaah.

 

A dear sister from Sri Lanka sent Maimoonah this little microscope as a gift and we used it to see the cells of the leaves. She was thrilled. We used the Usborne First Science Encyclopedia and learnt about cells and how leaves make food. 

This is a great encyclopedia and it has some internet links for each page where you will find interactive video clips, games, presentation and pictures that go along with it. It is indeed a nice way to learn and we enjoy science this way. Now that she is grown she understands many things and watches some clips that make sense to her. Of course some pages have music and we mute and look at the pictures. 

We also watched this and understood the food chain and discussed about the wonderful perfect creation of Allaah and she in fact was saying an aayah that I cannot remember now which means something like "So o man, why are you careless about your Lord?". Indeed children are with Fitra, and I was amazed how she could quickly connect things. 

So we watched this and learnt how leaves make food and what happens to this process during fall and winter. 

Science is Maashaa Allaah interesting so far.Now we are learning about Human Body another fascinating creation of Allaah. Inshaa Allaah will update when we finish.

Salaah Positions!

As part of this week’s topic on “Remembering Allaah through our Day”, Maimoonah learnt the positions of salaah.

We did this activity from The Muslim Child is Born.

Also I had these pictures of illustration based on Shaikh Naasiruddeen Al Albaani’s (rahimahullaah) book “Sifatus Salaatun nabi”. We printed and pasted on a board.

We spoke about salaah in general, the times of salaah and the names for each of them. Then I explained that salaah is a great way to remember Allaah and it should be done calmly and with full concentration.

We went through each position from standing to tasleem. Then I placed the prayer rug behind the sutra. Explained to her about the sutra and it's importance.

She unrolled the prayer mat..

Then looking at the board where we pasted each position, I demonstrated to her each one and asked her to name the position and show me “The way our Messenger of Allaah prayed”. Masha Allaah it was indeed a delight to watch her trying to perfect each position and how much calm and quiet she was through out this activity, subhanallaah.

So here are the different positions….

Takbir..

Rukoo

Sajda

Sitting in between

Tashahhud

Tasleem

Finally rolling prayer mat..

She really enjoyed this activity and next day was Jummah. Abi was well pleased with her when he saw the photographs and wanted to take her for Jummaah. She was absolutely thrilled. And masha Allaah she listened to the Khutbah and prayed with me exactly the way I taught her the each position masha Allaah. And she was also happy that the Imaam recited the soorahs she knows now masha Allaah.

We are almost done with this week’s curriculum. Will post the summary soon Insha Allaah.

Out and about!

Most of the pics were taken at the Barzan Olympic Park at Umm Salaal Ali in Qatar. Its a nice family park Maashaa Allaah. You get a separate prayer area, clean toilets, toddlers play area, kids play area, a fountain, and lovely green park as well as some rides for the kids and family. Nice place to have a picnic and have some family time.

Mathematics so far!

We are using the Nelson International Mathematics Books and MEP Year 1 for this year. So far within this 3 weeks we have covered a lot Alhamdulillaah without any stress.

Maimoonah loves the Nelson Maths books and finished Book 1A just in one week and Book 1B is almost done. Of Course the activities are pretty easy for her so far. She likes the illustrations and methods on this book, very very child friendly and she finishes them fast. she has got used to using her timer where she sets the time for 5 or 10 minutes and tries to finish the activities before the timer makes a noise. She really enjoys this and finishes maths pretty fast. 

I thought she would feel bored to do MEP after getting used to the Nelson, but Alhamdulillaah now she is doing the MEP all by herself too and she uses the timer for that as well. So everyday we do from both the books.

Now she is able to understand many of the concepts on MEP that she could not fathom last year. I guess age plays a big role in every stage of the development. 

So far some new things we have covered are summarised below.

Numbers Ascending and Descending Order

Tens and Units

Pour and Measure
This was a big hit. We used different containers to measure water and recorded. She learnt about ml and litres.