At the Library - Arabic Story Time

Alhamdulillaah we had a nice Arabic Story time at the QMuslimah Children's Library today.

The sister read the Arabic Book about Fruits and Colours.

 

The kids listened to the story, then answered the questions in Arabic. They were also made to identify the fruits by choosing the correct play fruit.

Then they coloured the fruits, cut and pasted them.

This was a simple activity but the kids really enjoyed and learnt to ask " ماذا لون تفاح" and so on! This is a good learning through play activity to practice vocabulary Inshaa Allaah and also to get the children experienced in group learning.

We hope to continue this Arabic Story Time Inshaa Allaah at the Library on Sundays. Those of you who are in Doha and would like to be members of this Library please do contact me and we would send you an invitation to join the QMuslimah online Library Forum Inshaa Allaah.

QMuslmah Children's Library is now Open!

Innalhamdalillaah, The QMuslimah Children's Library opened its door for the kids in Doha today! May Allaah bless the sister and her family who is accommodating this Library at her home,  until we find a suitable place.

The sister has also done a great job organizing all what it needs with two toddlers around and the little Library just looked nice with a very nice collection of Books in English and Arabic.

May Allaah reward all the sisters who generously contributed towards this Library and the sisters who helped with ordering and purchasing the books and checking the contents, helping with covering the books  and all those who helped in every little way to make this Project a reality. Aameen.

 

 

There is a lot more to do for this Library and we hope to gradually put things in place as we go on Inshaa Allaah.

Maashaa Allaah Maimoonah enjoyed the visit and loved the borrowing of the books. This is what we missed so much in Doha and now Allaah has blessed us with this Children's Library.

If you are in Doha and would like to be a member of this Library then please do contact us (ummmaimoonah@gmail.com) and become a member of QMuslimah and the Children's Library Forum and then you can come along and fill in the application form for the Library and register by paying the Registration and the Membership Fee on any Sunday 10 am to 12 noon to borrow books Inshaa Allaah.

Starting from next week we are also trying to organize a small story telling or reading aloud session in Arabic followed with some simple activities for the kids to encourage the study of Arabic Language Inshaa Allaah. This would be something to look forward to bi idhnillaah.

Once again we thank all of you for all your efforts and May Allaah make this a success and bless this noble project. Aameen.

Progress of Geography

I just realised I had not posted anything about our Geography Studies for this whole year. So this is an update and a record with all what we have done so far.

The books were are using for this year and also for the Primary years Inshaa Allaah could be found in detail here. We were unable to take full advantage of all the books mentioned there due to relocation and we hope to take the best out of them next year bi idhnillaah.

The Curriculum Guideline that we are using could be found here, even though we are not sticking to it 100%, this is just a guideline for us Inshaa Allaah.

So the main books we are using so far are the Developing Map Skills and Evan Moors Daily Geography Practice Grade 1.

Evan Moors Daily Geography is too easy for Maimoonah but it is a good practice anyway and she likes the format of it and she finishes each chapter pretty fast and she likes the colouring part of it. Also this book made her Familiar with the all the States of the United States of America.

Few of the things we have covered from this book so far includes

• What is a Map
• Using A Map to Find Places
• Map Keys
• Picturing a Map
• Maps of Different Places like the Farm, Stree, Town, City, State, Fun Park, Zoo Maps
• Introduction to the Globe
• Oceans and Continents

 

The Map Skills book is also a very good book for instilling the basics of Map Skills.It starts from the basics like learning the position words, direction and slowly gets on to real map skills.

Some important skills we have covered so far includes the following:

• A Compass Rose
• Using a Ruler
• Measuring Distances on a Map
• Using a Map Grid
• Mapping a Grid
• Map Symbols
• Reading a Road Map
• Cardinal Directions

Each Chapter has some hands on activities to be done by the students which makes it easy to understand the concepts. For Example Maimoonah made a city following directions. Also she made cardboard house. It also encourages the students to draw their own maps using map keys and based upon the contents of each chapter they have studied.

 

 

Here are some of the other activities on the Map Skills Book.

 

 I like the emphasis on the UK National Geography Curriculum to do field work on the topics to be covered. And I hope to do more field work with Maimoonah next year after the basic skills are learnt, even though she uses Google Maps to guide us when we are lost we need to make it more interesting with field work Inshaa Allaah.

Continents and Oceans Study what we did last year could be found at the below links.
http://ummmaimoonahrecords.blogspot.com/2011/12/continents-and-nations.html
http://ummmaimoonahrecords.blogspot.com/2012/01/continents-and-nations-study-south.html
http://ummmaimoonahrecords.blogspot.com/2012/01/continents-and-nations-europe-review.html

Homeschoolers Art and Craft Session

Alhamdulillaah, thanks to few homeschooling sisters we were able to get started with having an Art and Craft session with some homeschooling kids here in Doha.

We have been homeschooling in Doha for 3 years now and never had a Muslim Homeschooling Network. But now Alhamdulillaah we have many interested homeschoolers and we hope to do many more activities in the future for the Muslim Homeschoolers Inshaa Allaah!

This time we had fun with buttons. Here are the creativities of the kids with buttons.

And this is what Maimoonah came up with independently! (one button fell off on our way home as she has not glued it well!)

Things used for this are Buttons, Popsicle Sticks, ribbons and Glue. Simple but elegant craft Maashaa Allaah. Jazzakillaah Khayr to the Creative Sister who organized this event here in Doha. Children had good fun and mothers got an opportunity to have a chit chat with regard to homeschooling experiences.