My Heart is a Pomegranate: A Youth Anthology - Our First Print Publication

       بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Alhamdulillaah, if you've been following this blog for over a decade, you'll remember how our homeschooling journey began with Maimoonah, who was almost two years old. You can find posts here detailing the day we officially started homeschooling and documenting her journey over the years. Today, she is a 17-year-old young lady, Alhamdulillaah. Time has flown by, and Allaah has blessed us with countless blessings.

Maimoonah never attended school, but she completed her IGCSEs, earned a Higher Diploma in English, and is now in her final year of a BA in English and English Literature. She hopes to begin her Master's soon, bi idhnillaah. 

One of the beautiful blessings of Allaah for us is living in Doha. Alhamdulillaah! We started our homeschooling journey in Doha, and Maimoonah has grown along with the places that nurtured and encouraged her writing skills. When we first came to Doha, there were no libraries, museums, or major activities for children.

Qmuslimah a community of expat sisters came together to create a library and we were blessed to be part of it and Maimoonah benefitted a lot from that initiative too. 

Alhamdulillaah, Qatar has advanced rapidly over the years, focusing more on literacy and building spaces catering to children's development. Maimoonah was one of the few homeschooled children who loved attending workshops at the Museum of Islamic Art and participating in Maktabah story times at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art when they first opened. She continued to flourish with them as she grew, and when the Qatar National Library opened, she was thrilled. It has become her second home, offering incredible resources and state-of-the-art facilities. May Allaah bless the rulers and authorities for creating such safe, enriching environments that align with our values and morals and for continuing to support us. Aameen.

Why am I sharing all this? What's the connection between this introduction and the title of this post?

Today, I want to share a beautiful milestone of a homeschooled child. At 17, Maimoonah has published her first book on Amazon. But what I love most about this achievement is how she managed to gather like-minded youth, providing them with a platform to showcase their talents, too. From the start, my intention with blogging was to share beneficial resources and experiences with other families. This anthology that Maimoonah published aligns perfectly with that original purpose.

We've published many digital books for children over the years, but I never intended to venture into print publishing. While many advised me to do so, the nature of our work and the community we serve made it impractical, especially with Amazon's high costs for print publishing while living in the Gulf. I didn't explore that avenue for these reasons and the other complexities involved.

However, Maimoonah took the initiative and was determined to make her dream come true with the permission of Allaah. This entire project was her's. Since she is not yet 18, she couldn't publish the book independently, so it went through me.

The idea, the design, the front and back cover, formatting, calling for submissions, preparing contracts, communicating with contributors, marketing, and the entire process of publishing on Amazon were done single-handedly by her. May Allaah bless her. She also wanted Ustadh Abu Afnan Muhammad Abdullah to review the book, who graciously agreed and completed the reviewing and editing process. May Allaah reward him immensely. All of this was accomplished within just a couple of months, which, at her age, is truly a remarkable achievement and a blessing of Allaah to proclaim. Alhamdulillaah. 

My Heart is a Pomegranate: A Youth Anthology features nonfiction prose, poetry, short fiction, beautiful artworks, and thought-provoking musings from young Muslims. Maimoonah carefully handpicked each submission, maintaining the standards she aimed to produce while providing a platform for these talented young artists. In an era where AI-generated content is often misused, she ensured the originality of every piece, Alhamdulillaah.

We thank our young Muslimahs for their excellent contributions and hope they are pleased with the end result.

Alhamdulillaah, we have many resources for young children. But there's a considerable gap in catering to preteens and youth. While it's natural for us to focus on nurturing our children when they are small, it's equally important to continue supporting their spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth as they mature and become responsible adults.

It reminds me of the statement of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī when he would see a young Muslim:

  "Welcome to the individuals that the Prophet ﷺ  had advised us regarding. Make space for the youth in the gatherings and explain the narrations to them. You are the ones to inherit from us, and you are the people of ḥadīth after we pass away." 

I am glad that this anthology has provided a much-needed safe space for young Muslimahs to express their thoughts and showcase the outstanding talents Allaah has blessed them with. It also allows the community to witness that our Muslim youth are truly the shining stars of the Ummah.

Please support them by purchasing the book from Amazon. The links are provided below. And please remember to leave a review on Amazon once you've read it. Share this with youth and families; it would make a wonderful Eid gift for a special Muslimah.

Purchase here

The Amazon UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F223QNRH

The Amazon US link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F223QNRH

The Amazon Canada link:

 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F223QNRH

Journaling with Kids - Fun and Easy Writing Tool

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Many sisters have been asking me how to start Journaling with their kids and how Maimoonah does her journal writings. So I thought of sharing our experiences of Journal Writing so far.

If you have been following my blog you may have known that we started journaling when Maimoonah was around 3 years old. We actually began the journey of journaling with getting introduced to Ramadhaan Journals. These are some of the first journal pages done by her when she was 3 years old.

  

 

It was all about free writing and expressing! So that is what journals are for! Seven years later (she is 10 now), I can see how Maimoonah has continued to nurture this habit of journal writing pretty much independently and today she has so many journals with so many different things written on them. Still, does not stop picking up a notebook or two when going to a supply store!

If you check online you will read overwhelming information about Kids Journaling, what is it, why is it beneficial, what do you need, how to do it, how to start it, what not to do and what to do and of course much more. Relax, don't worry, I do not intend repeating all that is found on the net here, rather I would be sharing in this post what worked for us and how I personally view Journal Writing is benefitting Maimoonah in our homeschooling journey. And if you know us well, then we do not stick to mainstream dos and don'ts when it comes to any concept except Islaamic concepts. Our style has always been doing it our way, Alhamdulillaah! So here we go!

Journal writing can be done with even a toddler. Little Ramlah as small as she can be not even turned one and a half adores her own little books and pages scribbled with crayons and pencils So there is no right age as such to start journaling. Most preschoolers and kindergarteners would love to have a little notebook for themselves too. Primary and secondary students, as well as adults, explore journaling with their own unique styles. So any age is fine as long as interest is there or building up...

Benefits of Journal Writing:

• Easy tool to motivate writing and expression
• Less boring method to introduce notes taking
• Improves grammar and spelling
• Improves hand writing
• Enhances written communication skills
• Improves reading skills as well
• Digs up the hidden creativity
• Improves arts and crafts skills
• Opens up the brains to think out of the box
• Helps with Scrapbooking and learning the Islaamic Principles in depth but without being stressed or overwhelmed.
• Helps to keep in mind important concepts in different subjects
• Helps to explore the creations of Allaah and to be thankful for the blessings of Allaah.
• A better alternative to keeping low the boredom or the constant whining  "I am bored" of a  pre teen or a teenager 
• The best way to use the arts and crafts left over materials that hide inside the cupboards for months or sometimes years.
• One of the ways to understand the personality of the child or the learning style of the child. This helps to facilitate the correct teaching style.
• Helps to gauge the mind of the child and helps to check if the child is having any unethical or unIslamic concepts or thoughts within her or him. Knowing what is going on in the minds helps as parents to correct the false ideologies and concepts and put things right without making it an issue.
• Great way to keep records of anything important or for that matter even the homeschooling journey.
• Solves the problem of having to declutter or throw away the whole heap of papers written and drawn every now and then. Having all the doodling and writing in one book keeps the surrounding tidier and the storing easier. 

What do you need?

Honestly, a notebook and a pencil should do the job if there is enough interest. But it is nice to make the exploration a bit more appealing tempting and adventurous with having some supplies that will motivate the spirit of journal writing inshaa Allaah.

So here are few things we keep handy. Please note I do not buy and store any very expensive materials for this purpose only, rather most of the things that are used for journaling are stuff that we anyway purchase for homeschooling use. The challenge here is to use your creativity and complete the job with what is available. I have listed below supplies that are kind of mostly used and essential and some supplies that are good to have especially for older kids.

• Any kind of notebooks or even sketchbook. You can choose larger notebooks for little ones especially because their writings may be very big at that age plus they may express more drawing or cutting and paste pictures. Also a bit bigger notebooks will be easier to turn pages, write and to use comfortably for the little hands. Keep in mind that it is always better to encourage free writing at the beginning than guided writing. Older kids may like small notebooks sometimes ruled ones and sometimes blank ones depending on what they would like to journal. So get the notebooks accordingly. 
• Pencils and pens, fine liner pens, colour pencils, felt pens, ball point pens, fountain pens, brush tip markers, emboss pens
• Erasers, glues, and scissors
• Water colours, any kind of paints, acrylic, pastel, poster paints etc
• Crayons
• Water colour pencils
• Decorative hole punches
• Stencils
• Post it notes
• Wrapping papers 
• Stickers
• Washi tapes
• Sellotape
• Ribbons
• Yarn
• Decorative Stamps
• Popsicle Sticks
• Coloured papers
• Sequins
• Glitter pen/ Glitter / Glitter Glue
• Feathers, gemstones, any other decorating materials
• Natures treasures such as fallen leaves, flowers, dried twigs, etc etc

Types of Journal Writing
Now that you have all the supplies what do you write, what kind of journal do you maintain? Well, there are many types journal writings. Here are few options.

• Art Journal
• Visual Journal
• Gratitude Journal
• Nature Journal
• Qur'aan Journal
• Planning Journal
• Personal Journal which is something like Diary
• Poetry Journal
• Travel Journal
• Reflective Journal
• Ramadhaan Journal

While each one of them is done either using guided writing or free writing, we do not worry too much about what type of journals to write. In fact, you can just have one notebook and use it for all of the above. It is all up to the child and depends on the child's interest.


How do you start Journaling
Journal entries can be anything and everything.

• Just to start off,  begin with a selected notebook and ask the child to write or draw something that happened on that day depending on the child's age. Make sure you allow the child to do free writing. You can gently prompt some topics to write or draw about or you could draw and write instead, eventually, they will get the idea. It can just simple as this

• You can also use a ready made Journal for kids which include prompts and in a template format just to fill in the information asked and decorate. 

 

• You can use a sketchbook and encourage children to write poems.

 

• They can do some research work and write something they have been fascinated about. Maimoonah loved to learn about the bees and she recorded her findings in the journal. 

• If your child has the habit of reading the translation or the Tafseer of the Qur'aan daily, then you can encourage them to write an aayah that inspired them on that day. Maimoonah maintains a small Qur'aan Journal for this purpose and uses art techniques she learns at the art classes to make it look nice. 

• If you have babies, you can encourage your older children to maintain a baby diary. Helps with keeping records of the development of the baby, strengthens the bond between the siblings and in some cases, a nice way to get rid of jealousy building up. 

 

• You can also get the kids to write short stories with lessons and morals. The ulama differ with regard to writing fiction stories. So whichever opinion you take it is better to get the kids to write nonfiction kind of stories or true stories. Maimoonah has been writing fiction and I take a balanced attitude with regard to this as I see her language skills improved a lot with the story writing but I do remind her to be cautious with writing.

• The random journal entry can sometimes include a concept studied. We did geography the other day and I saw this journal entry next morning. Isn't it a better genuine way to see how much a child has understood from the lesson than merely doing a worksheet?

• Finally, it can be something done to entertain a toddler who loves the feel of texture. The yarn is used here by Maimoonah and Ramlah is busy with touching and feeling!

Sometimes I see Maimoonah having a journal with worksheets prepared by her for younger kids and may be for herself as well. 

These are some of the examples I have given and you do not have to do the exact same with your kids. Let the kids explore their own linking in their own ways.

Journaling Techniques

As kids get older especially girls, they may like to add a touch of professionalism into their journals, so if your kids are like this it will be nice to show them some journaling hacks that surface time to time and also different creative techniques to use. You will find plenty here. Few Examples are below. Please mute as  there is music and avoid all the concepts and content that are against Islaam displayed in these videos and in any of the third party links I have mentioned if there are any.

Warning
Here are few things to be aware of

• Make sure kids do not draw pictures that have souls such as humans and animals as picture making is prohibited in Islaam.
• Encourage the kids to generally write something beneficial as Muslims are always cautious since they are accountable for all their actions.
• Most people think personal journals are to be kept private and parents must not poke into their diaries and journals. I do not agree with this. Maimoonah loves that I read all her journals and pleads with to me have a look. And I love to read her journal entries with a cup of coffee mostly after Fajr when the house is silent. I look forward to this as I really do love her writings and cute thoughts! So do not create the private thinking in journal writing, but give them the assurance that you are always there to appreciate their talent and creativity while helping them to be on the straight path when they seem slipping away. But keeping their journals private from other than parents is fine and something that you should respect as well. So make it very clear inshaa Allaah. 
• If the kids are not interested please do not force them. Even after you motivating with supplies, videos and anything else, they still do not show any interest, then know that this is not their cup of tea for the moment, may be they will get interested later. So keep the doors always open. For the moment look into what interests them and find a solution. 

So that's it. This has been a long post, hope I have not bored you! And I hope I have given you some points and tips to headstart this adventurous journaling journey with your kids. Enjoy! And please do comment below if you need me to share with you any specifics and I would love to hear your journaling journey with your kids too! 

I end the post with Maimoonah's words where she is sharing with you what she loves and benefits from journaling through the years...

"I like jouranaling because of 2 reasons: 1 is because it gives me cooling of the mind and the 2nd is because the next year or the year after next I can find my note books and read them throughly. It gives me insight and makes me see my mistakes so that my next journal entry can be better than the first. And it is a lovely way to glorify Allaah for His wonderful creations and to ponder His blessings opon us."

www.umm-maimoonah.com

Pen Pals!

Alhamdulillaah sister Umm Suhailah at Mariam Poppins  was busy enough to organize a pen pal club with kids participating from around the world! The goal for this was to connect the hearts of the Muslim community throughout the world starting at an early age. Also to get kids to write and practice their writing skills! A fun and stress free way to get the not so enthusiastic writers to write.

At every age and stage kids get into a phase where they just refuse to write and get bored with writing and most of the time its frustrating to us to get the work done. But the solution I think and I found productive is not to nag but to let go and use other ways and means to get them to write, when they love to write something, they really write with lot of effort put into it. If you give them to do some writing in a workbook its always a tug of war if they are experiencing this phase of not willing to write.

Maimoonah too was going through this stage where she was making excuses not to write, and at that time Umm Suhailah came up with this Pen Pals idea and Alhamdulillaah it worked really well. Maimoonah got two pen pals from UK and the US.

She took lot of effort and wrote the letters, decorated them and also made some Thank You cards for them for being her pen pals.

We used our Writing Resource Book and I first explained to her how we write a letter. Stressed the fact that we follow the suunah of the Messenger of Allaah (writing the basmalah and addressing it and informing from who the letter is) in writing letters, spoke about how the Messenger of All used to instruct to write letters to his scribes that were sent to many kings calling them to Islaam.

Since we were also in Colombo at that time, she was able to visit a Post Office and see around what happens there. She stood in line got the stamps, pasted and saw the letters she wrote going into the post box. And she was thrilled when she knew her pen pals have received her letters and she was thrilled to receive letters from them too.

What she received from her pen pal from UK

 

Another way to make kids write is also to provide them with materials that are interesting like beads, stickers, notebooks with interesting pictures and stencils. I gave these stuff to Maimoonah and she uses all of this and draws and writes something or the other when she is bored. This one below is some things about Sri Lanka...

After writing letters to pen pals she actually got out of the phase of not willing to write. Writing became nicer and the process of writing was not as bad as before, by the Mercy of Allaah. And I know she will go through this stage again and we have to keep finding interesting ways and means to get her out of it from it Inshaa Allaah! The struggle continues..... :  )

Writing!

Maimoonah loves to write little notes, stories, letters and so on. And she writes everything and anything. I have never discouraged her or made any corrections on her writings but always appreciated them even though it was going a little too much about her bunny and cat and all kind of stories.

Now we started using the Write Source book where it teaches a child the writing process step by step. And this has helped me to teach her the actual writing process without making her feel that her writings need correction.

First together with Maimoonah I made this Writing Portfolio.

I printed out some writing pages from here and along with it kept a writing pad inside the file folder.

 

This portfolio would be used for all writing lessons. And all the writings will be filed here for this year.

The first chapter explains the writing process and takes you along with one writer's process.

So along with the book I asked her to follow the writer. First asked her to think about what she would want to write about as expected she chose to write about a cat.

Then asked her to draw a picture about what she has in mind. She drew something like a cat and she eating some food. Then I asked her to write and describe the picture. And this is what she wrote. This was her pre writing.

Then I read and explained to her where she has gone wrong sighting the example on the book. I explained to her while what she has written is very cute and nice but what is expected to write is something meaningful that everyone would enjoy to read. And the writing must describe the picture. So I asked her to edit her writing. She wanted me to do that. I told her to dictate and I wrote. Now she really understood the point. Subhanallaah! And now she always wants to write things better.

We also wrote a title to her story and she copied it neatly on another paper. This was her published story.

The Hungry Cat
One day I saw a cat. I was eating a bun. The little cat said "meow, meow'. It was hungry. I gave the cat some food. The cat ate the food and said "meow, meow". May be she said "Thank You", to me!

The next chapters in the book teaches guidelines and many different forms of writings. I feel this would help her to make her writings better Inshaa Allaah. As we go on we will share this writing journey Inshaa Allaah!

Kindergarten Curriculum Summary - Week 31

Islaamic Studies

• Scholars of Islaam - Ulama - We used this and learnt about the Scholars. We learnt the characteristics of the Scholars and what they do for us and also learnt about few scholars from the early generation and the current scholars who adhere to them. We wrote down some points on the Islaamic Studies book. We also spoke about Taabieen and the At baaut Taabieen.

English

• Grammar - Quantifiers. 

 

 

 

• Reading and Writing - We finished reading aloud the Treasure Island. Maimoonah was also busy reading the new set of books that we got recently. Abi bought her some notebooks and she was busy writing all by herself and all what she wants. 
• 
• 
  
• 
  

These are the few things that I found she has written. She says I am writing my journal and writes on and off. I was amazed to see her written the story of goldilocks and the bears. I have never taught her this. its starfall. She has remembered it and written in her own way with her own spelling. I only saw it after few days. : )

 

 

We also started doing this work book which turned out to be a good revision. 

 

Maths 

We continued with subtractions.

 

Science/ Social Studies

We learnt about Outer Space, Sun, Moon, Day and Night, stars, and Planets. We have covered this last year so we did some worksheets and read a lot from the books we have. Emphasised again that the earth does NOT go around the sun, rather it is the sun that goes around the earth. We learnt the hadeeth of the sun seeking permission to go down thus the day and night happens and also discussed about the fact that when Allaah does not give permission for the sun to set, that is a sign for the day of Judgement and no repentance will be accepted after that. 

 

We learnt about the Sun and the phases of the Moon.

  

We did the Scavenger hunt for the study of the Planets. Explained to her that the most planets are named after Greek so called gods and goddesses aoothubillaah, and Allaah did not name any planets and we only refer to them for studying purpose and we do not believe in those names as they are full of shirk. 

We did a home made kind of a magnifying glass: ) using cardboard, tape and drop of water!

 

Arabic

Alhamdulillaah Maimoonah's reading in Arabic is improving even though she does not like to put too much effort. This week she wanted to read the names of the Prophets in Arabic. Since this was her own initiation I was happy and she did this puzzle all by herself. she changed the names of the Prophets from English to Arabic. she brought me each Arabic Card and read it to me and then replaced it. There is no Haraqaat on it but she read, may be because she knew all the names of the Prophets but she basically read to me and when she was stuck I told her the haraqaat for some letters and she caught it. 

 

  

Alhamdulillaah we have completed our Kindergarten Curriculum for the school Year 2011/2012 by the grace and Mercy of Allaah. All praise is indeed due to Allaah that we were able to complete all according to the planned curriculum. Now looking forward to Ramadhaan and then another exciting beneficial school year Inshaa Allaah. Baarakallaah Feekum wa Jazzakumullaah Khayr for all of you who have encouraged and helped us throughout.