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.

Essential Lessons for Every Muslim - Pillars of Eemaan - Belief in Allaah

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Continuing with the book Essential Lessons for Every Muslim by Shaikh Abdul Azeez bin Baaz Raheemahullaah we learnt the 6 Pillars of Eemaan.

We read this easy to understand interesting book on the hadeeth of Jibreel alaihissalaam explaining the meaning of Islaam, Eemaan and Ihsaan.

 

We used the TJ Pillars of Eemaan Poster and pasted on the scrapbook and learnt the 6 Pillars of Eemaan. 

Also wrote them in Arabic and English

The First Pillar of Eemaan - Belief in Allaah

• We discussed how we should believe in Allaah

• What does belief in Allaah consists of

 

• What is Faith in the Ghaib

• What influences the Faith in the Ghaib

This turned out to be a very useful point as it made it easy for me to instil the importance of Khushoo in prayer primarily and other things such as fearing to sin or do bad deeds. It was a fruitful discussion.

Alhamdulillaah I am so glad that Allaah guided us to do this beautiful book this year and it consists really of the very important lessons a Muslim must know. And the scrapbook approach is helping me refresh my learning as well.

Next will be the 2nd Pillar of Eemaan Inshaa Allaah.

Is memorising the Quran 1st or Seeking knowledge?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 This is a reminder for myself and others. May Allaah reward our Ulama!

Should the student of knowledge start with memorising the Quran?

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious Most Merciful
BismiLahi Rahmani Rahim

What should the student of knowledge begin with, studying the aqeedah and the tawheed which is part of the Eeman? Or memorising the Quran

As it was reported that it was from the way of the companions and the sunnah to teach the children the tawheed before the Quran and not the contrary as it is widely spread amongst people.

Jundub Ibn Junada may Allah be pleased with him said:

We were with the prophet sala Allahu alayhi wa salam while we were young boys, so we learned faith (eeman) before the Qur’an, then we learned the Quran and our eeman increased.

Reported by Ibn Majah and authentified by Al Albani.

And on the authority of Abd Allah Ibn Umar may Allah be pleased with them, He said:

We lived during an instant of time in which one of us would receive Faith first before receiving the Qur’an and when the verses were revealed we would learn what they permitted and what they prohibited and what they forbade and what they ordered and what should be the stance towards them. But I have seen many men from whom one is given the Qur’an before Faith and he reads it from the opening of the Book to its closing and he does not know what it orders and what it forbids and what should be his stance towards it. He is like someone who is just throwing out dates, i.e.: he does not get any benefit from his recital.

Reported by Al Bayhaqi and Al Haakim who authentified it.

Ibn Al-Qayyim said:

If they reach the time of pronouncing, let them pronounce La Ilah ila Allah Mohammed Rassoul Allah, and that the first thing that knocks their ears, knowing Allah Glory be He, His Tawheed and He (Glory be He) is above His throne, and that He sees them and that He hears their words and that He is with them wherever they are…

Shaykh Muhammed Ibn Abdul Wahab had written a letter named “Teaching the children Tawheed”, he says in his introduction:

This letter is a benefit showing what obligations to teach the children before teaching them the Qur’an. So that the child becomes a complete individual upon the islamic fitrah under tawheed correctly.

As it was asked also:

Do we start learning what is mandatory from the knowledge of the prayer, the fasting and the purification? Or do we start with memorising the Quran?

Ibn Mubarak answered to that:

If you have what is sufficient for you from the Quran to perform your prayer then seek knowledge.

–

I say because seeking knowledge of the deen is mandatory and memorising the Quran is recommended, so you do not precede the recommended over the mandatory.

Written by Shaykh Abu Abdellah Maher Bin Dhafer Al Qahtani
Translated by Abu Maryam Jaouad Al Maghreb

Posted from: http://www.al-sunan.com

Sewing Saturdays - Outline Stitch

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

So after a very long break we got back to sewing on Saturdays, Alhamdulillaah!

Now that Maimoonah has grown and has developed better controlling skills stitching is pretty much independent and she is liking it more as well.

Just to get the rhythm back I thought of introducing an easy stitch and settled for Outline Stitch.

We use this and learnt how to stitch the Outline Stitch.

We used this stencil and drew the scene on a felt material.

Then got on with stitching the outline. Then she stitched two buttons revising our lesson on stitching buttons. This is how it looks after completing. I helped only with threading the needle and the finishing knots, the rest pretty much her own work.

Its displayed on the Refrigerator!

Essential Lessons Every Muslim - What is Eemaan, Branches of Eemaan.

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

This week we went on to Lesson 3 on The Essential Lessons for Every Muslim. We learnt the following

• The Arabic Linguistic meaning of Eemaan
• The Shariah meaning/definition of Eemaan
• What is Islaam and Eemaan when they are mentioned together
• Actions are included in the Term "Eemaan"
• What Nullifies Eemaan
• The Hadeeth of Jibreel
• The Branches of Eemaan

We used this article and pasted the diagram and the Arabic Definition.

 This is the hadeeth of Jibreel. We learnt briefly here Inshaa Allaah we will continue to learn in detail in the next lesson.

We compiled what nullifies eemaan and discussed about each point.

Branches of Eemaan

We made this tree using Glue and Foil technique, and wrote the highest branch of eemaan, the lowest branch of eemaan and the branches in between.

Inshaa Allaah from next week onwards, we would learn the Articles of Eemaan each one in detail.

Our Role Models - Sahaabah Scrapbook - Abu Bakr As Siddeeq رضي الله عنه

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

We started our scrapbook on "Our Role Models - The Sahaabah". This approach is working well so far for us and I like the fact that we are able to cover many aspects of our dheen this way. We do not go into detail in our study here as the aim here is to make familiar the best noble individuals of this Ummah and create the love and a passion for imitating them to gain success in this world and hereafter Inshaa Allaah. Also this is something that will be continuously studied each year of course with more details Inshaa Allaah. 

We learnt the following using this and this (more could be found here)

• The Definition of a Sahaabi
• The singular and plural in Arabic for sahaabah
• How do we call a male and female companion in Arabic
• The Merits of the Sahaabah
• Some Traits of the Sahaabah
• Who are the Muhaajireen and the Ansaar
• Foremost amongst the sahaabah
• Who are the Khulafaa ur Rashideen
• We also used this site and copied some of the Aayahs of the Qur'aan and the sayings of the Messenger of Allaah about the sahaba.

This is the cover page of the Scrapbook. 

I explained to her the meaning of "Our Role Models". This I think is very important at this time especially because I feel that she is exposed to more reading materials and more information, Alhamdulillaah. As we all know you cannot find a large collection of quality Islaamic Books for kids, our kids are reading materials from others. And I sometimes fear that these characters and happenings even if they are true and innocent would make an impact on the kids no matter how much we try to justify ourselves. So the best is that we introduce our true role models to them and instill love in their hearts for them Inshaa Allaah. While explaining Role Models I also mentioned we name our children after the names of the Prophets and the Companions mainly because we want them to be like them and achieve success in this life and the hereafter.

These are the inside pages.

 

Abu Bakr As Siddeeq رضي الله عنه

We completed Abu Bakr As Siddeeq رضي الله عنه as our First Role Model -  Companion. We used the following Resources for this.

• The Golden Series of the Prophet's Companion - Abu Bakr As Siddiq - The First Caliph of Islaam
• The Age of the rightly Guided Caliphs - Abu Bakr As Siddiq
• Saheeh Al Bukhari - The Merits of Abu Bakr Siddeeq رضي الله عنه (most of the hadeeth we read from the Saheeh Al Bukhari could be found here )
• Companion Quest
• A Concise Children's Encyclopedia of Islam

 

This is a brief description of how we get about this Inshaa Allaah.

To instill love in the hearts of the little ones you need to keep talking, really! You need to constantly narrate and tell them the stories or incidents involving the sahaabah to get them really interested. So this is what I try to do. We took turns and read all the above mentioned books. And Noted down the following and recorded on the scrapbook.

• His Birth - when, where?
• His true Name
• His Kunya
• Special Names - Here we discussed each incident why he was given that particular name
• His Parents' Names
• His Wives
• His Children
• His Death

Then I asked her to describe as to how he looked. She was to write them down but instead asked me to write them for her.

 We used the Companion Quest and played the game on Abu Bakr As Siddeeq  رضي الله عنه while learning the important facts about him. After which we wrote them down on the scrapbook making the same circle shape as the Companion Quest. We further read from other sources and noted down more facts about his Khilaafah and other incidents.

 After talking and discussing about Abu Bakr and explaining some of the incidents from the seerah I asked her to now explain to me "How is he a Role Model for you?" . This is the fruit of the whole subject Alhamdulillaah, she was able to tell me this and write them down.

Then I asked her to explain to me each incident of what she has written that makes him a role model. Example, she said he was truthful - The incident of Al Israa and Mi'raaj, He was the Strongest in Eemaan - The incidents of the Cow and the Wolf talking, He was brave - He fought in all the battles and fought the False Prophets and those who refused to pay Zakaah, He was Generous - Freed the slaves and gave his wealth to Islaam and so on. 

So that was the end of the lesson. Please note all of the above are not done in one day. We do Our Role Models Once a week, and some days we only read and other days we write some parts of it and other days we only discuss. So it may take three to four lessons or more to complete depending on the amount of information and of course the mood. 

Some sisters ask me if she retains the information as we are doing many things. Well children as well as adults need revision and consistency, so after we finish a lesson we always go back to it again every now and then to refresh the information. Scrapbooks makes revision easy because it would take only less than 10 minutes to go through the 2 pages but there are plenty of information over there and reminds us all what we did in detail before.

Essential Lessons for Every Muslim - The Declaration of Faith

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Continuing with Imaam Bin Baaz's Essential Lessons for Every Muslim, we completed the Lesson 2 on The Declaration of Faith - The Shahaadathain.

We covered the following:

• Reading the Shahaadah in Arabic
• Saying it clearly in Arabic
• Learning its English Meaning and saying it correctly
• Using this Sheet and learning the meaning of the each Arabic word of the Shahaadah (more posters on the topic could be found here)
• We Learnt that the Shahaadah has 2 Parts
• The Linguistic and the Shariah meaning of the first Part of the Shahaadah "Laa ilaaha Illallaah"
• The Pillars of "Laa ilaaha Illallaah"
• The Proof for the Pillars of "Laa ilaaha Illallaah"
• The Status of "Laa ilaaha Illallaah"
• The Virtues of "Laa ilaaha Illallaah"
• The Meaning of the second Part of the Shahaadah "Muhammadur Rasoolullaah"
• The Shariah meaning of "Muhammadur Rasoolullaah"
• The Pillars of "Muhammadur Rasoolullaah"
• How is the Messenger of Allaah, distinguished from the other Prophets and Messengers
• The 7 Conditions of the Shahaadathain.
• Learning to Write the Shahaadah in Arabic

Here are the pages from the Scrapbook