Frog Marching!

 Today I took the girls on a march of a different kind - a frog march!!

It was organised by the rangers in one of the parks and basically involved a lovely, long (well very long) walk.  We walked through the vast woodlands in the park, moving from pond to pond looking out for frogspawn and frogs.

Masha'allah the girls did so well.  Fifi walked all the way and only asked to be picked up a few times.  The others in the group were ven impressed with her, especially when they found out she's just 2 years old.

Nur on the other hand did complain. 

She complained of the walking, of the mud and of the bushes in her way as she walked!! 

I'm hoping more outdoor activities like this will actually build her resilience to these things.  I'm sure deep down she does enjoy it, being out in the fresh air even if she does look forward to another episode of Peter Rabbit when she gets back.

In the next few days i'm going to be getting organised for these excursions which means buying another backpack and maybe some wellies, what do you think?

(By the way the odd colour socks are a happy compromise that was reached after fighting over which colour socks to wear whilst getting changed in the morning - I was impressed!!)

'Out and About' Forrest School

I have been trying to find a suitable forrest school for the girls for a while but nothing had quite materialised for me.  When I heard of a new forrest school starting up near us and it being FREE it was like duas being answered.

The lovely spring weather has just begun and insha'allah I am looking forward to spending time outdoors with the girls, enjoying the sunshine, fresh air and learning about Allah's creations.

This is what we got upto in our first session:

Hunting for shades of green:

An excellent activity just running around the garden, looking at the different plants and textures and different shades of the colour green.  The kids loved being able to pull off pieces of leaves and stick them on their cards.

Pond Dipping (or Fishing in the pond as my kids called it):

        

 

We caught a massive rams horn snail:

 and many other little beasties in here........

We also had a go at some willow weaving follwed by a picnic,play in the park and a snooze in the car on the way home!!!

Fifi keeps talking about how she went fishing in the pond but couldn't play on the slide because it was too big for her.

                                               Looking forward to the next session.

Lemon and Blueberry cake

The girls' grandparents bought them some fruit the other day, including blueberries so we thought we'd make this really easy cake.

 

The girls love baking and i'm trying to teach them how to prepare, read recipes, follow instructions and of course tidy up afterwards!!

Today I also taught them how to serve guests and share with others. Granny and Grandad happened to drop by and therefore joined us for tea and cake. The remainder of the cake was shared with our neighbours and an uncle they went to visit later in the afternoon.

Serving others is something which I really want to improve on both in myself and the children.

Society today is very individualistic, we are encouraged to just look out for ourselves and our needs above others. Even when others are involved, there are too many ulterior motives which get in the way.  We are surrounded by an attitude of just helping others when it suits us, when we feel like it, when it's convenient for us rather than when it is actually needed.

Then there's the whole 'scratch my back and i'll scratch yours' mentality where serving others is like an exchange for some benefit which may come to us, whether that be in terms of material goods, brownie points or something else.

The Prophet Muhammad (saw) was sent as a mercy to mankind.  Within his example we have many examples of how the Prophet served others, whether it be sharing food with them, visiting the sick, helping them in their time of need, advising them, consoling them, praying for them, removing from them the harm of tyranny and oppression etc.  All purely for the pleasure of Allah and no other purpose.

Imam Ghazali (may God be pleased with him), specified three levels of helping others: not being a source of harm to others, forgiving them their faults and the third level is being of service to them.

In the coming weeks I am going to be looking into ways of building this in the children and also refining this within myself.  I am going to be exploring things we can get involved in and make a regular habit of such actions so that serving others becomes a norm rather than an exception.

In the meantime I think there'll definitely be more cakes and baked goodies to go around....

                                                           

I want to read Quraan

Alhamdulillah, this evening I experienced a tantrum of a beautiful kind.

You're probably wondering what kind of a tantrum that might be which deserves to be called beautiful and that I am showing gratitude for.....?

Well this evening my 5 year old Nur decided she'd throw a big wobbler for not being able to read the quraan.   She stormed out of the room whilst I read quraan with her elder sister and then cried unconsolably, with big, wet, innocent tears dripping down her face all because she wanted to be able to read from the big quraan like us.  I can't remember her crying this much for anything else.

Nur has just turned 5 recently and is just beginning to read qaida.  I tried to teach her earliar like I had done with her sister but being the active child she is, she just wasn't ready to sit still or take it seriously.   Since then we have pretty much just let her play and roam free.

The worst thing a parent can do is force a child to learn or to expect that every child is the same and therefore put them through the same lessons,materials and experiences. This can have a detrimental effect on how children then approach education and view their learning.  With regards to quraan or other islamic learning it can have dire consequences where children begin to hate reading quraan instead of loving it, which in turn defies the whole purpose of teaching them!

When I realised how different my children are, I knew a time would come sooner or later when Nur actually wants to learn and is ready to learn.  During the past few months she has shown greta interest in other aspects of learning and has made excellent progress in her English reading and maths.

And alhamdulillah judging by today's tantrum I think the time has arrived for us to delve deeper into learning to read quraan.

It took a good 30minnutes or so claming her down and trying to explain how she needed to get through qaida before being able to read the quraan but at the moment the desire to read is so great and I think the task is appearing quite daunting to her.  There are just too many pages in the qaida and it seems too long away for her for her to reach her goal.

Now it's my responsibility to take this desire to learn and to teach her, using the best materials for her learning style and activities which will stimulate her further and help her grow in her ability and confidence andinsha'allah.

Sadly, qaida learning/teaching has not developed that much over the years and the shops are still full of those plastic coated alphabets and noorani qaidas. We are currently using the 'Simple Steps in Quraan Reading' 3 part qaida books which I used whilst teaching Rahmah.  These were quite unique in their style and layout and worked okay for Rahmah  but I have come to know of another product which I feel will be better suited for Nur and am trying to get my hands on.  I am also going to need to be quite creative in how I  teach her so I will be doing some research on the best online resources to utilise and supplementary worksheets etc.

I am quite excited about it all and I can't wait to help her reach her goal of reading from the big quraan.

So I say alhamdulillah once again for such beautiful tantrums, for what can be more beautiful than a child's desire to learn the word of Allah (swt) and what greater honour is there than raising a child to love Allah , his book and the deen of Islam.

Hijaab Project

Alhamdulillah, we finally completed our Hijaab project!!!

1.  What is Hijaab

                                        

I found these pictures and descriptions on the BBC news website and decided to make a matching activity out of them, where Rahmah had to first read the description and then find the corresponding picture.

We then went onto look at the evidences from the Quraan and Hadith which make wearing hijaab an obligation.  It was really good to see how she related to the story of prophet Nuh (as).

 

 

   

2.  What is Jilbaab

 

                                        

3.  Who do we have to wear hijaab in front of?

This activity gave us a chance to look at the quraanic ayah in more detail and understand it. 

4.Good hijaab/bad hijaab

We looked at lots of pictures together and watched some you tube videos.  Unfortunately there is now a growing trend of hijaab fashion videos on you tube which do not meet the Islamic criteria of hijaab and it was important to look at this in light of the evidences to see where they don't match up.

 

 

 

 

5. Hijaab around the world

 

I wanted to draw attention to the difficulties that girls face around the world for wearing hijaab and so we looked at a few scenarios and completed some comprehension activities. 

 

We also did a role play where I had to pretend to be an evil headteacher who didn't want Rahmah to wear hijaab at school and therefore she was able to think about what she would do if in that situation.

 

 

 

 



 

6.  Questions - Me and My hijaab

 

I wrote some questions with different scenarios to further check the understanding of the hijaab rules and these had to be separated into true or false.  Most of these were straight forward with the exception of a few tricky ones, which we discussed further.

 

 

 

 

 

7.Presentation 

 

Finally we ended with a presentation about Hijaab, covering everything that was learnt. 

 

The girls all really enjoyed this, it helped reinforce everything and they loved to dress up their doll!! 

 

The presentation can be seen here

 

 

                                       

  

 

 

"Not a leaf falls except he knows it" - Quraan 6:59

I Love Autumn!!  

The crispy, crunchy leaves of all different shapes, colours and sizes floating in the air and lying on the ground are such a beauty to watch and delightful to walk through.

More so, they are a reminder of Allah's beauty, his power and his majesty. 

How al-Khaaliq, created such beauty out of nothing.  

How he, Al-Mussawir; the shaper and fashioner, shaped each and every leaf with it's own unique, shape and size and colour.  

How he created the perfect system of photosynthesis by which he nourishes the plants and the trees, giving them vitality and life. 

How before our very eyes he causes them to wither away and die in the winter only to be brought back to life again in the spring.  

It is important for us to ponder and reflect upon these signs and understand them and their significance for our lives.

Allah gives us life and Allah takes it away.  Allah created us from nothing and Allah will bring us to life again once again after we have turned to just bones and dust.

Subhanallah - it blows the mind away!!!!

Autumn and in fact all the seasons are perfect opportunities to get out there, engage the senses, reflect and be in awe of Allah, our creator.  

This is what unfolded when we did exactly that.....

Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky and makes it flow as springs [and rivers] in the earth; then he produces thereby crops of varying colours; then they dry and you see them turned yellow; then he makes them [scattered] debris.  Indeed in that is a reminder for those of understanding.  

[Surah Az Zumar 39:21]