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....
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.
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 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.
I always find that here in the West, we tend to make more effort for Eid ul Fitr, probably because of the fasting. When it comes to Eid ul adha however, we do not make such a big fuss.
When it comes to children though and teaching them Islam and what the festivals mean and their significance then really we can't afford to take our eye off the ball. We need to make that extra effort in ensuring that an atmosphere of festivity, fun and above all remembrance of Allah swt and his Prophets (as) is created.
I hadn't officially planned anything on this topic but when the time came I managed to pull a few things together to really involve the girls with what was happening and alhamdulillah I'm so glad I did.
The girls had so much fun and learnt so much.
We had various discussions about Hajj, Eid, Sacrifice and the story of Ibrahim (as).
One afternoon I spontaneously decided to dress all the toys into ihram. The girls were delighted and couldn't wait to take their toys on hajj with them. They created their own role plays of entering the airport, aeroplane and then enacted the hajj rituals. We made some stones from foil and they couldn't wait to find the 'shaytaan' to throw them at.
I managed to pick up a few materials to make our own model of the kaaba and it turned out quite well. Ideally I would've liked to have also made a maqaam Ibrahim, safa and marwa, tents in Mina and arafat, the jamarat pillars and the Propeht (Saw)'s mosque but this was too ambitious for this year.
Masha'allah Rahmah has been praying for almost a year and the others also occasionally pray with us. I make a point of mentioning at the beginning of each prayer we do together that we are praying facing the kaabah and we are praying only for Allah's sake. The kaabah is therefore very much known to them. Besides, I think Rahmah may still have some vague memories of our Umrah trip almost 4 years ago and certainly from when their dad visited Makkah last year.
Making the kaabah model and having it there in our kitchen to look at and admire throughout the day just made it more visual. Fifi fell in love with the kaabah, and every time she would see it she would say 'there's the kaaba' and 'I love the kaaba'. She can now properly identify it in pictures and will even point to the finer details of the black stone, masha'allah. Just this in itself has shown me how important it is to inculcate a love of the house of Allah within our children at a young age and how quickly the children absorb and understand the deen.
We watched some hajj documentaries and Nur was so amazed to discover that 'lasagne and doner meat' actually comes from sheep. It was one great realisation for her and took a few moments to sink in!! She kept asking 'Mum, do we really eat sheep?'. It was hilarious, especially when moments later she questioned me 'Mum, where do chips comes from?' and 'which animal do chips come from?'
I found this excellent site where I managed to download lots of hajj related printable activities for the girls to do during the days of Eid when we were at home.
Insha'allah, I've made a mental note to myself to actively plan for Hajj and Eid into our timetables for future years. I also pray that Allah (swt) gives us the honour of visiting his house together as a family and completing the hajj.
It's almost the end of Shawwal and here I am posting about Ramadhan!! I really need to get into the swing of posting on here regularly, before I forget things.
Saying that, this Ramadhan was one I hope we will never forget insha'allah. We are still singing the Ramadhan nasheed and Fifi is still saying 'Ramadhan moon' from the book we bought. It felt like a proper family Ramadhan as it was the first time Rahmah fasted the whole month!
Yes, my baby Rahmah, aged only 6 years old decided she wanted to go for it this year and Alhamdulillah she managed to do it despite the long summer days and the intense heat we had.
What's more Nur decided she wanted to give it a go aswell and managed to keep 2 whole fasts too.
So what else did we get up to during Ramadhan?
Well, my Ramadhan preparations started with thinking of how Rahmah would get through it and what I could do to support her. So I sought advice from sisters and stocked up on things like Mamoul, Frozen fruits, Vitamins, Nuts, juices and her dad also bought some Glucose tablets!
Alhumdulillah we were invited to 2 pre- Ramadhan parties where we discussed the importance of Ramadhan, sang nasheeds, decorated cakes and made decorations. The girls just couldn't wait for Ramadhan to begin and kept asking me 'How many more days to Ramadhan?' almost every day during the last week before Ramadhan began.
Then there was the Ramadhan calender which turned out to be quite an ambitious project. I decided to make one out of Fabric this year so that it could be used for years to come and remain within the family heirloom. Alhamdulillah, mum was able to stitch the pockets on for me, and I then worked on stitching on the mosque, the numbers and letters and sequins. The last few days before Ramadhan began was a race to get this calender ready in time and Mother in law also helped stitch some of the numbers on.
The girls loved it and were very excited about it. I placed within each pocket some sweets or small toys like bubbles and also a question. By the end of the month I found I had to top up the last few pockets as Fifi and also Nur used to help themselves to some of the sweets during the day as Fifi could reach the lower pockets. Maybe I will have to make another one next Ramadhan after all!!
We were fortunate enough to go out for moon-sighting and although we knew we wouldn't actually see the moon, it was such a pleasant evening. I wished we lived in Muslim lands, in fact in the Khilafah state, where Ramadhan is welcomed in collectively, as a community, as a nation and the excitement and atmosphere can be experienced by all. Living in the West we have to work hard to create that atmosphere and build within our children a love for everything Islamic.
This Ramadhan was one of milkshakes and fruit smoothies. A sister had advised me it was a good thing to feed Rahmah as I could cram in the healthy fruits and dairy and it takes little effort to drink. Alhamdulillah they were a hit and we all enjoyed them.
It was hard to get Rahmah to sleep during the day, but we were careful not to drag her out shopping too much as it got too tiring for her in the heat. Also, she wasn't able to handle late night iftaars as she found it hard to get up for suhoor if she'd gone to bed late after iftaar. Sometimes, she was literally just falling asleep whilst trying to eat suhoor!
We stayed up during the odd nights and it was great having her as a partner as it encouraged me to stay up aswell and we also attended an iftaar/qiyaam and suhoor at a friend's house which she enjoyed.
2 Ramadhan's ago I'd started a scrapbook with Rahmah. all about Ramadhan but didn't complete it. This year alhamdulillah we brought it out again and we finally completed it. Rahmah got to do some revision about Ramadhan and had lots of writing practice. I also used lots of resources from this site which the girls cut out and stuck in the book.
Then there was the Ramadhan video. We went to the library and took out some books about Ramadhan and found that there was an emphasis being placed on the food, iftaar parties and presents and so we decided to do a video presentation to explain a bit more about Ramadhan. This was a spontaneous thing as really we'd planned on taking it easy during Ramadhan but the need arose and Rahmah wanted to do it so we got to work straight away.
It was a great learning activity, as we sat down and discussed why we were doing the video? who we were making it for? what information or ideas people held about Ramadhan? and what was the message we wanted to give them? Then there was the recording aspect of it and all the language, communication and presentation skills that went into it. Masha'allah it turned out well and was shared on you tube and facebook and she received many positive comments and many children and parents were inspired by her.
Eid was also a lovely day masha'allah as we were blessed to have prayed Eid salah in the park. I have been wanting to do this for ages but never had the opportunity but this year alhamdulillah we managed it and the kids were able to experience it too. They said around 18,000 were present and I also met some of my friends there which was a bonus.
Fifi turned 2 on eid day as that was her Hijri birthday, and a few days ago was her Gregorian birthday. Subhan Allah how the 2 years have flown by. She has grown at a super speed and is already talking in sentences and coming out with things which amaze us. Nur would've been starting reception class next week and Rahmah would be in year 2, if we were not homeschooling.
Subhan Allah my girls are growing up!!!
May Allah swt accept our efforts and enable to witness many more Ramadhans, together as a family insha'allah.
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