Ramadan Activities

RAMADAN MUBARAK!

AHLAN WASAHLAN YA RAMADAN!

This Ramadan quite a few of our ideas were extended continuations of last year, some our own  some inspired from Umm AbdulBasir's blogs Mashallah! Others we made new this year. I will be attaching pictures, explanations, files and links of all below Inshallah

RAMADAN BORDER

First we printed the ramadan border, coloured it in and laminated it with transparent protective sheet from the $ store.

See picture:

FASTING IS.....

Lil Muallim # 1 made a small chart on what fasting is. In his words : "Fasting is a state of Ibadah I should spend it Glorifying and Praising Allah" 

Ofcourse Ummi needs to remind but then isn't that what Ummis are for?

WHAT FASTEING TEACHES ME

As the kids are fasting there is a definite need to go over what fasting really means. through the Quran and Sunnah. We made a small chart with a cute image in the middle. We choose the particular image because it looked like Lil Muallim # 1 (who loves to eat.... waiting for the Iftaar time :). The heading was stencilled in and the points were written around the image. The points were thought out independently through self study and then discussed with Ummi.

We got the image from: http://newmuslimkids.blogspot.com/search?q=coloring+pages

This is what it looked like in the end. Mashallah!

FASTOMETER

One my favourite projects this year. I was going through a lesson on levels of fasting in a book and had a Eureka moment. I instantly started making this project with Lil Muallim # 2.  We titled it, FASTOMETER, how did I fast today? Then we drew a kind of a thermometer, dividing it in 3 parts. Level 1: Ordinary, Level 2: Special and Level 3: Extraordinary. We pasted related images in front of each level. Again we used images from : http://newmuslimkids.blogspot.com/search?q=coloring+pages

    


 Then I made a surprise for the kids when they weren't around. I doubled a piece of bristol board and cut one edge like a pointer. Then I cut a slit along one side of the Fastometer and slid the arrow through it till only the pointer showed on the fastometer. Then I folded the point of the extra length of the arrows extended part onto our chart so as to secure it.


Voila! So now they can judge their own fast everyday self assessing themselves. But how would they know how differentiate between the levels. That brings us to our next project below. But first see the pictures of our fastometer. I am attaching pictures of how I made it too. :)

 LEVELS OF FASTING

Once kids show the will and desire to fast, there needs to be  be a clear understanding on what are the requirements of fasting, and even better........what beatifies it. We studied the ahadith on fasting and made the following chart on Levels of  Fasting.

Level 1: Ordinary - Abstaining from food
Level 2: Special - Fasting with all 5 senses (keeping oneself away from any unfavourable act or deed)
Level 3: Extraordinary -   

Will be adding picture soon Inshallah

IFTAR DUA MAGNET

Project for Lil Muallim # 2. Made a printout with the iftaar and drew the pictures and coloured it. Next we stuck it on a recycled piece of carton and laminated it with protective sheet. Lastly we stuck 2 pieces of magnetic sticker strip at the back. Voila our Iftaar dua fridge magnet was ready.

See it here:

RAMADAN CHAIN

First of all we made the Ramadan chain. Got the idea from : http://www.jannah.org/ramadan/ramadanforkids.html

Last year we had made the chain and practised backward counting with Lil Muallim # 3. This year I was asked for the chain again, so I thought of practising Arabic counting beyond ten this time. Mashallah the idea was liked, I guess it felt like growing up :) The cool thing was that Lil Muallim #1 picked up onto the numbers in one go seeing the younger one doing it. ( Something that hadn't been interesting until now!)

I wrote the arabic numbers on the chain in numerals and words as well. We made graphics around the poem ourselves and then coloured. We then pasted it on a blue Bristol board sheet. The Lil Muallim # 2 punched stars along the border and then stuck yellow construction paper strips behind it. I finally laminated it with protective sheet.

UPDATE: I have reviewed this activity as I was corrected by Umm Maimoonah (jazakallaho khairun) and learnt through self study too that the hadith of dividing the 30 days of ramadan into 3 asharas of particular duas, mercy, asking for forgiveness and protection from hellfire is weak. Allah loves the Saim ( the one who fast) and listens to him, Ramadan is a month of Mercy and forgiveness and is so throughout the Ramadan not in particular parts. 

RAMADAN CALENDAR:

We printed out Umm Abdil Basir's calendar with Arabic numerals which the kids colour as the days pass. In all this Lil Muallimah wanted to colour the numbers too, so some were coloured in toddler style. I found it cute but the other Lil Muallims thought otherwise, hehe.

The Lil Muallim # 1 has been doing Lunar Phases extensively for the past couple of years so we are starting it now with Lil Muallim # 2 in more detail. He had a vague idea but now it's time for the real stuff. We are using the info flashes around the calendar. We colour the point we have read and studied and then go to the next one.

In explaining the lunar movement, we acted it out. The Lil Muallim # 1 was the sun, Lil Muallim # 2 became the earth and Lil Muallimah was the moon (the idea fit in perfectly in respect to the respective sizes of each celestial body :)). Now earth was told to go around the sun slowly while the moon was told to walk around the moon. Quite a fun game Alhumdolillah. It really made it clear to the Lil Muallim # 2 Mashallah. We plan to continue on this as a game and also through other interactive websites teaching lunar phases. Inshallah.

GOOD DEED TREE

We had got this idea from Umm Abdul Basir's blog last year. Scroll down a bit to see it:

 http://ummabdulbasir.wordpress.com/category/ramadan-crafts/page/2/

So last year we made our tree with left over scrap bristol board pieces and then covering it with crushed golden tissue paper gave it a barky texture as well as a grand Jannah tree look for kids. Alhumdolillah. Whereas a friend of mine had made one, by recycling cereal boxes and having her kids paint it Mashallah. Also they cut out lots fruits to put on for the good deeds and called it the "Fruitful Deed Tree".

This year we made our good deed tree with brown Bristol board. and just outlined it and drew dark lines with a brown marker. Kids also wanted a squirrel hole this year. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss Allah's Rahmah here on how He provides for his creatures Subhanallah! We cut out leaves and fruits out of construction paper and write the good deeds of each day on them with the childs name on it. It's fun to see their reaction on some.... "Mama! You even put one about my getting you cordless phone?" and I go "Yes ofcourse dear! Weren't you being a good helper to me at that time?" and then their face glows up thinking of other things small as they may seem that can be counted as good deeds if they do them thinking of doing Hasanat. Alhumdolillah

Also I always write the hadith on top of the tree a  a reminder to them. They also like to recite the hadith with its tranlation found in this website: http://www.kids.farhathashmi.com/  in the Rhymes section. English Rhyme # 13 "Qala Rasoolullahi (SAW)"

Our tree this year. Will add the final picture at the end of Ramadan Inshallah.

GOOD DEED CARDS

Again we got the good deed cards from Umm Abdul Basir's new blog. 

http://ummabdulbasirscreativecorner.blogspot.com/2010/08/good-deed-cards.html

We printed the black and white ones, coloured them and then laminated them with self laminating sheets we get at the $ store. They come in packs of 8, so I used four packs for all the deeds, and that's all I had in the house at that time ALHUMDOLILLAH.

LAILATUL QADR ACTIVITY

A common practice in our household to encourage kids to stay up on Layla tul Qadr is that they are allowed to stay up and make Lego on the condition that they will do adhkaar with every piece they put on. With the blessings of Allah they look forward to those nights every Ramadan and remember them as special days through out the year Alhumdolillah.

Last year when Lil Muallim # 2 was younger I had him count out 33 Lego pieces each, from 3 colours. He then made different things out of them while repeating Subhanallah, Alhumdolillah and Allaho akbar. (Mashallah)

Here are pictures of their this years Layla tul Qadr Adhkar buildings / vehicles and more

Lil Muallim # 1's Dhikr Mosque, Dhikr Motorbike.........

Lil Muallim # 2's Dhikr Car, Dhikr Motorbike......... 

RAMADAN LAPBOOK

This one is actually our 2 year old project but we try and add something in it every year. This one was ofcourse done with Lil Muallim # 1 and it was our first lapbook so pretty much everything is printed. It was made in an attempt to encourage Lil Muallim #1 about lapbooking with the hope that the end result would excite him enough to write in the next one himself. Alhumdolillah it worked.

I am only attaching some pictures of the lapbook here. I will Inshallah update complete details in the lapbook section in the blog soon.

Pic 1

Pic 1: Cover, 1st Inside flap with introduction to Ibadah and Ramadan Dua Book. 2nd inside flap showing Babur Rayyan and division of ramadan days and their duas mini books. Opening of Bab ur Rayyan revealing 3rd flap.

Pic 2

Pic 2: 3rd flap from inside showing mini books on Quran on fasting and Sighting the moon. Ramadan words on the right and Ramadan Ahadith on the left.

Pic 3

Pic 3: lifting of 3rd flap to show flap 4 and 5. Flap 4 has "As Siyamu Junnah" (Fasting is a shield) mini book. Inside shield minibook.

Pic 4

Pic 4: 5th flap showing 2 smaller flaps about lunar calendar and benefits of dates. Moon phase calendar for Ramadan 2008, and different booklets about Lunar phases. There is also a lunar phase slider in the corner.

Pic 5

Pic 5: The flap with the shield opens to reveal Wise words of the Prophet and Sura tul Qadr. The Surah flap opens to reveal Layla tul Qadr minibooks. Empty space is for Laylatul Qadr math (calculation of 1000 months etc).

  

Pic 6

Pic 6: The Layla tul Qadr mini books flap open to show the following minibooks. Fasting other than Ramadan, what breaks our fast and people who are exempted from fasting.

Pic 7

Pic 7: On closing all the flaps the main flap can be lifted to reveal a file folder where we can insert Ramadan worksheets. The empty blue flap is for Zakat ul Fits that will be our last topic of Ramadan this year. Inshallah. 

Pic 8

Pic 8: The whole lap book with all its flaps! Phew ! Alhumdolillah.















We gathered most of our material from Tj Ramadan and Umm Abdul Basir's blog Mashallah! Other Umamah Learning Academy Ramadan Lapbook printables will be uploaded soon Inshallah. Till then here are the wonderful resources from these wonderfully talented sisters Mashallah Tabarakallah:

http://tj-ramadan.tripod.com/ramadanlearning.htm

http://ummabdulbasir.wordpress.com/category/ramadan-crafts/

http://raisingmuslims.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/ramadhan-lapbook-pics-printouts/

http://alwayslearningresources.wordpress.com/


You can also find other wonderful Ramadan lapbook ideas and printables here : http://islamiclapbooking.wordpress.com/category/sample-islamic-lapbooks/ramadan/

FASTING DAY CYCLE AND SEQUENCE CARDS

We also printed, colored and laminated these from http://ummabdulbasirscreativecorner.blogspot.com/2010/08/fasting-day-sequence-cards.html

and http://islamicbulletinboards.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/fasting-cycle-bw.pdf