Ramadan Activity # 4

Last year back in Pakistan in my city a toy drive was held. I really wanted to contribute to it but it wasn't possible cause I was here in Khobar and the drive was kinda being held really really far away. So I thought to myself that In Shaa Allah next year in Ramadan I will try doing something like this in Khobar or wherever I will be at. Let me tell  you before we get on any further that I am a BIG time introvert. Talking to ppl, not my thing. So doing it on my own was a downhill from the beginning.

So around comes Ramadan, and I still hadn't figured out how I will be doing a toy drive. I tried to find  an orphanage in Khobar through internet but I was not at all successful. I know there are two of them in Khobar Dammam area. But that's about it. I even contacted one through their website but I didn't get any reply. Anyway, so I was quite disheartened by my lack of success. But Allah really is very merciful and Kareem. I mean I wanted a toy drive, He sent one to me of all the places I never would have thought of looking, The Mall.

Yeah, a local organization has arranged for a toy drive for the orphans in  Mall Of Dhahran.

So, today's activity was centered around giving. We sorted the toys from our house. We kept the ones my son was still playing with. The rest were given into charity. We made sure that we were giving only clean and fully functional toys. We also bought some new toys from the money that was collected in the Sadaqa jar we made earlier.

The stalls were beautifully decorated and the people working there were really nice, helpful and polite.

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned:

Social and moral skills:

•  We talked about who orphans are, and why they need our help.
• We talked about giving from what Allah has given us.
• We learned that we give to fellow brothers, what we like for ourselves (cause few scratched, dented and missing tire cars were making their way in the charity bags, hmmm,)

The toy drive will last till the 20 of Ramadan. So make your way towards Gate no 5.

Take care
Happy Ramadan

Ramadan Activity # 2

The second activity on our list is Ramadan banner. I got some inspirations for this from here and here.

Let's get on to the materials needed.


Materials:

• Colored scraps of paper. They could be any kind. Plain, self designed the world of crafting paper is your oyster.
• Paint.
• Stencils. If you are using a plain paper and want to decorated the background.
• Yarn or string.

First thing we did was cut the required number of paper in triangles. We wanted to decorate the background so we used a sponge stencil. Stamp your triangles and set them  aside to dry. After the paint is dry add on the letters to RAMADAN KAREEM. This can be done in many different ways. We painted ours. You can cut out letters and paste. Do it with a marker. The last part is stringing them. We used left over yarn. I lost my yarn needle so we improvised by putting a little tape at the end of the yarn making a little sturdy so it will be easy to thread. We made holes in the top of the triangles with a pencil. You might be a little organized than me and use a punching machine if you want but  pencil works fine too. Thread the banner and find a place to hang it.

Lessons I tried to teach during this activity:

• Math: He had to count the alphabets used in making the banner add them up and tell me how many triangles we needed.
• Fine motor skill : He had to cut the triangles, stamp the design on them, paint the letters and string them.
• English: He learned to spell Ramadan Kareem.
• We talked about where to place the banner. It was his decision where it would go. My effort to make him a bit confident in making decisions and displaying his creations.

Note:

• Please keep in mind the activity is not suppose to be perfect. If it ends up being perfect for you. Hats off to you and your kid. The activities main purpose is the child's learning.
• Kids might not be willing to complete the task to the tee. My son cut only 4 triangles, stamped half the triangles and only painted Ramadan. The rest was finished by me. But I did it while he was sitting with me. So it seemed that we were doing it together.
• Talk to the kids while doing the activities. What do they think about it? What would they like to use next time if they did it again? Tell stories about prophets. Make the most of your time together.

I hope you will enjoy doing this activity with your kids. Do let us know and share your experience with us.

Take care
Happy Ramadan.

Ramadan Activity #1

So the first activity on our Ramadan calendar was to make "Date Balls" for all the neighbors in the building.

Material needed for this activity:

• Date paste. (In Saudi these are easily available. But if not available it can be easily made at home. Just take some soft dates and blitz them in a processor. If they are too sticky try adding a little almond powder or coconut in it).
• Grated coconut.
• very finely chopped almonds.
• Sprinkles.
• some candy liners.

So, the most part is getting the stuff, the rest is very easy. Just roll the dates into little balls. Roll them into your preferred coating. Set them in the liner and you are done.

We bought some really pretty party favors holders from a 2 riyal shop. You can substitute little inexpensive plates for this as well.

We made small cards to go along the dates which my son decorated.

Just before Iftar my son took these in the building and distributed them.

Lessons I tried to teach my son along with activity,

• Languages: I tried to teach him the names of Dates, coconut, almond in Urdu, English and Arabic.
• Motor skills: He rolled the dates into balls, which might seems really easy to us but is not for many 5yrs old.
• Social skills: Sending him in the building with something he made himself is my way to make him a bit confident and proud of his accomplishment.
• Nutrition: while making the date balls we talked about the health benefits of eating dates and their nutritious value.(kinda waste cause he still wants candy for his sweet tooth)

Note:

• Please note that the activities mentioned are to teach kids about Ramadan, the Muslim culture and along side as many things that can be incorporated. But my main aim is to get him excited about learning. So the activities do not need to be perfect.
•  Remember these date balls might not come out a perfect sphere, but bite your urge to go along and make them look perfect.
•  Kids will not want to do the whole thing, like we ended up making more than 50 date balls, my son does not have the patience or the concentration to be doing one task for so long, so after a few (15 to be exact), I made the date balls and he was rolling them into the coconut.
• Let them taste what they are making. Let them smell.
• Ask them questions about the activity they are doing. Like what else can be turned into balls? What kind of coating they would want to have? What else could be sent to the neighbors for another iftar?

I hope you would enjoy doing such activity with your kids. We had a lot of fun. Please share your experience if you have done or plan to do something like that with your kids. We would love to hear and learn from you.

Take care.

Ramadan Activites

When we were little I remember being excited about Eid. The new clothes, staying up late, going for the eid prayer, henna on our hands meeting friends and let's not forget the best part Eidi. Which we would spend on whatever we wanted. But I don't remember being  very much excited about Ramadan, yes we were excited cause some special programs were coming on the Saudi channel 2 like Full house, Crystal Maze I think American Funniest home videos was one too. Cause that was the time of no cable, internet or any other entertainment.

When I think of that time, and when I see my kids or todays kids in general I don't see them getting excited about the programmes even. Cause most of the time they are not watching the tv in the first place. They r either on the ipads, phones, laptops, or the cartoon channels that doesn't change there schedule for Ramadan, so however wrong our excitement for Ramadan maybe, I don't see the kids getting anything now. They don't see much change in their routines, or even our routines. Cause sadly in Saudi most of the families have a general routine of getting up late and staying up all night, which becomes much more exaggerated in Ramadan. Yeah the parents might be praying more, or reading more Qur'an or doing qiyyam all night. But are our kids watching us when we are doing all that or are their eyes still glued to all those screens I mentioned before?

We and our kids,  being slaves to the gigantic (the bigger and smarter tv) and smaller screens is an entire different post I would attempt to write, once I become free of those things myself In Shaa Allah . What I want to share with you today is my attempt to make Ramadan special for my kid. And not in the way it was for us when we were little. But in a more productive manner.

What I want to do this Ramadan and hopefully keep it up, is make it festive, celebrating it everyday, doing something special with my kid almost everyday. I want to make Eid the biggest celebration in the entire year for him. I want him to forget his birthday and remember eid as the day to celebrate. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish this with Allah's help and the prayers of my family.

So, in this regard I will post from today, I know I am starting a little late but I will try to overcome my laziness, and post our daily activities.

So the first activity we did was make an Ramadan advent calendar with Arabic numbers written on them.

I know the numbers are written wrong, I have to correct it yet. Anyho, you get the picture. the activities for each day are written under the yellow tabs.

I will be listing the things we do from now on. Do share what you are doing with your kids to make this Ramadan special and important in their lives.

Take care.

Chronicles from Jeddah----Forgotten Glorious Past

Finally the first thursday of June came along and we went to the Islamic Center where they were holding a Morroco day. I was really exicited about it as I mentioned in my earlier post that I would love to visit Morroco some day, so it was a sneak peek into the experienec waiting for me. But there was more than I was expecting, Morroco had taken a backdrop for there ongoign series "Why do we belive In....???". This time we were shown a short film and my GOD was I totally in AWWWWW. Please have a look at it.

This short film was made for an exibition held in London this January. It was quite a big Event organsied by a Saudi organization. At the exibition Islamic history is being presented in a marvellous way. It was so insightful not just for the western world who usually show a bleak picture of Islamic culture and call that era the dark ages but for us as well.

WE muslims need to know where our roots lie. Where we come from and how at one point in time we gave the world its latest discoveries and invention. I dont know what the curriculum in arabic schools in the KSA is, but growing up I certainly was not introduced to this period of muslim history as I should have been in my schools. I mean yes I knew some names, and yes I knew we did something but not to the extent I know about the western scitentist and their acheivements. Why this lack of expopsure to our own hisotry I cant understand. Maybe because in my schools the authorities are BLINDLY following the curriculum definetly not designed completley for us and adding information to it is too much work for them. And we as parents are relying too much on our schools to educate our kids. Why is that, that we dont have any heroes of our own? Why is that, that we dont have any Muslim scholar or scientist to look up to and follow? Why is that, that we are from the get go made a follower of the western civilization? I dont know. Maybe if we are shown and taught what great acheivers we were maybe we will replicate it. We did it once and we certainly can do it again.

Here you can get a little view of the exibition.

Please do share this with your friends, family, children of all ages so that they know alll about our great past. and for a change know the names of someone other then Elbert Einestein and be proud of what we are and our contributions to the modern world.

After the movie we had a discussion on the "Why have we forgotten where we came from?". We know the first message give to our Prophet Mohammed (P.B.U.H) was IQRA (read)....so being a muslim its our mission on earth to seek knowlegde, knowledge of everything and then to apply that knowlegdge for the goodness of mankind. Leaving a footprint in this world. Maing a mark. We dont know what an impact can it make. It can be as small as making someone smile or as big as changing someones outlook to life. The main goal of all this is that do somehting productive while we can, whether it be with your children, your family, people you know. start small. Seek out knowledge, share your knowledge, lets make this world a better place for you and for me,so that a few decades later we still have a remarkable past to look at.

Chronicles from Jeddah---Something to Ponder

A friend and I had a chance to go to the Islamic Education Center in Jeddah a few weeks ago. Its a really beautiful building with amazing islamic architecture situauted near Tariq Malik road. They offer many different courses, from languauge to islamic studies and classes for convert as well.

What took us there was a series of gatherings called "Why do we??" they have started on every first thursday of the month. They were discussing that why we(muslims) believe in Creation(Adam being created by God) vs Evolution ( monkey being my forefather). We were invited to watch a Documentary Scientific Adam. The documentary showed scientific proofs of us being connected to Adam and Eve. But still some parts of it were still a little confusing for me. Any how, after the documentary we were served some refreshments and a round of discussion started. My confusions were to some extent cleared in the second half of the session by Mrs. Asma. She explained the Adam and Eve thing and our creation with the help of scripture from quran. I loved the way she explained why we were created and what role should we play while we are here on the earth. An example she gave was of a pencil maker.

There used to be a pencil maker whoes pencils were sent to all parts of the world. One day he held one of his pencils and started talking to it. He told it 5 important things that would be imortant for it to be succcessful in its job.

1. He said to the pencil : You will be able to do great things,but only if you allow yourself to be in someone's hand.


2. You will experience a pianful sharpenig every now and then, but you will need it to be a better pencil.


3. You will be able to correct your mistakes.


4. The most important part of you is whats inside.


5. On every surface you are used, you must leave your mark.

We(Muslims) as a nation should also be leaving our marks(ina positive way not the suicding bomner kind of way) but if only we would allow oursleves to be held by ALLAH and agree to whatever He has deciede for us is the best for us.

NEXT month they are bringing mini Morroco in the islmaic center and we would get the chance to experience Morroco in the midst of Jeddah. Cant wait for it cause i am crazy for Morroco, It is placed quite high on my traveling wishlist. You also do try to go if u get the chance.

And please do watch the documentray and tell us your take on it.

Happy days