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.

Monday Rendezvous: A step back in time

Even though i have spent more than half of my life in this beautiful city of Jeddah, it is only that recently i have truly started to explore it. This city holds so many hidden gems that once you are introduced to it, the search of finding more begins.
    My introduction to the city started through a tour of the old city organized by the very good people of IEF.. (an islamic centre).. that centre needs a post of its own which hopefully i'll be able to write soon..
   So we assembled outside the centre and made our way to the old city called Balad (downtown).  Our main attraction to see was "Naseef house".. where we were welcomed by Mr. Sami Nawar. We were given a short but very informative pictorial presentation about this lovely city. The amount of development the city has made in such a short span of time is amazing and it has no plans of slowing down either :P......

Al-Balad means "city, place"

"The Naseef house", home of a wealthy merchant and mayor of Jeddah  Mr, Omar Naseef .This house is famous because King Abdaziz oftentimes stayed here . At one point this house held the only tree in Jeddah.

 An old drawing of the city. The city was enclosed inside the wall to be safe from the intruders. It had doors on different sides that would open at Fajr time and would get closed at Maghrib time.

After the presentation we were took around the city to see the old buildings and the architect of the city. As i said even though we had lived in this city for a long time but this time i was looking at all the building with a new insight. How the walls were made out of clay and coral of red sea. The wood used outside the house to make the balconies was either ruins of ship wrecks or special red wood imported from Africa. 

 One of he most oldest mosque of Jeddah, Dating back to Hazrat Omar Bin Khatab (AS) period.

Mosque in today's time!!

Oldest wall in town!!

Spice shop!!

Along with the remarkable information about the city, we also got the chance to see the old homes from inside.  

Art work on the ceilings of the homes.

And Finally for the grand finale, we were invited to go on the roof top of Naseef house to enjoy the lovely breeze accompanied by the traditional tea. Another reason to come to this place at the end of our tour was to hear the calling of Azan from the surrounding 36 mosques. Its a feeling that is indescribable. In a matter of few seconds you whole surrounding is filled with the name of your Lord.

I would say it was a lovely morning spent with lovely ladies. I look forward to exploring this city more.

Keep watching this space, more good stuff on its way :)!!