Prophet Yunus (AS) & Making Mistakes

We read through the story of the Prophet Yunus (AS) from the books we have at home, talking about it as we went along. When we were done, I asked them to try and summarise the story back to me, so I could check their understanding.

As we're still working on our growth mindsets at the moment, I decided to use Yunus (AS)'s example as a way to highlight the moral of making mistakes then going on to fix them... Making a mistake isn't the end of the world. If we make a mistake, we should just try our best to fix it, however we can. Allah (SWT) is the only one who never makes mistakes and He is always there to listen to us when we need help. We can always make dua to Allah whenever we're in trouble or we need help... What was the mistake Yunus (AS) made? He left the people before Allah said he should stop delivering his message... How did he fix his mistake? He admitted he was wrong and asked Allah for forgiveness, by making dua.

Finally, we made a simple craft to make the story and moral more memorable... Because we can't draw the Prophet Yunus (AS), what would be a good picture to remind you of the story? A whale! 🐋 I decided to link this to their current work in Science on properties of materials by having them make a sun catcher. We didn't have any tissue paper to hand, so we improvised using tracing paper and felt tips! And, with help, this was an activity the toddler could join in with too.

I printed out the outline of a whale (to fit onto an A5 piece of paper) for them to trace onto tracing paper, which I'd pre-cut to A5 size. Then they chose a piece of A4 coloured card each and folded it in half. In the centre, they drew a circle by drawing around a bowl. While they were colouring their whales in using felt tips, I cut this circle out for them. Then, as if their card were like a book, they glued their tracing paper in between so the whale lined up with the cut out circle. Finally, I helped them cut around the edges so the card became a frame.

After I'd blutacked their sun catchers to their bedroom window, I asked them if they thought the tracing paper part of their sun catcher was transparent or opaque... M said transparent and F said opaque! Fortunately for me lol. So I explained the tracing paper is kind of in between: it blocks some light but lets some light through, so we can kind of see through it but not really - and the word for this is "translucent". Which part of the sun catcher was definitely opaque? They both said the card frame. And can you see anything in the window which is definitely transparent? They both said the glass of the window. I then pointed to each part in turn for them to describe as either transparent, translucent or opaque.

Later on, when we went downstairs and they were playing with their tracks, M asked if the box was transparent or translucent... Because it was see through but it wasn't clear, it was purple! After some talk, we decided that it was both - because the ridges on the lid were a bit cloudy to make them translucent while the rest of the box was transparent even though it was tinted a colour. 😄