Shape Poems

I looked on Google for examples of shape poems for KS1 aged children and put together a sheet of examples (download here).

We read through the sheet together and talked about what they liked/disliked, which was their favourite and why, what kinds of layouts did they have and what they thought made something a shape poem. Did it have to rhyme? Did it have to fill the picture or make a picture? Did it have to be full sentences or just words? Did all the writing have to be the same size? etc. etc.! Then I stuck it to the wall as a reminder.

Continuing with our plants theme, I decided we'd do a shape poem about flowers.

On the whiteboard, we discussed the kinds of things we might talk about in our poems. Then we talked about how we might write those ideas into the shape of a flower.

I gave them a faded template of a flower for them to use (in the above download file). Z really wanted to join in so I sat with her as she wanted to know how to spell words, so the twins ended up working independently. I originally planned to sit with them and do more thesaurus work, but it didn't work out that way! And they weren't inclined to plan first, they just wanted to write straight onto the flower. 😏

When they were done, we mounted these onto coloured paper and put them on display next to their acrostics. 😄😄

Blue: F, Green: M, Orange: Z

The twins enjoyed turning the paper to write their words in a way which fit in the petals and in the centre!

Z's poem says: "orange, red, pink" "poppy" "beautiful" "smell fresh and nice" "flower" "roses" "make me happy when they grow"

I asked them if they wanted to do their own shape poem about anything, drawing the picture themselves, but they said no. 😆 They'd had enough of them. 😂😂

Teaching Resources for KS1

I thought I'd compile a list of books I've found useful over the past couple of years as either reference material or worksheets for KS1.

[Last updated: 22.02.19]

LITERACY/NUMERACY

Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 3-5)

Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 5-6)

Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 6-7)

Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 7-8) [link]

LITERACY

Letts Monster English – Reading (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster English – Grammar & Punctuation (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster English – Spelling & Phonics (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster English – Handwriting (Age 5-6) [link]

Collins Easy Learning – Comprehension (Ages 5-7) [link]

Schofield&Sims - First Comprehension 1 [link]

Schofield&Sims - First Comprehension 2 [link]

NUMERACY

Letts Monster Maths – Maths (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster Maths – Addition & Subtraction (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster Maths – Multiplication & Division (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster Maths – Fractions (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster Maths – Measurement (Age 5-6)

Letts Monster Maths – Telling the Time (Age 5-6) [link]

Collins Easy Learning – Mental Maths (Ages 5-7) [link]

CGP Key Stage One Maths – The Question Book [link]

Schofield&Sims – KS1 Problem Solving 1 [link]

Schofield&Sims – KS1 Problem Solving 2 [link]

Schofield&Sims – KS1 Problem Solving 3 [link]

SCIENCE

Science in Action Collection - KS1 [link] (see this post for a note re: the Fossils book)

Fundamental Science Collection - KS1 [link]

ISLAM

Migo & Ali: Love for the Prophets [link]

My First Quran Storybook [link]

Safar Islamic Studies Textbook 1-6 [link]

ARABIC

Madinah Arabic Reader Book 1 [link]

OTHER

Arabic: Days & Months display

We've had a months and days display on one of our doors for over two years, so I thought it was time it was updated! And this was a perfect chance to introduce more Arabic into our everyday lives by incorporating the Arabic days of the week and the Islamic months written in Arabic. I decided not to include the Gregorian months in Arabic as I felt it wasn't really necessary; having the Islamic months on display is more relevant and useful to us. 😊 

You can download the days of the week display wheel here.

The start of the week is red and the other 6 days follow the colours of the rainbow - the idea being to double up this display as a colour wheel to remind the girls of a) the colours of the rainbow and b) which primary colours mix together to make which secondary colours.

I cut and laminated the wheel then attached it to a piece of A4 card through the centre using a split pin. The A4 card is blu-tacked to the door and the wheel itself can spin freely. I cut out an arrow from an old gift bag to show the current day of the week.

There's currently a large gap on the card under the paper... I was thinking of writing the sentence in Arabic, "What day is it today?", or something similar, but haven't got round to it yet. 😅

You can download the months of the year display poster here: 1st half / 2nd half.

The purpose of the colours on this poster are to show a gradient (following the standard order when using e.g. MS Word or Adobe Photoshop etc.) and also differences in hues, as the Islamic months are simply the same colour as the Gregorian month it's next to but in a lighter shade.

I don't have an A3 printer but I wanted the poster that size, which is why I've split it across two A4 sheets. I trimmed the bottom edge of the first sheet so the white space between June and July was equal to the space between all the other months, then laminated both together in one A3 laminating pocket. This is blu-tacked to the door along with two more arrows cut from an old gift bag, with blu-tac on the back, which can move up and down the side of the poster accordingly.

Finally, I used some silver star stickers to stick in each of our family members' birth month and wrote our birthdays in the centre of each. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Making Gingerbread Men

Cross-curricular Literacy and Numeracy skills in a real-life setting. 😜

Continuing with our fairytales theme, it made sense to make some gingerbread men! After re-reading the story, we looked at the recipe together (revising our work on instructions).

INGREDIENTS
For the biscuit:
100g butter (softened)
175g brown sugar
1 medium egg (beaten)
4 tbsp golden syrup
3-5 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
350g plain flour

To decorate:
75g milk chocolate
Smarties, sultanas, sprinkles, etc.

METHOD
1) Cream together the butter and sugar using an electric hand whisk.
2) Beat in the egg, followed by the golden syrup, using the whisk.
3) Mix together the ginger, bicarbonate of soda and flour in a separate bowl.
4) Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture using a wooden spoon, a little at a time, until it begins to form a dough. Once all the flour has been added, work it together with your hands to make a ball.
5) Leave to chill in the fridge for 20min.
6) Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
7) Roll the gingerbread to 1cm thick, cut out shapes and place on the trays.
8) Bake for around 10min until golden brown. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
9) Decorate using melted chocolate as a "glue".

You can download our recipe sheet here. The ginger in this recipe is quite mild (for Papa's sake!) so you may want to increase accordingly.

Usually, I pre-measure the ingredients so the girls can just concentrate on the baking, but this time they weighed and measured everything themselves - which ties in with their next Numeracy topic on length, weight and capacity. (The cm reference in the recipe was new to them! But a good conversation starter 👌)

How I set up the table ready for them to decorate the gingerbread men:

I demonstrated how to do one: take a gingerbread man from the bowl, dip its feet in the chocolate then in the sprinkles, lay it flat on your plate, take one of the Smarties and dip it in chocolate then stick on the gingerbread man's tummy, repeat for another one of the Smarties, put the finished gingerbread man on the big plate. Then I left them to it - only helping to refill the bowl and change the big plate to an empty one - and mashaAllah they did all 26 without any problems, the 2 year old included! In the past, we've used sultanas for eyes and drawn mouths with icing... But with the baby, this was simplest for today. 😋

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While we were waiting for the gingerbread to cool down before decorating, I decided to use the Smarties as a way of practising the work we'd done so far on tallying and bar charts - simply by having the girls tally the different colours in the packet and draw a graph of the results.

I had them predict which colour they thought would be the most common before they started - which added to the fun as they tallied - and the colouring in at the end was optional, but they both decided they wanted to do it. 😊

You can download our worksheet here. Feel free to edit as you wish - I'll probably use this template myself in different contexts and will change the questions at the bottom to practise different ways of analysing data. 👍

Allah made everything

Back to basics with the beginning of the story of Prophet Adam (AS)!

We made this picture around two years ago, when we were first learning about Allah and how He created the world - so when the twins were almost 4. I stuck down green and blue paper to represent the land and sea on dark blue A3 sugar paper (dark blue as it could be either day or night!) and drew some pictures of natural things created by Allah (this was before we owned a printer!). I tried to choose things which would be useful to know in Arabic. We spoke about how Allah created everything from nothing and how we were grateful to Him. Then I gave them the pictures to colour in and cut them out when they were done. Finally, I helped them glue the pictures in appropriate places on the A3 background.

After a break (as they were still only young!) we recapped what we had made and why (a picture to show some of the things Allah made from nothing). Then we continued the story of Prophet Adam (AS) - how Allah created the first man and taught him the names of each thing - and I labelled each picture in English as the girls told me what they were. We spoke about how the angels didn't know what each thing was called because Allah hadn't taught them. I asked the girls how they thought it felt not to know that the sun was called the sun and they laughed! So I asked them what the sun was in Arabic, which of course they couldn't do. 😏 Then we went through each thing on the picture and I told them what it was in Arabic:

the sun: ash-shamsu اَلشَّمْسُ

the cloud: al-ghaymatu اَلْغَيْمَةُ

the moon: al-qamaru اَلْقَمَرُ

the star: an-najmu اَلنَّجْمُ

the sky: as-samaa'u اَلسَّمَاءُ

the sea: al-bahru اَلْبَحْرُ

the grass: al-‘ushbu اَلْعُشْبُ

the mountain: al-jabalu اَلْجَبَلُ

the tree: ash-shajaratu اَلشَّجَرَةُ

the flower: az-zahratu اَلزَّهْرَةُ

the lion: al-asadu اَلْأَسَدُ

the horse: al-hisaanu اَلْحِصَانُ

the dog: al-kalbu اَلْكَلْبُ

the bird: at-tayru اَلطَّيْرُ

the fish: as-samakatu اَلسَّمَكَةُ

We stuck with the definite form for everything so as to not get confused with grammar, but my husband felt it was important to introduce the idea of word endings from the start (rather than e.g. just saying "shams" for sun).

The idea was to write out labels in Arabic for the girls to glue next to the correct picture, but we never got round to it and the project went forgotten until now. 🙈

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Fast-forward to today and our current work on the Prophet Adam (AS). I dug out this old poster for them and we recapped again about how Allah created everything from nothing and how everything in the world is only here because Allah allowed it to exist, e.g. who made the paper we were looking at? Did Allah make the paper Himself? No, people made it... But how did people make paper? They made it out of trees. And where did the trees come from? Allah made them! So the girls understood that everything in the world was either created by Allah or made out of something Allah had created. We also talked about the trees we can see today - did Allah create this particular tree in our garden? No, he created the first trees a long long long time ago which made seeds, which grew into more trees, which made seeds, which grew into more trees, which made seeds, and so on and so on until we get to today. Just like how Allah made us, not because He created us himself (they know about babies being in their mummy's tummy) but because Allah made the first man (and woman) and they're like our great great great great (too many "great"s to say!) grandparents!

Then we checked we could still name all the things in Arabic, using the definite/"the" form and then changing to the indefinite/"a" form.

The story of Prophet Adam (AS)

The girls are already familiar with the Prophet Adam (AS) from their children books, but I just wanted to go through it myself to make sure they understood that being sent to Earth was NOT a punishment - unlike what Christians believe - as is told in the Quran how Allah told the angels He was going to create people and put them on Earth. I also wanted to make sure they were able to recall the main parts of the story themselves from memory.

I wrote the story in language suitable for 4-5 year olds, while still retaining as much meaning/original translations from the Quran as possible, after making notes from a variety of sources (including Tafsir Ibn Kathir and lectures from speakers such as Mufti Menk and Nouman Ali Khan).

PROPHET ADAM (AS)

A long, long time ago, Allah created the world. He created the sun, the moon and the stars. He created the seas and the mountains. He created the trees and the flowers. He created the fish, the birds and the animals. Allah created everything.

Up, up, high above the sky in the heavens are the gardens of paradise: Jannah. In Jannah you never feel hungry, thirsty or tired. You have no reason to feel pain or sadness. In Jannah, Allah spoke to the angels. He told them He was going to create humans and put them on Earth to live and look after it. The angels praised Allah day and night; they always obeyed Allah but they didn’t understand why Allah wanted to make humans. The angels were worried humans would fight with each other and spoil the Earth. The angels worshipped Allah so much they didn’t understand why people were needed to worship Allah too! But Allah simply said to them, “I know what you do not know.”

Allah created the first man, Adam, from a handful of clay gathered from all the Earth: this is why humankind is all different colours and with all different personalities, just as the mud from around the world is different. Some people are kind and generous, some are selfish and mean, some are in between. Some are evil, some are good and some are in between.

Allah created Adam with his hands and blew his soul into him. When the life entered Adam’s head, he sneezed and the angels told Adam to say, “Alhamdulillah.” When he did, Allah replied, “Yarhamukhallah.” This is what we should say when we sneeze and reply when someone else sneezes.

When Adam was sent to greet a group of angels, he said to them, “As salaamu ‘alaikum,” and the angels replied to Adam, “Wa ‘alaikum as salaamu wa rahmatullah.” This is the way we should greet and reply to people we meet.

Allah taught Adam the names of all kinds of things, such as trees, mountains, the sea, camel. Allah showed these things to the angels and asked them to name them, but the angels could not. They said to Allah, “We only know what you have taught us.” Allah then told Adam to tell the angels the names of all the things. When Adam finished, Allah said to the angels, “Did I not tell you I know the secrets of the heavens and the earth, and I know what you show and what you hide?”

Amongst the angels, there was one Jinn who had been raised to a special rank in the heavens. His name was Iblis. When Allah told the angels to bow down to Adam, they all obeyed except for Iblis.

Iblis was too proud and arrogant. He said to Allah, “Why should I bow down to him when I’m better than him? You made me from fire and him just from clay!”

Allah said to Iblis, “Then get out from here. You are rejected and cursed. The curse shall be upon you until the Day of Judgement.” Allah threw Iblis out from the gardens of Jannah.

Iblis said to Allah, “If you let me go until the Day of Judgement, then I will lead his children to the wrong path – all of them but a few!” Allah let Iblis go and told him that any people who follow Iblis’ evil whispers will be sent to the hellfire… But Allah also told him that Muslims who worship Allah and do good things can never be led wrong by Iblis.

Prophet Adam was sent to live in Jannah but because he was the only human he began to feel lonely. While Adam was sleeping, Allah created the first woman, Hawwa (or Eve) from Adam’s rib. When Adam woke up he was surprised to see her sitting beside him, but he was also happy to have another person for company.

Allah told Adam and Hawwa they could eat and enjoy anything they wanted from the gardens of paradise - all except from the fruit from one particular tree. If they ate the fruit from that tree, Allah warned something bad would happen to them.

Allah told them that Iblis was Adam and Hawwa’s enemy. Iblis didn’t want Adam and Hawwa to stay in Jannah. In Jannah, you will never feel hungry or thirsty, too hot or too cold. Iblis was jealous of Adam and Hawwa.

Iblis whispered lies to Adam and Hawwa, to trick them into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree. Iblis told them he was their friend. He lied and said, “If you eat from the tree, you can become angels and live forever.”

Adam and Hawwa ate from the tree. As soon as they did, they felt ashamed and naked. They quickly hid themselves behind fig leaves to cover their shame.

Allah asked Adam and Hawwa, “Didn’t I tell you not to eat from the tree and that Shaytaan is your enemy?” Adam and Hawwa admitted their mistake and asked Allah for forgiveness. They made tawbah. Allah is most merciful and kind.

Allah sent Adam and Hawwa down to live on Earth, along with Iblis. Iblis wants to lead us away from remembering Allah, but Allah has promised us if we worship Him and do good deeds then one day we will be able to return to Jannah.

You can download the above story as a MS Word file here.

After reading the story to the girls (in an interactive way, asking questions and letting them ask questions), I asked them what they thought the main points were - just what they could remember regardless of where it came. I wrote these as a spider diagram on A4 coloured paper. Once they had them all, with some prompting, I asked the girls to put the points in chronological order by numbering each one.

***find photo***

I then gave them a storyboard with the story summarised into six sections and told them that a summary is when we don't give the whole story, or every single bit of information, but just tell the most important points - like how they summarised it in the spider diagram. We read through the storyboard together, then I asked them what they thought might go in the big empty boxes? Pictures! But are there some things we aren't allowed to draw? Can we draw Allah, or the angels, or Shaytaan or Adam (AS) and Hawwa (RA)? So we talked about what they could draw in each box which wasn't any of those things, e.g. Allah's creations, clay, fire to represent jinn, gardens, a tree, Earth.

Finally, I asked them if they thought the story needed a little bit more detail - then we worked through each box in turn so they could add something extra, using the notes from the spider diagram to help. I decided to let them try spelling everything themselves then showed them any corrections once they'd done.

MashaAllah, I was pleased they clearly understood that being sent to Earth was planned from the beginning, in one of the twins' words: "It wasn't a punishment because Allah already said He was going to put them on Earth even before he made Prophet Adam! And they said sorry!" 💕

We did this whole lesson over a couple of days.

You can download our storyboard template here.

Using the 5 Senses for Descriptions

As planned - albeit a few months later! - I took the girls to the first of several different locations so they could practise using their five senses to write more detailed descriptions. We also recapped all five verbs in Arabic, too.

Our first stop was the woodland area of Martineau Gardens.

We focused on one sense at a time, making notes of at least one example for each, then adding in anything extra to any other box once they'd got into it (we walked round with clipboards which they loved the novelty of!).

You can download the worksheet template here.

Later on at home, they used their notes to write sentences underneath a picture of where we went.

First, we read a couple of examples of descriptions from their favourite book series at the moment: Willow Valley. The opening chapters always begin with a nice description, so we read a couple of examples and talked about which senses were being used for each thing.

e.g. "It was a bright, sunny morning in Willow Valley. Butterflies danced through meadows of clover, birds sang in the trees, and shimmering dragonflies fluttered over the river. The cave-houses on the rolling green hills all had their doors open wide as happy little animals pattered out to play in the sunshine." [Willow Valley - A Seaside Rescue, by Tracey Corderoy]

I asked them if that description was better than just saying, for example, "In Willow Valley there were butterflies, birds and dragonflies. Animals played outside." They said the description in the book was better because they could imagine being there!

I let them free write, so no spelling aid, reminders about capitals and full stops, spaces between words, etc... and put the sandtimer on for 30min so they had a set time to write in - in between talking to each other and to me before they wrote their sentences down! One of them finished within the 30min, the other decided she wanted to write for a little longer. I'm thinking of using this piece of writing for some editing work later on, giving them the chance to check for mistakes and improve.

You can download the second worksheet template here.

I left a blank in the title so we can re-use it for a different location and they will already be familiar with what to do. I might print out a photo again, or leave that space empty for them to draw a picture... Or we might link to ICT and have them type up their description into the file on the laptop. Will see how it goes, insha'Allah!

Recipe: Honey & cinnamon flapjacks

Dry Ingredients:
200g rolled oats
1tsp cinnamon
handful chopped nuts (e.g. pecan, walnuts) to taste

Wet Ingredients:
150ml honey
1tbsp golden syrup
handful of sultanas / chopped dates to taste
100g salted butter

Topping:
flaked almonds
drizzle of golden syrup / sprinkle of demerera sugar

1) Preheat oven to fan 180C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, leaving some paper hanging over two of the sides.
2) Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3) In a saucepan, gently heat and stir together the wet ingredients until the butter has melted.
4) Pour the melted wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully mix until completely combined.
5) Tip the mixture into the baking tray and press down flat. Sprinkle on the toppings of choice.
6) Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. It will still be slightly soft when done.
7) Leave to cool before lifting out of the tray, using the overhanging paper to help.Cut into portions.

Store in an airtight container. Each batch lasts maximum 1 week in this house! I don't know if they would keep for longer. 😂

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Touch

The Sense of Touch - اَللَّمْسُ

I can feel... - ... أَنَا أَلْمَسُ

We reminded ourselves of the five senses and which part of the body we use for each one - we talked about how we feel things with every part of our body, so our skin, but it's easiest to use our hands and fingers when we want to know what something feels like!

I wrote the word "texture" on the whiteboard as a new concept. Something's texture is just the way it feels... So we talked about some familiar objects and how the word they use to describe what it feels like is its texture, eg their skin is soft and smooth, a tree trunk is rough and bumpy... Then we quickly read through some of their younger sister's "That's Not My..." book series, emphasising the word "texture" for the material on each page. This was also useful in giving them some ideas for words for later on.

I then gave them a piece of coloured card each so they could draw around their hands to represent the sense of touch and then cut them out (fine motor skills and scissor practise). Our 2 year old joined in with this part too; obviously I had to help her with the drawing and cutting! One of the twins asked me to neaten up her cut out hands for her while the other was happy doing it herself. Then they stuck these down onto another piece of coloured card.

I'd already prepared a variety of materials from around the house (chosen to encourage them to use a wide range of vocabulary and so help their descriptive language) which they felt one by one before sticking down around the paper. We also used this opportunity to remind ourselves of the Arabic for "I can feel ..."

The materials I chose for them were:

1) a feather

2) cotton wool

3) a piece of shiny gift bag

4) a piece of foam

5) blu tac

6) a lolly stick

7) velcro hooks

8) glittery card

9) scrunched tin foil

10) pipe cleaner

Some things they stuck down with PVA glue, the others with sellotape - it was good to hear their reasoning for why it was easier to use sellotape for some items and why they could only use sellotape on the edges rather than simply on top (or they couldn't feel the texture!).

After a break, to let the glue dry, we got out one of the big whiteboards and brainstormed a list of vocabulary they could use to describe the textures on their paper, making sure they had at least one word for each thing. There's something about writing on a whiteboard kids find fun, mine being no exception, so doing this as a shared activity was really effective!

To finish off, the girls had to choose one word to describe each texture and write them down inside the fingers of their cut out hands - 10 textures, 10 fingers! They could use the whiteboard display for ideas and spelling help. 

Obviously the toddler didn't do this last part! But she really enjoyed the gluing activity and got to hear all the lovely vocabulary being used to copy whilst talking about what she'd made. 😁

Science/Arabic - The Sense of Taste

The Sense of Taste - اَلذَّوْقُ

I taste... - ... أَنَا أَذُوقُ

We talked about the sense of taste and how everything can be sorted into 5 main groups: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

The girls were then blindfolded and I gave them something to taste, one at a time. First, they guessed what it was (... أَنَا أَذُوقُ - if they didn't know the Arabic word they could just say that word in English!) then I told them which category that food was an example of. The foods we did were:

Sweet = teaspoon of honey. They already knew what sweet meant!

Salty = ready salted crisps. They already knew salty, too!

Sour = slice of lemon. These foods make your mouth pucker up.

Bitter = spinach leaf. These foods make you want to stick your tongue out.

Umami = cheese. These foods have a really strong flavour.

They took off their blindfolds and I gave them some more foods to taste; some were distinctly only one of the five basic tastes, others were a mixture - I tried to choose a variety that would lead to a good discussion and understanding!

The foods we used and the groups we thought they belonged to were:

banana = sweet

fizzy belt = sweet & sour
kiwi = sweet & sour

cucumber = sweet & bitter
dark chocolate drops = sweet & bitter
whipped cream & coffee = sweet & bitter
popcorn = salty & sweet
salt n' vinegar crisps = salty & sour
tuna = salty & umami
Marmite on toast = salty & umami
soy sauce = salty & umami
ketchup = sweet & umami

Finally, they filled in the below worksheet and recapped sorting using a two-way table.

We did the worksheet later on in the day so they had to think and remember which foods they tasted! We wrote down what they could remember on the whiteboard then I helped them fill in the gaps. Then they worked through the list sorting them into where they thought they best fit. Lastly, they could colour the pictures if they wanted! And we talked about which taste each picture represented.

You can download our worksheet template here. I forgot to blank out half of the squares for their copies but it's fixed in the original file now. 😊

Ramadaan Prep 2018 - Useful Things To Do in Advance!

I feel like I've not prepared as much this year as last - actually, I know I haven't because most of it is just a repeat/re-using what I did last year. 😂😅

Things for me:

1) Batch cook and then freeze individual portions of onions/garlic/tomatoes to save cooking time during Ramadaan. I started this around a month before Ramadaan last year and actually have just continued doing it ever since! I'll buy one bag of onions, one garlic and two packs of salad tomatoes during the weekly shop and cook them all at once one day during the week. I'll take out the extra mix and keep in individual freezer bags in the freezer (so one bag per meal) then cook whatever dinner I'm making that day with what's left in the pan. Then later on in the week when I don't have time to cook from scratch, I can just defrost one bag in the pan (or two if I plan to cook a larger amount to last for two days!), add the relevant salt/spices/meat/veg and dinner is done in less than half an hour. 👌 In the weeks before Ramadaan, I'll make sure I have enough in the freezer so that I won't have to do any cooking from scratch for the whole 30 days, insha'Allah. Alhamdulillah, Ramadaan is not all about the food in this household... And I'm grateful my husband prefers a proper meal at the end of the day instead of the usual fried foods which take much more time and energy to prepare!

2) Clean the house! Change all the bedsheets, scrub down the kitchen and bathroom, mop the hard floors, vacuum the carpets (including behind sofas, those nooks and crannies, etc.) If I know its all been done properly just before Ramadaan, I'm happy just wiping down and vacuuming visible surfaces until the month's over. 😊

3) Have a general tidy up/declutter. All those sideboards and shelves which somehow accumulate junk... Old clothes and toys, ready to give away to charity... This process takes a good few weeks as I don't have time to do it all in one go otherwise! Then one final sweep through the house in the days before. 💪 Similarly, any odd jobs around the house which need doing but have been put off (e.g. DIY things, filing paperwork, the garden, etc.), we try and get those done before the month starts, too!

4) Plan Eid outfits. At least get the clothes bought and the outfits decided, even if I don't iron them - I did that before and somehow they ended up creased in the wardrobe anyway, so now I've decided to just do them the night before Eid instead, insha'Allah. 😅

5) Buy and wrap Eid gifts. Another thing I don't want to waste time thinking about or doing during Ramadaan itself!

6) Set a Quran goal. I made a list last year with how many pages I'd need to read a day in order to complete the whole Quran within the month - I'll admit I'm not the most fluent of readers, so it was useful for me to have a concrete benchmark each day to work towards. I also worked out how long it would take me to read that many pages and planned a suitable time each day to fit it in. Last year, it happened that I'd have some time after Fajr and some between Maghrib and Isha (i.e. when the kids were asleep!) so I could split my reading between then.

7) Set a Hifz target. I'll also admit my strengths definitely don't lie in memorisation! A manageable goal from before was to memorise one ayah from Surah Al-Mulk each day, which meant the whole surah could be completed by the end of the month. 💕 This year, I think I'll make the effort to concentrate on Juz 'Amma - with the added goal of being able to help my children with their hifz more easily too, insha'Allah!

Things for the kids:

8) Get the decorations ready! Previously, I've put them all up myself the night before as a surprise for the kids... Now they're a bit older, I'll let them help out and it'll reduce my workload too. 😂 Same goes for Eid decorations - some of them are pre-bought (e.g. tinsel, balloons, etc.) but others we can make together during the month as an activity in itself, insha'Allah.

9) Prepare a Ramadaan calendar. I've seen lots of beautiful ones (but expensive or time-consuming to make! 🙈) online, but last year I simply printed out the numbers 1-30 (in both English and Arabic numerals), mounted it on a piece of coloured card, they coloured it in and decorated the edges. Each day the twins would take it in turns to stick a sticker in the morning to signify which day we were on and a sticker in the evening to show the day had ended... (I also prepared a small container with pre-cut stickers for them to choose from, so will be re-using that, insha'Allah!) Not sure how we're going to do it this year with three kids lol - just more taking in turns! Maybe when they're a little older they can have individual calendars, especially if they're going to try and keep the odd (whole/half) fast here and there, but for now we don't have the wall space or desire for clutter. 😂😅🙈 You can download our calendar template here.

10) Decide on 30 Good Deeds. We did this last year and it worked well - the girls have requested to do it again this year! So with the lack of time, I'm re-using what we prepared last time lol. We decorated an old container with tissue paper mache and stickers; I printed out 30 flower shaped templates onto coloured card (you can download the Word file here) and cut them out, then we talked about the kinds of good deeds we could do and I wrote 30 of them out, one on each flower, for them to then decorate the petals with glitter glue pens. Aside from needing a little touch up (as some of the writing has faded, especially with the paler glitter gel pens!) these are fine to use again this year, I think! So the cards go in the container, they take it in turns to choose one at random each morning, then they have the day to complete/focus on that good deed. We couple this with reminders on gaining reward and how the month of Ramadaan is blessed with the chance to get even more reward than usual! Here's our list of 30 deeds, for reference:

1. Smile at people outside.
2. Feed the birds.
3. Listen to Mama and Papa straightaway.
4. Give salaam quickly.
5. Share my things.
6. Say "Bismillah" before doing things.
7. Say "SubhanAllah" 100 times.
8. Say "Alhamdulillah" 100 times.
9. Say "Allahu akbar" 100 times.
10. Make dua to Allah.
11. Make dua for someone else.
12. Help Mama with some chores.
13. Tidy up after myself.
14. Give some toys to charity.
15. Tidy up my bedroom.
16. Say "please", "thank you", "sorry" and "excuse me".
17. Call Nani for a chat.
18. Make a card for Dadima.
19. Speak in a soft voice.
20. Let someone else go first.
21. Learn more Arabic.
22. Read extra Quran.
23. Pray sunnah prayers.
24. Not waste water.
25. Not waste colouring pens.
26. Help look after our little sister.
27. Bake food for someone.
28. Donate to a food bank.
29. Give people compliments.
30. Make Eid decorations.

After they chose a deed each morning, we'd put Blu-tac on the back and stick them around the fireplace as both a reminder and to create a wall display of flowers. After the month was over, we left them up for a short while then took the opportunity to discuss them as we took them down.

11) Prepare 30 Hadith to read through together! I think we'll just use this book again this year, as all the work's been done for us: 30 Hadith for Kids by Zanib Mian. We used this a discussion prompt in the evenings just before bed, like a bedtime story replacement. The girls used to look forward to it, and the book's been put away since, so I'm sure they'll look forward to it again this year, insha'Allah. 💕 Maybe when they're older, we can concentrate more on hadith specific to Ramadaan and fasting, but just introducing the idea of hadith and familiarising the girls with the idea of them is enough for me at this stage.

12) Have a Quran routine ready. Alhamdulillah, we already try and have daily Quran sessions but admittedly these are sometimes missed on particularly busy days or cut short for one reason or another... So I need to ensure more priority is put on the Quran - and Ramadaan is a good boost for doing so. Many people say that first thing in the morning is the best time to do it, so I think I'm going to try having a half an hour slot blocked out after their breakfast. Once we get into the routine of it, I'm hoping it will then stick even once Ramadaan is over, insha'Allah! Within this month, though, I want to spend 5 minutes at the end of each session reading through some translations of surahs they know... Ideally, this should be planned out already! But honestly, I've not had the time to do it so will just have to wing it each day. 😅 The idea being to strengthen their bond with the Quran, especially if we can pick out Arabic vocabulary they know within ayaat, too.

Simple Paper Mobile

To finish off our topic on the six articles of faith, I thought it'd be nice to make a craft to summarise what the articles are... So we made some paper mobiles. 😊

We used A4 coloured card cut in half lengthways for the main body. Along the top they used a medium star-shaped holepunch (0.6 inches) and along the bottom they used a large heart-shaped holepunch (1 inch) to cut out 6 hearts - one for each article (around 4.5cm between each one). I bought our holepunches from Hobbycraft since they were on sale, but I'm sure you can find similar for cheaper online. 👍 In the centre of the strip of card they wrote "The Six Articles of Faith", then decorated with glitter gel pens and stickers.

For the hanging part, we used shiny paper around 4cm wide (when it's time to repeat this for younger siblings, insha'Allah, I'll probably get them to write on different paper then stick on as labels, since the shiny paper was difficult to write on/smudged easily!) and used the star-shaped holepunch to cut out a star in the centre at the top of each. Then they wrote one article on each (singing our song from before to help - without any prompting from me! 😂)

Finally, they chose which coloured ribbon they wanted to put through each article, and which two colours they wanted for the top - then I had the (tedious lol) task of tying them all on. 😏 I used the first ribbon to measure out the length I wanted, then used that as a template for the rest. Same for the top ribbons - these, I threaded through opposite stars so the two ribbons made a cross in the centre, then tied all four ends together at the top.

I hung their mobiles on display in their bedroom (they have a piece of string going across the room for this purpose... paintings, posters, etc.!) using a mini wooden craft peg to keep them up. 💕

Planting the seeds...

Finally got round to planting this year's seeds... The girls have a little patch at the end of the garden which I dug up for them last year to plant flowers in - they wanted to do it again this year so we bought three packets of assorted (easy to grow!) flowers from Asda (they always seem to have a special offer on this time of year 😄) for them to sow.

I prepared the soil for them by digging up the weeds and raking it (they did pulling up weeds at the allotments earlier this week, and these weeds were quite deep rooted and tough! So I thought it was fine to let them just play in the garden while I worked... lol), they pre-watered the soil with their watering cans (again, from Asda! Kids-sized, metal cans for £2.50 - one pink, one orange, one turquoise), had a packet of seeds each to spread thinly over the ground (I helped the toddler 😁), I covered the seeds with the raked soil, then they watered the ground once more.

Finally, I stuck in the bird scarers (made from foam tulip heads and an old CD stuck onto a wooden lolly stick) the kids made at the allotments at the end of last year and which have otherwise just been cluttering our kitchen window sill. 😂

Now to wait... Insha'Allah they should flower by next month - so now the girls are responsible for watering them on all the days it doesn't rain, especially if it's hot and sunny!

Syllables

Self-reference post:

We looked at syllables in words, by saying words with different syllables out loud and clapping to the beats, then completing the pages from Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 5-6) and Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 6-7) independently.

Predestination

For our final article of faith, we began by reading the relevant pages in the Safar Islamic Studies Textbook 1 (kindly gifted to us by my sister-in-law!). We followed this up with a discussion into what it meant, i.e. Allah knows everything (when I asked them this morning, "What do you want for breakfast?" Allah already knew what they would choose before they'd even decided!) and that both good things are from Allah (e.g. sunny weather so they can ride their bikes outside) as well as things they don't like (e.g. it's raining so they can't play outdoors anymore) - but everything that happens Allah knows about and everything that happens is for a reason, even if we don't understand it.

Then we looked at the above worksheet: the first part is a fill-in-the-gaps activity (with an accompanying list of words/phrases to choose from as prompts, if needed). We did this together and continued our discussions to strengthen their understanding as we did it.

The second part looks at two ayaat from Surah Al-Baqarah. We did them one at a time; we read the Arabic together and the translation, then discussed its meaning in a way they could relate to. For the first, about liking a thing which may be bad for us and vice-versa, I explained it in the context of sweets (they taste good but if we ate too many of them it wouldn't be good for our health!) and used examples like playing outside (e.g. having to come indoors when it's raining, maybe they don't want to stop playing and it makes them sad but what about the flowers and the worms and frogs? Are they happy it's raining? And if they kept on playing outside in the rain, what might happen? They could catch a cold! So even though they don't like having to come inside, it was actually a good thing.). For the second, about the burden upon a soul never being too much, we talked about a "burden" being something really difficult and the word "bear" being something they were able to manage - so Allah never gives anyone anything too difficult for them to manage. If something bad happens to us, Allah knows we can manage, e.g. I might have to go to the hospital and stay there for a long time to look after the baby, so they wouldn't be able to see me for a few days,,, maybe a whole week! Would that be hard to manage? But if that happened, then Allah knows they could manage or He wouldn't let it happen. And would Papa be able to look after them and the house for all that time? If it happened, then of course he would be able to or Allah wouldn't have let it happen! We also talked about when they fell over and hurt themselves, it wasn't nice but they were able to manage the pain.

This was definitely the most complicated article of faith - and one even many adults still struggle to understand! - so as long as they just know that everything comes from Allah, then that's good enough for me at this point.

You can download our worksheet here.

The Day of Judgement

For our 5th article of faith, we looked at the belief in the Day of Judgement.

At this age, I don't want to go into too many details as I want to focus more on the positives of faith - i.e. jannah, Allah's love and forgiveness - as opposed to potentially scaring them with the punishment of the fire.

We began by recapping previous discussions on the Day of Judgement with me simply asking them what they already knew. Because of their hifz studies, and our method of becoming familiar with the surahs by watching YouTube videos which have the English translation, they were already aware of some of the basic points since reading the translations had led to them asking questions. Their understanding was that the angel Israfeel (which they remembered from last time!) would blow the trumpet, everything would break and all the people would die, then Allah would wake everyone up, look at their book of good deeds and bad deeds, and decide if they would go to the fire if they had more bad things or to jannah if they had done more good things. I then just filled in the gap by telling them about everyone waiting all together for a very long time and that it would be a very hot day.

We also talked about some surahs they're familiar with wherein the Day of Judgement is mentioned, (e.g. Al-Qariah, Al-Zalzalah) and talked a little about their meanings and descriptions of that day.

Finally, I gave them the pictured worksheet to complete in their own words (and colour in as an optional extra once finished).

You can download our worksheet here.

Instructions (part 2); Recipe: Nutella-Surprise Fairy Cakes

To complete our work on instructions, I helped the girls bake some more cakes (any excuse for cake!), taking photos along the way, then printed these photos off as a memory aid to help them write their own set of instructions.

I cut the photos out and mixed them up, so the girls' first challenge was to order the pictures. Then they stuck them down on the A4 template, filled in the ingredients list and wrote their instructions on the next page.

You can download our worksheet template here.

Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients:
2 eggs (120g)
120g softened salted butter
120g caster sugar
120g self-raising flour
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp whole milk

6tsps Nutella
70g melted milk chocolate
2 Kinder Buenos

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C fan, line a baking tray with cake cases and weigh out all the ingredients.
2) Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) Whisk the eggs, vanilla essence and milk in a separate bowl then beat into the cake mixture.
4) Sieve in the flour and fold it in gently.
5) Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cake cases and bake for 14min until lightly golden brown.
6) Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
7) Cut out the centres from each cake, fill with 1/2tsp Nutella and replace the centre as a lid.
8) Spread the melted milk chocolate on the top of each cake and decorate with 1 square of Kinder Bueno.

Instructions (part 1)

Our next non-fiction text - instructions seemed like the logical thing to explore after lists.

We began by looking at different examples of instructions via comprehension worksheets (two birds, one stone? 🐦🐦) and I asked the girls what similarities they noticed between the different instructions... They noted that instructions are written in a list (How do you know? "Because the lines are underneath each other and they have numbers on the side" 👍) and they have another list of what you need, too (in recipes, this is the list of ingredients!). What are instructions for? "So you know what to do!"

After the girls completed a few comprehension sheets and so were familiar with a number of examples (we did 5 in total, from Letts Monster English – Reading (Age 5-6), Collins Easy Learning – Comprehension (Ages 5-7), Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 5-6) and Letts Make It Easy… Maths & English (Age 6-7)), they then had a go following a set of instructions of their choice: they decided to make Monster Masks, as in one of the comprehension worksheets, so I wrote the instructions on the whiteboard for them to follow and helped where needed (including the toddler!):

Adding two 2-digit numbers

The prerequisites for this activity were to be able to add together multiples of 10 in their head and know how to count on using a 100 square.

I decided to focus on mental methods for adding 2-digit numbers as I feel it's important they understand the basics before moving on to the quicker (and arguably easier) standard written methods.

The method I taught them to use is pictured above, which I went through on the whiteboard using coloured pens for simplicity. First, I wrote out an example question with the Tens in red, the Units in purple and the equation signs (and subsequent answer) in blue: 14 + 48 =

I told them the first step was to look at the Tens. What are the Tens? 10 and 40. So what is 10 + 40? 50. I wrote this sum underneath in red, to keep the colour co-ordination.

Next, look at the Units. What are they? 4 and 8. Which Unit is bigger? The 8.

So keep the Tens total (50) and add on the bigger Unit (8) to get 58. I wrote this underneath, colour co-ordinated.

How many Units are left to add on? 4. So I wrote 58 + 4 =

They could then use their 100 squares to find 58 and count up 4 more squares to calculate the total. 62. So I wrote 62 as the answer to both 58 + 4 and the overall question of 14 + 48.

Reading through, this looks like it took a long time to explain! But it really didn't, and with a few more examples and me reminding them of the steps the girls soon got the hang of this method. This is my personal method of choice for mental addition, which is the reason I taught it to them. As they get older and their mathematical understanding strengthens, insha'Allah, then I'll introduce the alternative methods for them to choose from. 😊

After two examples using numbers of my choice (one where the Units total to within 10, another where they didn't), I asked the twins to choose numbers at random for me to use in the questions - otherwise I wouldn't have used 49 + 94 as an example since it goes into the Hundreds! But Alhamdulillah, this was the last example we did together and they understood it fine. 👍

The next day - while leaving the examples on the whiteboard for reference - I gave them the pictured double-sided worksheet to do (taken from Schofield&Sims - KS1 Problem Solving 2). We did the first side (5 questions) together, with me scaffolding their thinking by reminding them of the steps to the method, and I helped with the first couple on the next page too. Then I let them try the last few by themselves and they were both able to do the final two questions completely independently, MashaAllah. 💕