Labelling the parts of a tree and plant

The NC for Year 1 Science suggests children should know the main parts of trees and plants, so I decided rather than simply labelling a pre-printed diagram we could draw the pictures ourselves to label. These were both done as follow ups after looking at plants and trees at the park, allotments, Botanical Gardens etc. in person and physically exploring the different parts. You'll also notice the large gap in the dates they were done, too. 😗

We did the drawings as a copying exercise, but if your children are more artistically inclined you could probably get them to draw the diagrams themselves from a photo? Mine aren't (lol) so we did it step by step. On a piece of scrap A4, I drew each part of the plant/tree one thing at a time for them to copy onto their own paper, i.e.

For the tree:
1) grass
2) trunk
3) branches
4) leaves
5) roots
6) fruit
7) blossoms

For the plant:
1) grass
2) stem
3) flower
4) leaves
5) roots
6) fruit

They tried to name each thing as we went along but I neither confirmed nor corrected them at this point. 😊

When the drawings were done and while they were colouring them in, I wrote a list of words they needed to use as labels on the whiteboard.

We worked through the words together one by one, starting with the obvious ones at their choice. I modelled how to draw labels on my own drawing but they were free to place their own labels wherever they wanted on the picture - as long as it made sense and wasn't, for example, on the opposite side of the page! As they added the labels we recapped some of the things we knew about each thing, e.g. roots help keep the plant steady in the ground and drink up water, etc.

For the plant labels, the NC states children should know what a flower is and what petals are. I included the term "pistil" simply because I knew otherwise my girls would want to know why only the outside of a flower was labelled and not the centre. 😅 The details of male/female parts and exactly what comprises the centre of a flower can wait until later years though!

Number Bonds to 10 (Part 1)

We've covered basic addition using the standard methods (blocks, fingers, number lines, etc.) and the twins understand the principles, but I wanted their mental arithmetic to be quicker... So decided now was a good time to start getting them familiar with the number bonds to 10, i.e. which pairs of numbers add together to make the number 10.

I gave them each a piece of A4 paper with 10 squares (each the size of a Multilink Cube) down one side, a pencil, 10 cubes of one colour and 10 cubes of another. They had to see how many different ways of making 10 they could find, the two colours being to make the process visually easier.

Both of them decided to start with 5 of each cube and I modelled how to write the number sentence 5 + 5 = 10 on the whiteboard for them to copy onto their paper: handwriting practise as well as a way of keeping a record of their findings along with reinforcement of how sums are displayed. 😄

Now came the tricky part! I removed all the blocks of the second colour and modelled how they didn't have to have 5 of the first colour. Maybe there could be one less, or a couple more, or even none! So I had removed all the blocks completely. So what did they want to try next? I tried to keep it quite open so they were doing more exploring and thinking for themselves.

One decided to make the first colour one more, and ended up doing the task quite systematically. She found all 11 combinations quicker than her sister and it was easy to explain to her how she hadn't missed any out. The other took a more random approach, but she was determined and I could see she was really thinking about which combinations she hadn't tried yet. When she got to her 8th possibility she wasn't sure if she could find any more, so I read through her work in numerical order, using the first number in the sum as a reference, and purposefully paused at the possibilities she missed - she caught on quickly what she needed to try next and that she had 3 more sums to write.

With this activity, it was also nice to see that they remembered some of the addition work we'd done previously, as even before they'd filled in the squares with the second colour cube, they would already guess (most of the time correctly!) at how many more cubes were needed.

Because they worked through finding out what the number bonds were for themselves, rather than just being told them or being made to memorise them parrot-fashion from flashcards, I think it made the pairs stick in their heads more easily. After a break, we practised some mental arithmetic again and they were both noticeably quicker in finding the answers. 😊

99 Names of Allah - 03 - Ar-Raheem - The Especially Merciful

[03] اَلرَّحِيمُ (Ar-Raheem): The Especially Merciful

[Download resources here]

Sing 99 Names (5min)
Play PowerPoint of the first 33 names, 2-3 times. Sing together and do the actions so far plus:

Action for Ar-Raheem: give yourself a bigger hug and twist side to side.

Today’s focus is on the name Ar-Raheem which means The Especially Merciful.

Story relating to today's name (10min)

Briefly recap the Prophet (SAW)’s life up to the Battle of Badr: Allah revealed the Quran to him through the angel Jibreel and told him to spread the message of Islam to his people in Makkah. Was his tribe, the Quraysh, happy about that? No, they made life hard for the Muslims by trying to hurt them. So the Prophet (SAW) and the Muslims left for Madinah, but the Quraysh chased after them and wanted to fight.

Read the story of the Battle of Badr e.g. from a book such as “My Prophet Muhammad”. Emphasise how hopeless it must have seemed as the Muslims were outnumbered, but Allah sent the angels to help them, through his mercy and love for them.

Continue reading the stories of the Battle of Uhud and the Battle of the Trench.

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (10min)

Ar-Raheem means The Especially Merciful. Do you remember what Ar-Rahmaan means? Allah is kind and merciful to everyone and everything – more than anyone or anything you can think of in the whole world; Ar-Raheem is a special kind of mercy just for Muslims! Allah loves us and he especially loves when we try our best to be good Muslims.

He can help us in ways nobody else ever can and He can help us to be happy both in this world and in the next life too. Part of Allah’s mercy is guiding us towards what’s good for us to help us get to Jannah, even if we don’t realise it at the time. Did the Muslims win all three battles we just read about? No, they lost the Battle of Uhud – but this was Allah’s plan. We don’t always get what we want but we need to trust in Allah’s plan for us and that he loves us.

Craft activity (20min)

Complete the page for the book.

Can you think of ways to be a good Muslim/Which of these are things good Muslims would do? Being kind, only using nice words, praying, learning Quran, following the sunnah, etc. /VS opposite actions. Draw/print pictures of some of these things to stick around the page.

When to use this name (10min)

As Muslims we all part of one ummah, which is like being part of one big family. All the Muslims in the world are just like our brothers, sisters, uncles and aunties. We should love them all and remember them in our duas, no matter which country they are from. We treat other Muslims with the same kindness as we treat our own family.

Look at a globe/world map together and talk about the different countries Muslims live in around the world.

Even though we always try our best to be good Muslims, sometimes we might make mistakes – it’s hard to use kind words when we’re feeling angry and it’s easy to forget how important it is to do our salah when we’re having fun playing – but always remember that Allah is Ar-Rahmaan and Ar-Raheem. He loves us and wants us to be happy, so when we make a mistake we can make dua to Ar-Raheem asking for his mercy, to help us to become better Muslims and to forgive us if we do something wrong. We can pray to Ar-Raheem to accept our good deeds and to let us see paradise/jannah.

Sticker chart (5min)

Ask individually: Which of Allah’s names did we learn today? What does it mean? Give children a sticker each for their chart.

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Other activities:

- Go on a charity website together and donate to part of the ummah from another part of the world.

- Colour individual countries in which are majority Muslim on a world map.

- Find pictures of traditional Muslim clothing from different cultures and create a collage.

Addition Practise

This isn't a very inspirational post - more a personal reference for myself to see what we were doing at this point in the year!

Some independent addition practise using multilink blocks as counters, keeping within number bonds to 10. Using the totalling up method for the first half and introducing the idea of counting on for the second.

I let them choose which color paper they wanted their questions on, then Papa marked their work. 😂

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 02 - Who is Allah (SWT)?

We read pages 26-27 about Prophet Ibraheem (AS) in the Migo & Ali book, discussing it together as we went along.

When we finished, I helped them summarise what the story was about: Prophet Ibraheem (AS) looked at the things in the sky (first the stars, then moon, then sun - each thing was bigger and brighter than the one before it!) and he wondered if they were Allah... but he decided they couldn't be because they kept disappearing. He understood they were only made by Allah and that Allah never disappears.

On a piece of card I asked them for ideas to represent each part of the story and drew outlines in black felt tip. Then we got the paints out and they coloured the pictures in.

Once the pictures were dry (we actually did this the next day), they wrote the title on a piece of plain A4 paper and glued the first picture at the top. I wrote some simple sentences next to their picture, saying out loud what I was writing, and leaving blanks for key words.

He saw a _____ and said, "This must be ______!" But then it went away so he said it was _______.

Then they stuck down the next picture (they had to remember what this was rather than me tell them) and we continued in the same pattern, with me writing sentences with gaps for them to fill in. Because the story follows a pattern I challenged them a little by leaving more blanks for each picture.

Then he saw the ____ which was ______ and ______ and said, "This ____ __ ______!" But then it ____ _____ so he said it was not.

Then he saw the ____ which was even _____ and ______ and ____, "____ ____ __ ______!" But then __ ____ ____ so he said __ ___ ___.

We discussed the meaning of the story before they stuck the final picture down and I wrote the last couple of sentences based on their summaries.

Prophet _______ thought and then said all these things were ____ __ ______. We can't ____ Allah and Allah _______ goes away.

Song: أَيْنَ أَنْتَ؟ (Where Are You?)

Practising some vocabulary by singing to the tune of "Finger Family"...

Each verse, one person leads and chooses the animal to sing about - they need to think carefully whether to use أَنْتَ (anta) or أَنْتِ (anti) depending on whether the animal is masculine/feminine! Then everyone else joins in with the last 2 lines...

A simple game which can be easily played anywhere. Sometimes we mix it up by singing the animal's reply in the appropriate sounding voice. 😁

أَرْنَب، أَرْنَب (Arnab, arnab/Rabbit, rabbit)

أَيْنَ أَنْتَ؟ (Ayna anta?/Where are you [m.]?)
أَنَا هُنَا، أَنَا هُنَا (Ana huna, ana huna,/I'm here, I'm here)
كَيْفَ حَالُكُمْ؟ (Kayfa haalukum?/How are you [all]?)

بَقَرَة، بَقَرَة (Baqarah, baqarah/Cow, cow)
أَيْنَ أَنْتِ؟ (Ayna anti?/Where are you [f.]?)

أَنَا هُنَا، أَنَا هُنَا (Ana huna, ana huna,/I'm here, I'm here)
كَيْفَ حَالُكُمْ؟ (Kayfa haalukum?/How are you [all]?)

etc. etc. !

Arabic colours: masculine/feminine

We've been familiar with the masculine versions of the colours for a while now, through songs on YouTube and using them in context in everyday conversations, but only just learnt the feminine equivalents.

To recap this vocabulary, I created a simple table for the girls to match the masculine and feminine versions of the colours to each other. There's the opportunity to practise scissor skills to cut out the words themselves or you can prepare this in advance for them. There's also opportunity to practise reading/familiarisation with the letters and vowel sounds, or you can simply read out the words to them a few at a time to find the matching pair.

Once the girls had stuck the words in the correct places (left column for feminine, right column for masculine!), we practised making statements to describe nouns as a colour using the words around the page to help, e.g. اَلْبَيْتُ الْأحْمَر ("the red house"). All the pictures on the left are feminine nouns in Arabic and the ones on the right are masculine nouns in Arabic. Of course, feel free to edit the file to nouns your own children are familiar with instead!

You can download the resources here.

Parts of a Story: Beginning, Middle, Ending

Following on from the previous post wherein they learnt what an ending was, this time we combined learning about "beginning" and "middle" together.

This time, I asked the girls to choose two books each - again, ones they were familiar with. Funnily enough, the one pictured above chose the same books as last time. 😂 Rather than read through the books again, I asked them to summarise what each story was about (another skill in itself!) which we did together verbally.

Then I got some Post-It notes, 3 for each book, and wrote a summary of the beginning, middle and ending for each book on the bottom of the Post-Its (based on our discussion) while the girls wrote the headings on their A4 paper - copying from the whiteboard.

Because they chose different books, they needed to do the work individually. Simply, they needed to put the Post-Its in the correct order and then place them underneath the correct heading. I checked with them when they thought they were done and then they glued them down. When they were finished, they could then draw a picture to represent each part.

We clarified that the beginning goes at the start, the ending finishes the story off and the middle is all the rest that happens in between! To be honest, the concept wasn't difficult since we use this as everyday vocabulary anyway. 👍

When they're older we can then expand this into the standard "story mountain" model, splitting up the main components further. This level of detail is fine for now, though, with "middle" being the main chunk of the story. 😀

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 01 - What are idols?

The girls were already aware of the Prophet Ibraheem (AS) from some of their story books and our discussions and activities about Hajj (he's mentioned in the 5 Pillars song I wrote earlier!) but I wanted to go through his story in a little more depth as part of their Reception targets. I decided to start with Prophet Ibraheem (AS) rather than Prophet Adam (AS) for the very reason they were already a little familiar with him.

We read the beginning of the chapter about Prophet Ibraheem (AS) in the Migo & Ali book (pages 23-25). This part of the story introduces who he is as a prophet and explains the people at the time used to pray to idols.

As the concept of idols was new to the girls, I decided to use this as an opportunity to make and play with play dough: after incorporating numeracy skills (measuring, counting, etc.) into making the dough they could then play with it (making shapes and rolling it out etc. NOT with the intention of making idols!!) and after a while we could discuss the idea of praying to something we've made with our own hands - of course, the idea of it doesn't make sense to us. Allah made us and made everything... We can't even imagine what He looks like! So making and worshiping idols as gods is surely wrong. After a little discussion the girls continued playing, probably for nearly an hour in total! So the point was subtly mentioned while they were having fun rather than laboured over.

I used the playdough recipe from The Imagination Tree. We found we needed to add a touch more flour than stated, but otherwise the dough is perfect and keeps really well.

Mini Science Display: Prediction & Results

Some more posters for our front room. 😂

I decided to start planting the seeds for scientific investigations by getting the girls used to the words "prediction" and "results". One piece of coloured card/laminated paper per word:

PREDICTION: What do you think will happen? Why? What knowledge do you already have?

RESULTS: What happened? What does it mean? How does it compare to your prediction?

Underneath, I cut the sides off two plastic wallets and stuck them to the mini-posters. The idea being the headings and questions will stay displayed while the content of our current investigation/experiment can slot into the appropriate wallet.

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So to fit in with our topic on plants/trees, I took them to Birmingham Botanical Gardens (where we have a membership pass - we definitely make the most of it throughout the year, especially in the warmer months!) where we wandered around a bit looking at the different kinds of trees, discussing whether they were deciduous or evergreen and why. This was in September, but ideally you'd want to do this earlier before the colours of the leaves begin to change. The criteria we were focusing on were the leaf shape (flat, needles, spiky, etc.) and colour (light green, turning yellow/orange, dark green, shiny, etc.) When we got to the playground I directed them to look at two particular groups of trees: one group behind the roundabout /see-saw and the other behind the swings. We took some photos and looked at the leaves more closely so they could decide what kind of trees they thought they were, more independently since we'd already had plenty of discussion walking around the gardens.

When we got home, I printed out the photos onto A4 so we could recap what we did the next day. I explained to them what a prediction was and guided them in writing one by using the questions on the poster as prompts.

A few months later, in November when it was clear the season had changed and the trees would definitely be different were they deciduous, we went back to the Botanical Gardens and looked at the same trees in the playground. This was at the end of our trees topic so they were able to do this pretty independently, saying which group was deciduous and which was evergreen and why. We took some more pictures together and spent the rest of the time playing.

Again, when we got home I printed out the photos onto another sheet and went through the questions on the Results poster with them so we could write up our results together. These mini-posters will then stay on display until the next time we do an experiment, so serve as a nice reminder.

It wasn't really a proper experiment per se, as there was no real method, but I thought the activity served as a good introduction into the scientific process.

Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s (and 3s!)

The NC for Year 1 lists counting on or back in 2s, 5s and 10s - the next step after counting confidently in 1s. So I thought I'd challenge the girls and see how they coped with the idea.

As they can count up to 100, I started with counting in 10s as it seemed the simplest. The twins are both logical and visual in their learning, so it was simple to just write the numbers 1-10 down the whiteboard and then next to each number write the multiple of 10. After the first few, the pattern became obvious and they were able to tell me what needed to go next in order to get to 100 in 10s. They found it amusing how simple it was since I began by telling them they were going to do something really difficult by counting in 10s! I think the humour helped it to stick in their heads too. 😊 We did a few chanting games altogether, alternating filling in what went next orally by going round our circle of 3, and then they pretty much had counting in 10s sorted.

Another day, we looked at counting in 2s. I introduced the concept using their multilink cubes, so they had 10 cubes each which they counted and then had to group into 2s. Then we counted the cubes together in 2s and confirmed there were still 10. We did this with a few different toys over the next couple of days, e.g. small animals, Duplo, etc., increasing the total to 20 objects. One of them commented counting in 2s was just missing out a number, which I thought was a good observation!

That comment prompted me to print them out a couple of 100 Squares so they could see the pattern visually, as I thought it might help cement the idea in their heads: 

It's pretty self-explanatory what we did. 😛 I needed to supervise just to keep them on track but they managed the task ok. After the first few lines of 2s they noticed the pattern was just lines going down the page, so I prompted them to predict what the next line would look like. After about half the square, they were sure they just wanted to colour straight lines to fill in the rest, so I let them. 😂 Then we counted through the whole square in 2s, using their finger on the squares and making sure they counted one then missed one, just to check it was all correct. Then they did the 10s, which was quick and easy, and again we counted through them just to check. We also pointed out that all numbers end in 0 when counting in 10s.

After a break of a week or so, we repeated the process with 5s over a few days: doing it physically by grouping objects and pictures, chanting and singing and playing games verbally, then colouring in the pattern on a 100 square. This was helpful again in seeing all the numbers ended with 5 or 0 and alternated between 5 and 0.

Because I'd printed the sheets with 2 squares on them, we needed something to do on the bottom 100 square - so I asked them what they wanted to try counting in... just for fun. Thankfully, they said 3s! They needed to concentrate a bit more for this as we hadn't done any previous work on 3s. It was a little more challenging at first, but they soon got the hang of counting one then missing two so it was good concentration practise to get to 99! They were also happy to see the pattern at around the halfway mark and were able to use it to correct themselves if they made a mistake. 👍 No expectation for them to count in 3s at this stage! But I thought the activity was a good learning experience in stretching the mathematical side of their brains. 😁

Target Sheets

Some laminated posters I made to put on display, which we change as often as we need to: just use a whiteboard marker and a cloth!

Having our current focus on the wall acts as a reminder both for me and my kids - sometimes inspiration for an activity strikes when I least expect it, just because that constant reminder is there...

I've noticed the girls look at the targets randomly throughout the day; sometimes they choose to copy the sentences on scrap paper for fun... and they both get excited when it gets changed to something new. 😀

I wanted to include Islam so they know from the beginning our religion is of no less importance to the standard core subjects. And that learning about it can be just as fun. 💗

Download a digital copy here. (Download icon in top right corner: fonts display differently in actual Word file as opposed to in Google)

What's the Story's Ending?

Like most 4 year olds, the girls have been having stories read to them for years so they're well aware of what a story is. I explained to them that all stories have the same 3 parts to them: a beginning, a middle and an ending.

For some reason I thought the ending was the easiest to explain, so we started by exploring those. 😂

Together, we picked out 4 books from their book box. They chose Tappity-Tap! What Was That?, The Star of the Zoo, Where's Spot? and Squirrel's Autumn Search. These are all books they had read often and so were familiar with.

I wrote the title at the top of an A4 piece of paper and split each side in half. Then the girls wrote the title of the first book at the top (handwriting practise and a copying exercise!)

Since the books were all so short I decided to read the book, discuss what they thought the ending was, help them write the ending's summary on their paper, then repeat the process with the next book. For the first two, they took turns to dictate to me what they wanted to write. For the last two, I wrote the title and they had to summarise the ending themselves (with help, of course!). I decided to let them try spelling everything themselves, then read through their work with them and showed them the correct spelling - with praise for trying even if they didn't quite get it right! Finally, they had the option to draw a picture at the bottom. They got bored after the first two so I didn't force them to draw pictures for the final two. 😛

Arabic Vocab - Parts of the Face

One of the sessions at our local Arabic club was to do with the parts of the face, where they learnt the vocab and made the craft in the middle (felt tips, googly eyes and a pompom!). When we got home I typed up the words in a large font, cut them out and got the girls to stick them down as labels on their pictures.

Simple recap activity. 😄

Download the template here.

100 Square Template

Sometimes you just want a simple resource, like a plain 100 Square, for free (!) but it takes more effort to find online than to just make it yourself. 😑

So I made one myself and you can download an editable copy here, if you like. 👍

Useful for all sorts of Numeracy work, e.g. addition, subtraction, patterns (times tables), etc. The first one is shaded in to make it easier for using as e.g. a number line; the second one is plain white for colouring in and finding patterns, etc. I laminated my shaded ones for repeated use with the girls.

99 Names of Allah - 02 - Ar-Rahmaan - The All-Merciful

[02] اَلرَّحْمَانُ (Ar-Rahmaan): The All Merciful

[Download resources here]

Sing 99 Names (5min)
Play PowerPoint of the first 33 names, 2-3 times, for children to join in singing along to. Everyone stands up and joins in action for Ar-Rahmaan: hands crossed over chest to hug your own arms.

Today’s focus is on the name Ar-Rahmaan.

Story relating to today's name (10min)

Use puppets/soft toys to act out as a play:

“Once upon a time there was a little mouse who loved to play games. He was playing in the jungle one day when he saw a sleeping lion. ‘I know!’ thought the mouse, ‘I can have fun by tickling that lion so he wakes up, then I’ll run away quickly before he can catch me!’ The little mouse crept sneakily towards the lion and scampered naughtily all over the lion’s back, tickling him with his toes and his tail. Just as the mouse was about to jump down… suddenly the lion rolled over and caught the mouse between his big paws! ‘You cheeky little mouse!’ he roared, ‘Since you woke me up, I’m going to EAT you up!’ ‘Oh no!’ cried the mouse, ‘Please have mercy on me! Don’t eat me! If you let me go then maybe one day I can help you out too!’ The lion laughed loudly, ‘How could a teeny tiny mouse ever help a big strong lion like me? But you made me laugh so I will be merciful and let you go.’ So the lion opened his paws and the mouse ran away into the jungle. A few days later, the mouse heard the lion roaring, ‘Help me! Help me!’ Quickly, the mouse ran towards the sound and saw the lion had been caught in a hunter’s net! ‘I didn’t like how you made fun of me before, but don’t worry,’ said the mouse to the lion. ‘Just as you showed me mercy and let me go, I will have mercy on you.’ And the little mouse gnawed at the ropes until the lion was free.”

What do you think mercy is? Being kind to someone who needs help. Was the lion right to be angry at the mouse? Yes, but he still let the mouse go. Did the mouse have to help the lion? No, but he chose to be kind and not ignore him, even though he didn’t like being made fun of.

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (10min)

Ar-Rahmaan means The All Merciful. Allah is kind and merciful to everyone and everything – people, plants and animals – more than anyone or anything you can think of in the whole world! Who do you know who is kind and helpful? E.g. parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, police, shopkeepers.

Stick up key points (from the resources, e.g. mounted on card) as you discuss:

Allah has so much compassion, He is merciful to us whether we deserve it or not. Imagine you were on the swing and you told your brother/sister not to come in front in case they get hit, but they were being silly and jumped in front anyway, you kicked them by accident and your mum got cross at you for kicking them – would you still feel like hugging them and seeing if they were ok? Was it their own fault they got hurt? Even if we make a mistake and do something naughty, Allah will always be merciful to us. Allah’s mercy never runs out.

Allah’s mercy is so perfect, He helps us without expecting anything in return. Do you know how sometimes you get a nice warm feeling from helping other people? How being kind to someone else can make you feel happy too? Or how you might help your mum tidy up because you know you’ll get a big hug for doing it? Allah is kind and helps us simply because he’s the All Merciful and He’s doing it just for us, not for Himself at all.

Craft activity (20min)

Paint the heart and sprinkle glitter over the wet paint. Leave to dry while colouring in the world and Allah’s name & meaning. Cut out “Ar-Rahmaan” & “The All Merciful” and glue next to the heart. Cut the world out and glue on top of the heart.

                                      

Explain this will become page 1 in our book of Allah’s names to keep in the folder they made the front cover for last time.

When to use this name (10min)

When might we use this name to talk to Allah? When we want Allah to be merciful to us/we want someone to show us kindness when we make a mistake or need help.

Allah loves it when we show mercy to others too. The more we’re merciful to others, the more mercy Allah will show to us! Can you think of a time you’ve shown someone (or something! Maybe an insect/animal?) mercy, or something you could do in the future?

What does the name Ar-Rahmaan make you feel about Allah? Help the children to write this on the back of the page, along with any other thoughts they may have.

Sticker chart (5min)

Ask individually: Which of Allah’s names did we learn today? What does it mean? Give children a sticker each for their chart.

Smarties and Zakat!

Continuing our topic on the five pillars of Islam, we did a nice cross-curricular lesson on zakat - along with Arabic and Numeracy. 😁

To begin, I prepared a load of Smarties to represent money; the twins needed to "work" to earn money. Their work was answering (verbally, although you could do this as a written exercise if you wanted) questions to do with Arabic, e.g. "What letter does 'shams' (sun) start with?" "What does 'daairah' (circle) mean?" "How do you say 'the dog is in the room'?" "What is 'waahid' (one) plus 'waahid'?" etc etc. When they got a question correct I paid them in Smarties (sometimes one, sometimes more depending on how tough the question was) until they had a total of 40 Smarties between them (because I'm a perfectionist and wanted the 2.5%... Though I didn't tell them that detail 😂).

They looked at their 40 Smarties and we discussed how rich they were, etc. Then I simplistically explained zakat in terms of charity we HAVE to give - because Allah blessed us with wealth to begin with and some of it isn't ours, it belongs to Allah, but He's so kind WE get to choose which charity we want to give it to! - and asked them to guess how much money/many Smarties they think they HAVE to give as zakat. One guessed 9, the other 12 - so it was the perfect reaction when they discovered it was only 1. 😆 Not much at all yet it makes the rest of our money even better and cleaner (Smarties tastier!) So they gave the 1 to their little sister. 💕

We practised Numeracy by dividing the 39 left equally between the two of them... The 1 remainder led into a discussion about sadaqah, and our choice to give extra charity if we wish, so they gave that to their sister too... 💕💕

End of lesson: eat the Smarties! And if they wanted milk they had to ask for it in Arabic. 😜

They don't have sweets often so the idea was the excitement and novelty would make the lesson more memorable. You could always substitute for any other treat of your choice, though. And if you don't have children to divide between, you could link the topic with e.g. days of the week practise and divide by however many days they're allowed to eat their treat over (because let's face it, 40 odd Smarties in one go is a lot! 19 is passable as a one off... lol).

Book: أَيْنَ سبوط؟ (Where's Spot?)

Books are such a rich learning resource... But they can be expensive - especially if you want them as translations of well-loved classics in Arabic!

One day, after feeling dismayed at not only the cost of one book in Arabic but also at how difficult to find they were, I asked my husband why couldn't we just translate a book ourselves? We have some well-loved books in English already, so reading a book they're familiar in would be a bonus... Plus - and this was the biggest point - we could type it with all the vowel sounds included! Because for some reason even books aimed at young children usually didn't have them... meaning I wasn't able to just take an Arabic children's book out of the library (and I've seen quite a few here in Birmingham!) because I wouldn't be able to read it, even if the content was extremely simple!

My husband has been studying the Arabic language for a good few years, and along with some friends he knows through classes, we managed to translate 'Where's Spot?' by Eric Hill.

This is obviously an unofficial just-for-fun project, as I think this may already exist in Arabic if you look online... But you're welcome to download our Word file here, if you like.

After typing up our translation, it was just a case of printing it out, cutting and sticking each line into the book we already had and ta dah! We now have a dual language English/Arabic book, exactly how we want it at minimal extra cost. Just our time and effort, but it was a beneficial learning experience in itself anyway. 😊

Fard & sunnah prayers

MashaAllah, the twins have been aware of the 5 daily prayers for a while (see this blog entry for a simple song/poster) but I wanted to do something for each pillar as we cover them this topic... So decided to introduce them to the idea of sunnah prayers. Naturally, to do that they needed to learn what "fard" meant too!

Fard = compulsory, they HAVE to be done - these are the prayers of the pillar of salah.

Sunnah = you don't have to do them but you can if you want to gain extra reward. These are extra prayers the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) used to do.

Everything is very simple at this point! The twins are only just turned 4 1/2 after all!

Next I took out their maths multilink cubes, though you could do the same thing with Lego, wooden blocks, etc. Anything which has different colours and can stack.

We chose red and orange to represent fard. One cube was equal to one rakat. Red meant it was read aloud; orange meant it was read silently. Cue a quick quiz to find out how many rakaat each prayer has and asked the twins to "build" each prayer:

Fajr: 2 red (2)
Dhuhr: 4 orange (4)
'Asr: 4 orange (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange (3)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange (4)

Lined them up together so they could compare the sizes of the towers they made - numeracy link in counting the cubes and checking the total: 17 rakaat. They pointed out Fajr was the smallest while Dhuhr, 'Asr and 'Isha were the same size. An important observation to keep in mind for later!

Next I asked them to explain to me what sunnah prayers were, i.e. repeat back to me what I'd just told them earlier to check their understanding. 😊

We chose green cubes to represent each rakat of sunnah prayer. Then I told them how many rakaat are typically associated with each prayer so they could add to their towers. The objective wasn't for them to be able to recall exactly how many go where, but the exercise was more in gaining that initial awareness for building on in future years, inshaAllah.

I also told them whether the sunnah prayers came before or after the fard prayers, so their towers ended up like this:

Fajr: 2 green, 2 red (4)
Dhuhr: 4 green, 4 red, 4 green (12)
'Asr: 4 red (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange, 2 green (5)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange, 2 green (6)

Finally, I explained there was a very special white cube which needed to go at the end of one of the prayers... This white cube was called 'witr' and was special because it wasn't really fard but it was part of the prayer you really shouldn't miss... And it goes at the end of 'Isha. 😁

So the final towers lined up together looked like:

Fajr: 2 green, 2 red (4)
Dhuhr: 4 green, 4 red, 4 green (12)
'Asr: 4 red (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange, 2 green (5)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange, 2 green, 1 white (7)

They compared and discussed them again: Fajr wasn't the smallest anymore! It was the same size as 'Asr! And Maghrib was only 1 bigger than them! They really found it funny how our Dhuhr tower kept falling over, it was that tall! But insha'Allah that means the fact Dhuhr is the longest when you add in all the sunnah prayers will stay in their mind. And they both liked the one white cube of witr because it was so special. 😂

We finished by counting and adding together the total number of rakaat: 32! A lot more than 17! And emphasised the sunnah prayers were a choice, to gain extra reward, but the red/orange fard cubes were prayers they definitely couldn't miss - once they were at the age to do them... A good few years from now insha'Allah! 💕

MAR Book 1, Lesson 1: "This is a..."

Our first formal lessons in learning Arabic... Decided to use the Madinah Arabic Reader series as I've already gone through the first few chapters myself in the past - just bought the Reader version as it's a bit more accessible for children (in that the layout is nicer to look at and there are colour pictures; the content is exactly the same).

I'm using the book as a guideline - we'll go through it in order but we'll be doing the work mainly verbally as opposed to written and I'll adapt the lessons into activities for the kids... We'll cover most of the vocabulary but as the book is aimed at older ages we'll only briefly go over the words which aren't really relevant/difficult for home educating 4 year olds to understand (e.g. "university", "student", "headteacher", etc.!)

So the first lesson begins with هَذَا (this is) and introduces some common nouns, most of which are easily found around the house. Before even showing the book to the girls, I decided to run through this vocab with them by taking them round the house and saying the sentences on the first page for them to repeat. After a few rounds of repetition we continued to the next concept on page 2, turning the phrases into questions: مَا هَذَا؟ (what is this?) and أَهَذَا ... ؟ (is this ... ?). So I would point at e.g. the door and ask either, "What is this?" or "Is this a door?" and have the girls reply in sentences, e.g. "Yes, this is a door." or "No, this is a pen." This took a maximum of 10 minutes to do and I wasn't fussed if they made mistakes - it was all very playful, in silly voices, moving around - if they made a mistake, I'd just say what it was supposed to be for them to repeat. No pressure. And they enjoyed the questioning part since the questions were so ridiculous (really, Mama, you're asking if a pen is a door?? 😂) and I kept the timing short on purpose so it wouldn't get boring or tedious.

I then wrote the 9 words on page 1 onto our whiteboard by drawing a picture in one colour and writing the transliterated Arabic underneath in another. In hindsight, next time I'd include the actual Arabic too even if they can't read it just for exposure. We revisited the board over the next couple of days then read through up to the top of page 7 together, translating as we went along. For the exercise on page 7 we didn't do any writing; I just said the sentence in either English or Arabic and the girls needed to translate it into the other language. The next day, we did some simple flashcard activities where I held up a picture for them to translate or I pointed at one from a selection and they needed to ask a question. Since then, we just substituted the Arabic words into our everyday life wherever we could, regardless of whether the grammar made sense or not - it was more for vocab practice. e.g. "Can you open the baabun for me?" (Don't worry about the grammar as this is easily corrected as you progress through the lessons!)


The mini flashcards I made for Chapters 1-4 can be downloaded here. Black and white, for the option for the kids to colour them themselves while revising vocab. I printed then laminated mine and colour coded the borders: red = m. nouns, pink = f. nouns, blue = adjectives, yellow = prepositions, green = other. Verbs haven't been introduced in the book yet.

99 Names of Allah - 01 - Allah (SWT)

"Allah has 99 names and whoever preserves them will enter Paradise." [Sahih Muslim]

Most of us are familiar with this hadith and many of us will encourage our children to memorise these names while they're young and their minds absorb easily like sponges... But I wanted to take the opportunity to give my children a deeper connection with Allah at the same time. I wanted to go through each name in turn and provide a child-friendly explanation and memorable activity. Even if they come out of it at the end unable to say exactly what each name meant, at the time of the lesson we would have at least discussed its meaning ready as a foundation to build upon when they're older insha'Allah, and be able to have a better understanding of each meaning. After searching online for something free and accessible for 4-5 year old children and not finding anything exactly suitable, I decided to go ahead and research and write my own lesson plan and resources for each name.

The overall plan is to familiarise my children with all 99 names through a simple song (by putting the names to a simple tune; something I picked up while teaching at an Islamic school) and giving each name a suitable action in order to aid memory of its meaning. The song would be sung at the beginning of every session, increasing the names in the song at the rate at which my children could learn them. Each lesson would follow the same format: song, story to introduce the concept of the name, explanation of the name & discussion, a craft activity wherein they create a page for a book/folder which will eventually insha'Allah contain all 99 names, discussion on how they can apply the name to their lives, a small recap and a reward sticker for a chart. Each lesson should last approximately 1hr. Any other related activities could then be done over the following days/weeks, so each name would become a mini topic in itself - not just learnt briefly and then move on.

This is very much a work in progress and I plan to share anything I come up with as I go along. At the moment we're progressing slowly at a rate of one name a month (as I need to find time to create everything in between our other homeschooling topics!) but insha'Allah the pace should increase as my children get older. At the time we started they were 4 1/2, so my plans will always be tailored to my own children first and foremost.

Bismillah. So here we go with the first plan, to introduce the idea that Allah has 99 names!

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[01] اَللّهُ (Allah): God - The Greatest Name

[Download resources here]

Sing 99 Names (10min)

Allah is the name of God, our creator, the one we worship and thank for everything. But Allah is only one name for God – and we are going to learn what 99 of His names/descriptions are and what they mean! There is a hadith that says, “Allah has 99 names and whoever preserves [learns] them will enter paradise.” (Sahih Muslim 2677)

Each name we learn will help us become closer to Allah and become better at worshipping Him, insha’Allah.

Show children their sticker chart, with all 99 names and a space beside each one for a sticker once they've learnt it. Sing through and encourage the children to join in if they want to. (You can find a variety of charts online/in Islamic bookstores or you can make one yourself. We have a wall dedicated to this project and will stick up one card at a time from this series to create a display. The list of names I sang to them from this book.) Then introduce the PowerPoint to the children and sing through once or twice, explaining it only has the first 33 names for now, inviting them to join in if they would like to.

Story relating to today's name (10min)

Read a storybook or two of how Allah made everything, e.g. "Life Begins", "Allah Made Them All", "Allah Gave Me Two Eyes To See", etc.

What does this make you feel about Allah? We are grateful to Allah for creating us and for blessing us with so many wonderful things.

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (10min)

Allah has many names mentioned in the Quran but the name “Allah” is the greatest of all.

Write the name Allah in the centre of a piece of paper. Help children to write words around the paper of how Allah makes them feel or who Allah is, etc. They can write things they like about Allah or things they’re happy Allah created, things they’re grateful for, etc. They can draw pictures of things Allah has made. When they're finished, put this poster on display as a reminder for them.

Craft activity (15min)

Complete the front cover for their folder/book. (We're using an A5 ringbinder each and a piece of A4 card cut in half to make it A5 and holepunched for the pages)

Colour in the title with special gel pens and decorate with stickers. Explain we cannot draw pictures of Allah and we cannot even imagine what He looks like. Nothing in this world can compare to Him.

When to use this name (10min)

Can you think of any times in the day you say the name Allah? Maybe when praying or inside other words or when doing certain things? Help the children think of examples and explain the meaning of the words to them.

e.g.

Allahu akbar = Allah is the greatest, e.g. when praying

Alhamdulillah = All thanks is to Allah, e.g. after sneezing, when we’re happy about something

Bismillah = In the name of Allah, e.g. before doing anything

InshaAllah = If Allah wills, e.g. when talking about something in the future

SubhanAllah = Allah is perfect/Praise to Allah, e.g. when something bad happens, when we see something amazing

Astaghfirullah =I seek forgiveness from Allah, e.g. when we make a mistake or see someone else do something bad

MashaAllah = Allah has willed, e.g. when someone does something well or something looks beautiful

The book The Way to Jannah illustrates this beautifully.

Sticker chart (5min)

Print out/hang up a sticker chart with space for the 99 names on it/show children where their display wall will be for all 99 names insha'Allah.

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Other activities:

- Read other storybooks about Allah’s creations or things he has blessed us with.

- Make a mini display using Post-it notes of the words we often say with Allah’s name in.

Song: The Five Pillars

I wrote a simple song (nasheed, if you prefer?) to help my girls not only learn but understand the very basics of the five pillars of Islam: testimony of faith (shahadah), prayer (salah), charity (zakat), fasting (sawm) and pilgrimage (hajj).

Sung to the tune of "The Wheels On The Bus". 🚌

(CHORUS)

In Islam, there are five pillars,

Five pillars,

Five pillars.

In Islam, there are five pillars,

Which Muslims all believe in.

The shahadah says that Allah is One:

Laa ‘ilaaha

‘illa-llah,

And Muhammad is His messenger:

Wa Muhammadur-rasoolu-llah.

(CHORUS)

Salah we pray five times a day:

Fajr, Dhuhr,

And ‘Asr,

Maghrib, ‘Isha, five salah.

The prayers we offer daily.

(CHORUS)

Zakat we give to charity,

To help the poor

And the needy.

Zakat, it makes our wealth all clean,

And stops us being greedy.

(CHORUS)

Sawm, we fast in Ramadhaan,

Don’t eat or drink

Til the sun goes down.

Be patient, kind and helpful.

Fasting makes us grateful.

(CHORUS)

Hajj is the holy pilgrimage,

To where Prophet

Ibrahim used to live.

Just once in our life when we have the means,

We should make this journey.

(CHORUS)

I then made it into a small poster (two A4 sheets trimmed down, stuck together and laminated), which you can download a copy of here. 😊

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It was a little difficult to think of another, useful, separate activity to do with the shahadah... We've made it a habit for the girls to recite it in Arabic every night before sleeping, so they were pleasantly surprised to discover they already knew it! As for the English meaning, it's covered in this song... So there wasn't really much else to do lol. That level of detail is fine with us for now. 👍