What plants need to grow

Our Science topic for this half term is plants: looking at what they need to grow, their basic structures and functions, and their life cycles in terms of flowering, pollination, seed formation and dispersal.

We were gifted a carnivorous plants display from my parents - which I've been putting off planting over the winter as we were back and forth between Ipswich and Birmingham so wouldn't have been able to look after them well - so we finally got round to planting those! We also had a few flower seeds from my nephew's birthday party so we planted those too.

I asked the girls what they thought the plants needed to grow well - what did they already know? They said water, light and soil because they remembered our sunflower experiments in the garden from previous years. 😁🌻🌻🌻 We looked in one of their science books about plants so they could check and they remembered plants also need air - because they "breathe" in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, which is the opposite of what animals do.

I told them I was going to put their flowers and carnivorous plant display on the sideboard where they could get lots of sun because I wanted them to grow well, inshaAllah. And we needed to remember to water them often! They were already in soil and they weren't covered up so should be able to get plenty of air.

Then I asked them if we could design an experiment to test if they were right about these four factors being important for plant growth... We could use cress seeds and see what happens if we tried to grow them without those things. Could they design an experiment to see which one of those things is the most important, maybe? How could they make it a fair test?

With some  discussion, they came up with the following:

They both found the "no soil" pot hilarious for some reason. 😂😂

Z didn't really take part in the designing an experiment part, but she understood we had 4 different pots to compare how the seeds would grow without either light, water, soil or air. And the 5th pot had all four things to be the control, so to show how the plant is supposed to grow.

Once the cress has sprouted, inshaAllah, we can discuss what they'll observe and why it happened. 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

Acrostic Poetry

We haven't done any poetry for a while! So I checked online for a list of suggested genres and picked a few for us to look at over the next few weeks inshaAllah: acrostics, shape poems and couplets.

We started by visiting the library and looking for poetry books - not in any particular genre - just for general inspiration.

Fortunately, there were some examples of acrostics in one of the books we took out!

We read the examples together and I asked the girls what they thought an acrostic poem was... They said it has a word going vertically which is what the poem is about. 👍 Then I quickly made this up on the whiteboard to demonstrate!

As our current science topic is to do with plants, I thought it'd be nice to link our poetry to this. We talked together and wrote the following two examples:

Then I challenged the girls to write their own using a plant-related word as their theme. We talked about how poetry doesn't have to rhyme! And the meaning of what they want to say is more important. 😁 When they were finished, we used thesauruses to make their writing more interesting. Finally, they wrote their poems out in their best handwriting, illustrated them, then trimmed and mounted them onto coloured paper.

Papa was late coming home that evening, so we left this final acrostic on the whiteboard for him... The girls eagerly asked him if he saw it the next morning, but unfortunately he was too tired to notice. 😂

99 Names of Allah - 16 - Al-Qahhaar - The Subduer

[15] اَلْقَهَّارُ (Al-Qahhaar): The Subduer

[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 Al-Qahhaar: Clench hand into a fist and, using your elbow as a pivot, spin your fist in a fast circle like a hurricane.

Today’s focus is on the name Al-Qahhaar which means The Subduer. 

Story relating to today's name (7min)

Read the stories of 'Ad and Thamud to the children e.g. from My First Quran Storybook or Migo & Ali, etc. (Prophets Hud (AS) and Salih (AS)). 

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (15min)

Al-Qahhaar means The Subduer. 

What does "subdue" mean? Can you find it in the dictionary? It means to overcome or quieten or bring under control.

This name reminds us of Allah's power and how He is able to control everything at His will.

Think about the people in the stories we just read. Did they believe in Allah? Were they arrogant? They thought they didn't need Allah? But Allah is Al-Qahhaar and He subdued them and their cities. He made them all quiet so they were at a complete loss against Him. What did He do? He sent great winds and earthquakes.

Watch a video of a tornado (such as this one). Talk about how it's a great wind spinning round very fast. Talk about the destruction left behind (e.g. watching a video such as this).

Ask the children if they think natural disasters like these nowadays are punishments just like they were for the people of 'Ad and Thamud? Does Allah only make bad things happen to people He dislikes? What about the prophets - did they have easy or hard lives? Did Allah love them or not? We don't always know why Allah makes certain things happen, so we should always have faith in Him that it's happening for a reason. Sometimes it's a test for those He loves, sometimes it's a punishment for those who don't believe in Him. Only Allah knows.

Craft activity (20min)

Complete the page for the book.

Print the spiral template onto grey card for the children to cut out. Use felt-tips to follow the spiral and add some colour. Cut out. Stick the centre of the spiral to the page. Use string to decorate, following the spiral with a piece of string and gluing down. Leave a short length of string overhanging to act as a handle - so the spiral can be lifted off the page to represent a hurricane.

When to use this name (8min)

When we see or hear about natural disasters happening around the world, we should be reminded of Allah as Al-Qahhaar. He has the power to subdue - to destroy and bring things under control - and has destroyed many groups of people in the past. Can you think of any examples? 'Ad, Thamud, the people of Nuh (AS), Firawn and his followers, etc. We should remember their examples and give thanks to Allah for guiding us to the correct path. We are blessed to be able to worship Him as Muslims and to have the opportunity to make our book of good deeds as large as possible! 

On the back of their page, help the children write a few thoughts about the name Al-Qahhaar and their feelings.

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:

- Read and watch videos about natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Talk about how strong they are and how they help to remind us of Allah's power as Al-Qahhaar.


Please leave a comment if you know any other related activities for this name!

Writing Informal Emails

Part two of learning about letters was to compare to writing and sending emails!

First, the twins did a comprehension exercise based on an email text (from this book) and we talked briefly about the conventions in layout: the email subject, email addresses, the similar layout in terms of paragraphs and a "Dear...", "From..." beginning and end.

Then, I set up email accounts for the girls - including Z, as she had written a letter and posted it too - using Gmail. In hindsight, I wish I had adjusted their birth years so I could automatically forward their emails to mine (Google doesn't allow automatic forwarding for child accounts! And neither can I add their accounts to my phone as I set my email as the parent account which is already signed in on my phone... Settings might get confused, apparently, so it's not possible 😖) as now I need to manually log in to their accounts to check for replies... But this is a lesson in itself for them re: the conveniences of snail mail vs electronic! It may arrive there straightaway but that isn't much use if you forget to sign in and check. 😂

They watched me set up their accounts (the username F wanted was already taken so we added a number to the end; we talked about how usernames/email addresses are unique for everyone in the whole world!) and came up with a password (their first one lol... I set all 3 as the same for ease 😝).

When they composed their emails, in turn, we looked at the layout of the inbox, how to write an email by clicking "compose", what the subject line is for and where to put the recipient's address. They wrote a simple email to the same aunts they had sent letters to, explaining they were comparing the two forms of communication, and added emojis to their emails (which they enjoyed the most lol).

We talked about how email is free to do, how long it takes to arrive, the convenience of not needing to physically buy stamps or walk to a postbox and how mistakes in an email can be easily corrected, compared to rubbing out or crossing out written mistakes in a letter. We also didn't need to write the date or our own address because it was put there automatically for us.

So what could be the benefits of sending letters by post? Because you don't have to remember to check for a reply, it just comes! And if you want to send something (like Nani sent a present in the post to us) then you can't email it, you have to post it... And it's fun getting post. 😂

99 Names of Allah - 15 - Al-Ghaffaar - The Forgiving

[15] اَلْغَفَّارُ (Al-Ghaffaar): The Forgiving

[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 Al-Ghaffaar: Hold one palm face up and use the other palm to rub circular motions onto it.

Today’s focus is on the name Al-Ghaffaar which means The Forgiving. 

Story relating to today's name (7min)

Read the story of Prophet Yunus (AS) to the children, e.g. from the Safar series or Migo & Ali.

Talk about the mistake Yunus (AS) made and what he did when he felt sorry. Did Allah forgive him?

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (15min)

Al-Ghaffaar means The Forgiving.

This means that Allah has the power to forgive our sins - He can rub them out from the book the angels write our deeds in and make it seem as if it never happened. Why do we want our book of bad deeds to be as small as possible? So when our books are weighed on the Day of Judgement, our good deeds will be heavier and we will be able to go to jannah, InshaAllah!

So if Allah is forgiving when we say sorry to Him for doing something He doesn't like, how do you think we should behave if someone does something we don't like? Should we forgive them or not?

Forgiving someone doesn't mean you don't mind what they did. It means you aren't going to let it affect you anymore. You need to be a strong person to forgive when you've been wronged.

Think of something which someone may have done which upset you... Maybe someone pushing you or saying something mean... Don't tell everyone else what it is, just think about it. How does it make you feel? Bad? Angry? Upset? Give children a piece of paper for them to write down what it is. When they're done, tell them forgiving someone helps you throw away that bad feeling - just like they're going to throw away this piece of paper! Have them rip it up and scrunch into a ball, then play a game trying to throw it into the bin from a small distance away. How do they feel now? Better?

When someone does something bad to you, instead of holding a grudge and keeping that bad feeling to yourself, tell them what they did that upset you. Tell them you didn't like it and you don't want them to do it again. Then tell them you forgive them because that's what a good Muslim does.

It doesn't mean you're a doormat and you don't care how people treat you! It means that you're stronger than they are and you won't let it affect you. Stand up for yourself then make dua for them so Allah can guide them better not to hurt others again. Forgive them just as you would want others to forgive you and how you want Allah to forgive your mistakes too.

Craft activity (20min)

Complete the page for the book.

Print out the whale template for children to colour in and cut out. Glue the lower half of the picture to the page. They can glue the upper half onto card to make it sturdier, if they wish, and cut out again. Use a split pin to attach the upper half through the marked circle - so the whale's mouth can rotate on the pin as if it's opening and closing. Finish by gluing on a googly eye!

Talk about the whale picture and how it should remind us of Yunus (AS) asking Allah for forgiveness.

When to use this name (8min)

Do you remember what "tawbah" is? How do you make tawbah? (We did this lesson previously)

1) Regret the sin - feel guilty about doing it
2) Stop doing the sin
3) Make the intention not to repeat the sin
4) Ask Allah's forgiveness
5) Follow a bad deed with a good deed

Even though one of the steps is to make the intention not to do it again, even if you somehow end up doing the same bad thing again, Allah is Al-Ghaffaar and can forgive you. Allah can forgive us again and again no matter how many times we make a mistake or make the same mistake - He won't ever get tired or fed up, like we might become if someone kept making the same mistake again and again!

This doesn't mean it's OK for us to not try and stop doing bad things, because we know Allah can forgive us. It means that even if we might end up making lots of mistakes, we should never give up hope. Always remember that Allah is Al-Ghaffaar and can forgive us. Don't make excuses for not turning back to Allah, it's never too late! 

On the back of their page, help the children write a few thoughts about the name Al-Ghaffaar and their feelings.

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:

- Play a simple game of catch with the children. Tell them we need to pass the ball to each other 10 times without dropping it and if they do they can have a prize (e.g. a sticker or a Smartie, etc.). Purposefully drop the ball when it's your turn or just before they reach the target, say sorry each time and ask if they forgive you! As they get more frustrated/bored, ask how they're feeling. Do they want to keep forgiving you every time you make the same mistake or is it getting a bit annoying? Remind them that Allah is Al-Ghaffaar and doesn't get annoyed when we ask Him for forgiveness - even if it's the same mistake again and again - and the things we need to ask Allah to forgive us for are not as small as just dropping a ball! Try again to complete the challenge and give the children their prize.

- Research other hadith on forgiveness and see how it's mentioned in the Quran. Discuss! (e.g. http://www.quranreading.com/blog/importance-and-benefits-of-forgiveness-in-islam-learn-from-quran-and-sunnah/)

- Find in Arabic and read Yunus (AS)'s dua where he asked for forgiveness.

- Read the story from the seerah of the Prophet (SAW) at Taif. Talk about how the people there treated him and how Muhammad (SAW) reacted. Did he forgive them? What did he do?

- This name links forgiving with the concealing of ugly things, i.e. sins by erasing them and our ugly thoughts/intentions by hiding them from others. We can reflect on this name by concealing other people's faults from others and looking instead for the good in things. Put a teaspoon of salt in a glass and say it represents a bad thing someone has done. Have a child pour some warm water into the glass, to represent covering up the person's sin and ignoring it - watch as it "disappears". Of course, the salt has just dissolved, it's still there. We can't see it so we can easily ignore it, but if we drank the water would we taste it? Yes! So only Allah can actually remove a person's sins, though that doesn't stop us from hiding other people's faults.

You could extend further by putting 2 or 3 identical glasses next to each other, with only 1 having salt water while the others have plain tap water. Can you see by looking which one is salty? No, we can't. We just see water. But, of course, Allah knows - and only He needs to know! It's none of our business what sins other people have done. Allah will be the one to judge them.


Please leave a comment if you know any other related activities for this name!

Madinah Arabic Reader Book 2 - Lesson 3a

This chapter is an introduction to plurals.

I split this part of the book over several weeks, as I felt it was worth spending longer to help with learning all the new vocabulary.

Week 1:
I just introduced the plural form of the nouns mentioned on pages 16-17 as stand-alone words, not in sentences. I wrote the words on the whiteboard and gave the girls the corresponding flashcards to match up where they thought they went. The next day, I rearranged the board to move the words they knew to the top of the board and the words they were still unsure of to one side (so we had space to use the whiteboard for other things!).

(My husband pointed out I forgot the shaddah on the laam in "tullaab" - which I fixed after taking these photos!)

Then I introduced the word "haulaai" as the plural equivalent to "hadha". We read through the cards on the whiteboard practising the simple sentence "Hadha X" followed by "Haulaai Y", i.e. "Hadha mudarrisun, haulaai mudarrisoona."

Week 2:
We recapped the words learnt previously and introduced the plural forms of the adjectives mentioned on pages 16-17. Again, we used flashcards to match up with the words on the whiteboard and practiced saying sentences along the "hadha X, haulaai Y" pattern using the cards.

We read through p.15 together and mashaAllah were able to translate the meaning - referring to the whiteboard when unsure of a word's meaning to help.

We learnt that "hum" is the plural equivalent of "huwa", but left that information at that for now.

Week 3:
We put together all we had learnt so far by making some simple sentences using the flashcards as prompts.

1) After recapping how to say e.g. "This student is poor" as "Hadha taalibun faqeerun", we made up sentences in the plural form e.g. "These students are poor" as "Haulaai tullaabun fuqaraau". We did a couple of sentences in both singular and plural form to help solidify the differences.

2) I put together each adjective with a noun and would ask a question e.g. "Man haulaai tiwaalun?" for them to answer with the correct noun, e.g. "Haulaai fallahoona." They took turns to ask the question of each other, we reshuffled the cards and repeated a couple of times.

3) I turned the cards face down in two piles and the girls had to flip one card over from each pile. I would ask either "Man haulaai?" or "Man hum?" for them to answer in a complete sentence, e.g. "Haulaai awlaadun kibaarun" or "Hum muhandisoona jududun". If I asked "Man haulaai" then they would need to move the cards to the pile closer to them; if I asked "Man hum?" then they would put the noun in the pile further away - to help signify the difference between "hum"/they and "haulaai"/these. The adjective pile simply stayed face down with the top card moving to the bottom after each question.

Week 4:
We did the activity on pages 17-18 using the cards.

I laid out all the relevant cards underneath the book. I read the sentence out and the girls found the cards mentioned (translation practice) and placed them above the book as a reminder. Then they changed the sentence from singular to plural in turn.

We then focused on the verb conjugation for past tense plural male using the verb "dhahabu"

I shuffled all the "people" words in the chapter into one pile and the adjectives mentioned into another. Then I chose 6 locations mentioned in the chapter and spread them out on the floor.

I modelled an example then the girls took it in turns to be A and B. A chose a card at random from each pile for B to ask the matching question, e.g. "Ayna az-zumlaau al-kibaaru?". A would then put the cards next to a location card and answer, e.g. "Dhahabu ila Hind."

Finally, they chose three of the sentences they had made and I wrote them onto the whiteboard as they told me what they were. They finished by copying the sentences onto a piece of coloured A4 paper and drawing a picture of one of the sentences underneath.

Week 5:

Day 1:

We looked at the conjugation for past tense plural male using the verbs "to sit" and "to exit" and comparing to how we conjugated "to go", i.e. the verbs in this chapter.

We did the exercise at the top of page 19, verbally.

Then we extended this knowledge to the verb "to do" and asked and answered questions of each other such as "Madha fa'alu at-tibbaau?" "Kharaju min al-mustashfaa wa dhahabu ila al-masjidi wa jalasu ala al-karaasi".

The vocab for "restaurant" was new so we added this to the whiteboard as a reminder.

Day 2:

We did the exercise at the bottom of page 18 verbally, attaching nouns and pronouns to words to show possession.

Then we read through the sentences on pages 19-20, translating the meanings as we went along.

Finally, the girls did the exercise on page 20, first verbally by telling me what the plural forms were, then as handwriting practise in their books. I wrote the words for them to copy as the spelling from memory is difficult for them (even I need to check some of the words still!).

We also added the new vocab words "village" and "field" to the corner of the whiteboard as a visual reminder for the rest of the week.

(Just noticed I forgot the fatha on the qaaf in "the village"! And put a dhamma on "a village". Never mind. It's fixed on the actual board now 😂)

This brings us to the end of Lesson 3a, mashaAllah. Ready for half term and for me to look at planning how we'll tackle the next part of the chapter, inshaAllah!

Writing Informal Letters

I bought the books The Jolly Postman and Dragon Post from Amazon as an introduction to the topic. We also watched the relevant episode of Let's Play on Amazon Prime (the twins are getting a bit old for this but still enjoyable for Z!).

We looked at the layouts of the different letters in the books to see if there was anything they all had in common - what were the features of a letter? Was there a difference between letters from friends (informal) and letters from businesses (formal)?

On a piece of coloured A4 paper, we wrote our own example letter (to Julian from Aunt Fanny - Famous Five themed again, their choice!) then glued in the centre of A3 paper and annotated it with the features we came up with.

Why is it useful to write your own address in the corner? So the recipient has it if they want to send a reply! Why is it useful to have the date? Because the letter won't arrive straightaway so it's good to know when it was sent!

We talked about how letters get to where we want them to go to and watched a couple of YouTube videos about Royal Mail - one posted only a few years ago and the other 10 years ago. We talked about how clever the machines were and how they hadn't really changed in 10 years... But before the machines were invented it must have taken a lot longer and been a lot more difficult!

We thought about who they could write letters to - who lived in the UK but not in Birmingham? Z cleverly commented there was no point wasting money posting letters to people in Birmingham because we could just give it to them instead! After going through all the possibilities they decided to write a letter each to some of my sisters living in different places (at school in Ipswich, university in Bristol and work in Leicester!). We thought it would be interesting to see if they would all receive their letters at the same time if we posted them all into the same postbox at the same time...

We looked into the difference between 1st class and 2nd class post. 1st class is meant to arrive the next working day ("What's a working day?!") including Saturday; 2nd class can take 2-3 working days to arrive. So we decided to use 2nd class for our experiment. We also talked about which kind of stamp cost more and why.

They wrote their letters, using the annotated poster from before as a guide, and we talked about the conventions of an envelope: stamp in the top right corner, address in the centre with the recipient's name at the top & postcode at the bottom, return address on the back.

We walked down the road to the nearest postbox for them to post their letters. While there, we read the information about last collection times and looked for the keyhole and handle to open the postbox. M was pleased she could explain what the "line" was down the side of the postbox - it's the door! It was a bit of a cold, windy day (remnants of Storm Ciara from the weekend!) so we talked about the inconvenience of needing to go out to send a message to someone faraway, as opposed to the technology nowadays of phones, emails and WhatsApp, etc. - all of which are sent straightaway and don't take days to arrive!

I found a simple map of the UK on Google Images which had Birmingham, Leicester, Bristol and Ipswich marked and printed it out for the girls. They needed to find the four cities and colour them different colours, then write a couple of sentences to explain what we had done.

When the letters arrive InshaAllah they can add at the bottom how long it took for their aunts to receive them! They're expecting Ipswich to maybe take longer because it's the furthest away, and Leicester to be delivered the quickest, but we'll see. 😁

99 Names of Allah - 14 - Al-Musawwir - The Fashioner

[14] اَلْمُصَوِّرُ (Al-Musawwir): The Fashioner

[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 Al-Musawwir: Hold both hands up, palms outwards, and wiggle downwards side to side.

Today’s focus is on the name Al-Musawwir which means The Fashioner. 

Story relating to today's name (7min)

Read pages from a book such as Hello World together.

Talk about the variety of languages and cultures, ways people dress, things they like and how they look, etc.

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (8min)

Al-Musawwir means The Fashioner.

Do you remember what Al-Khaaliq and Al-Baari' mean? Allah is the Creator and He makes things from nothing. He both invents and makes them.

Look at pictures of different trees (see resources file) - are these all trees? How do you know? What do they have in common? What makes them different?

To fashion something means to give it a design, so in our tree example these pictures are all of trees but they've been fashioned differently.

Think about all the people in the world. How have we been fashioned differently by Allah? Out of all the people alive today, say 7 billion, Allah has fashioned every single one of us differently. Not even just the 7 billion people alive today, but all the people who were alive before us and already passed away and all the billions of people who may be born in the future too... Every single human is different! SubhanAllah. Do you think you could design billions and billions of different things and have every single one of them be different?! But Allah can and He does it easily!

Think about people in your family - siblings look very similar but everyone has differences. Even with twins, if you look carefully you can find differences in the way they've been fashioned too!

Use a mirror and compare similarities and differences between the children's faces and your own. You could even use old photos of yourself at the same age as the children are now so they can compare those, too. See how people change as they age? So you could say that each person has more than one design... Multiply that by the number of people ever created! How many billions and billions of different designs does that make? Just for humans! That's not even thinking about all the other designs Allah created for all the animals and plants in the world!

Craft activity (25min)

Complete the page for the book.

Fill the vase with different kinds of flowers - use different art techniques e.g. scrunched tissue paper, pompom centres, sequin petals, string, straws, felt tips, crayons, etc. Talk about how they're all flowers but have different designs.

Look at photographs of flowers for inspiration (see resources file). Ask children if they can name the different species! (from top left: orchid, tulip, daffodil, foxglove, rose, pansy, poppy, daisy, bluebell, sunflower)

When to use this name (10min)

We talked earlier about how we've all been fashioned in different ways. It's normal to like looking at beautiful things - Allah is the creator of that beauty. It's nice to make ourselves look presentable and beautiful too. But remembering Allah as Al-Musawwir, the one who fashioned us and made us look the way we do, should remind us that our looks and our beauty came from Allah. It's good to be grateful to Allah but not to be arrogant (or narcissistic!).

Equally, we shouldn't criticise or make fun of people for the way they look - maybe you've heard people insulting others for having a "big nose" or "small eyes". Does that make sense? Allah designed the way they look and He did so for a reason.

Some people, when they aren't happy with the way they look, get very upset about it and want to change themselves, or they might hide away and not let other people see them. Do you think that's a nice feeling to have? We shouldn't feel bad about the way we look; we should be grateful Allah designed us in this way. There's no need to feel jealous of how someone else might look because looks aren't important.

What's inside our hearts is what's important. A famous hadith says: "Allah does not look at your appearance or wealth, but rather he looks at your hearts and actions." [Sahih Muslim] Look at the hadith together (in the resources file) and (if children are able to!) read the Arabic together, too.

On the back of their page, help the children write a few thoughts about the name Al-Musawwir and their feelings.

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:

- Look at images of snowflakes under a microscope. Every snowflake is different! Can you imagine how many snowflakes it would take to fill up the palm of your hand? Maybe 50? 100? And all of them would be different?? How many snowflakes would it take to cover the garden? Many times more than in your hand! And all of those would be different? And how many snowflakes in every garden on our street? In our city? All around the world? And all of them are different??? SubhanAllah! It's hard to imagine!

Use folded pieces of white paper to cut out snowflake patterns as a reminder - you could turn these into a paper chain decoration and hang in their bedroom.

- Draw a self-portrait (using a mirror) and colour/paint. Discuss eye, hair and skin colour and how these can be different for different people but it doesn't make a difference - people are all still people no matter what they look like.

- Discuss the meaning of the word "racist" and why this is something disliked in Islam.

- Talk about how when we say "fashion" nowadays we're usually talking about clothing. Children could have a go at making their own piece of fashion, e.g. sewing a simple bag or tie-dying a t-shirt, etc. Talk about the effort it takes to design something and how for Allah it's no effort at all!

- Recap the three names of Al-Khaaliq, Al-Baari' and Al-Musawwir through an activity such as baking cupcakes: plan the flavours (Al-Khaaliq), bake the cakes (Al-Baari') then decorate (Al-Musawwir).

Please leave a comment if you know of any other related activities!

Switches and Everyday conductors

Week 5:

We recapped what we knew about electricity flowing around a circuit in a loop, to e.g. light a bulb, and how if the circuit is broken then the bulb won't light.

We talked about how we might want to break a circuit on purpose, because otherwise the electrical thing, e.g. bulb, would be on all the time which is both wasteful and useless for all the time you don't need it! So what can we put in our circuit to break/complete it when we need to? A switch!

Our little circuit set came with a switch, which we looked at in a little more detail. It has a 0 and a 1 on it - why? 0 to mean it's off and 1 to mean it's on (useful to know in relation to binary code too!). An easy way to remember which number means what is that 0 means no power so off.

So how does a switch work? I had the girls build a simple series circuit from scratch each, independently, containing one cell, a bulb and a switch.

Then I asked them if we could use something else as a switch instead - what could we make a switch out from? What does it need to have? Two conductors which can break apart and touch together and an insulator around them so we don't get a shock when we touch it!

What could we use as an insulator? A piece of card folded in half maybe. What about as the conductor? M said we needed something metal, so what was there in the house which was metal?

Our making a switch investigation turned into a testing for conductors instead. 😂

They used the circuit with a single bulb they had made earlier and took out the switch, then they held one free wire each and touched the ends to the object they were testing. If the bulb lit up then it meant the object was an electrical conductor!

The objects they tested were: a £2 coin, a £1 coin, a key, the spine of a ringbinder, scissors (the blades and the handle), paper, a hair clip and a hair slide.

They came to the conclusion that all the metal things were conductors and all the non-metals were not! The metal hairclip didn't conduct electricity though... Why? Maybe because it was painted pink so the paint was an insulator? When they tried with a plain metal hairclip, they saw that the bulb did light up. 👍

Cells, Batteries, Bulbs & Series circuits

Week 3:

After recapping how to build a simple circuit (which they did independently, MashaAllah), I asked them where the energy in the circuit was coming from? They answered the battery.

I told them even though we call an AA battery a battery, it's actually just a cell, i.e. one part of it. When you have more than one cell together (hold up two AA batteries) then it's called a battery. So the AA batteries we use are actually called "single-cell batteries" because they only have one cell inside them. 😎

So looking at our circuit, how many cells does it have? One. And is the bulb shining very brightly? Not really... So how do they think we could make it shine brighter? F answered straightaway to add more cells. 👍 So I asked them to work together to build a circuit with one bulb and two cells, since at the moment they had a circuit with one bulb and one cell each. After a little arguing (lol) they managed and were pleased to see the bulb light up brighter! 💡

So I asked does that mean that if I keep on adding cells, making a bigger and bigger battery, then the bulb will keep on shining brighter and brighter? Or would something else happen? At first they laughed that it would, but then M said no because if you had too much power then the bulb would catch on fire. 😂

We read the page about how bulbs work in our KS1 Electricity book and then looked at one of the bulbs closely to see if we could see the filament (it was a little difficult so was there anything we could use to make it look bigger? A magnifying glass!). It was easy to see the filament when the bulb was on though, so need for a magnifying glass there! We talked about how the filament makes both light and heat (they touched the top of the bulb whilst it was lit up and compared it to what the top of a bulb which was off felt like) and how the filament can melt/the bulb "pops" - which is why we need to change the light bulbs in our house sometimes.

So if adding more cells to a circuit would make the bulb shine brighter (to a point!) then what would happen if we added more bulbs to a circuit, but kept the number of cells the same?

I asked the girls to help me design an investigation to find out, making sure we did things scientifically so everything was fair!

As they aren't expected to learn circuit diagrams at this stage, and to avoid overwhelming and complicating things, I had them draw the circuits pictorally instead.

So their prediction was that the energy from the battery would be shared equally between the bulbs... So when we tested it and only one bulb came on they were confused! We switched the bulbs in the bulb holders around to make sure it wasn't the bulbs which were broken and that it really was just one of the bulbs lighting up, then I drew a diagram of the three bulb series circuit on the board so we could talk about what we'd seen.

I asked the girls if they thought they could explain their conclusion, using what they know about the power in a circuit. F said the first bulb had used up all the energy so there was none left for the other bulbs to light up. So I asked them if that meant all the electricity had stopped at the first bulb? First they said yes, then they thought about it and said no - because if it had stopped at the first bulb then it wouldn't have carried on to make a loop and the circuit wouldn't have worked at all! So that meant the electricity going round the circuit and the power to light up the bulbs were two different things...

They understood it in the end as the first bulb taking all the power and not sharing it, but the electricity still went all around the circuit (no intention to introduce current, voltage and resistance at this stage!).

When they were done writing, I asked them what they thought would happen if they made a circuit using two fans next to each other. Would they both work or only one or? F said only one fan would work... Which makes sense based on what they'd just seen with the bulbs!

Week 4:

After a quick discussion about the investigation we did last week, I asked them again what they thought would happen if we built the same circuit with two fans. They answered confidently that only one would work, of course! So we tested it...

Both fans came on at the same speed. 😂

Now the girls were confused! The fans must be sharing the power like they thought the bulbs would last week! Were they really? How could we test it? Take one fan away from the circuit... Yes, it came on at a faster speed than two fans together!

But why? Was there something wrong with our bulb experiment then? How could we test it? Maybe repeat it with different bulbs?

The sets I bought came with 6 bulbs all together, so we made a circuit with two cells and two bulbs and swapped them in and out of the bulb holders in turn to see what would happen... We saw three different results:

1) one bulb bright, one bulb off
2) one bulb bright, one bulb very dim
3) both bulbs dim

So what did this all mean? We decided to look at the bulbs closely and they could see some numbers and letters marked on the side of the metal - 3 bulbs had 2.5V, 2 bulbs had 3V and 1 bulb was unmarked! So what would happen if we only used bulbs of the same type in the circuit?

Of course, they behaved in the same way as the fans did and shared the power equally!

They wrote up this separate conclusion after their original one.

This was a good (unplanned and unexpected lol) lesson in checking all the variables in an experiment and a good reminder to me to swot up on the subject beforehand - I completely forgot to check the bulbs first and assumed they were all the same! So I researched why the bulbs behaved the way they did after the girls wrote their first conclusion... I didn't have the confidence at the time to challenge it. 😂😅 And it was a good lesson in the scientific method and how mistakes help us learn. 😆

99 Names of Allah - 13 - Al-Baari' - The Producer

[13] اَلْبَارِئُ (Al-Baari'): The Producer

[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 Al-Baari': Touch the fingers and thumb of each hand together to make two circles, then twist the tips of your fingers on both hands together.

Today’s focus is on the name Al-Baari' which means The Producer. 

Story relating to today's name (7min)

Read a short story to the children relating to a plant or animal's life cycle, e.g. Christopher Nibble or Growing Frogs.

Talk about where the new seeds/babies came from at a level suitable for the children's age and understanding (i.e. mature organisms produce offspring which in turn grow and mature; no need to go into the details of reproduction requiring a male and female!).

Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (15min)

Al-Baari' means The Producer.

Last time we learnt about Al-Khaaliq - what does that name mean? That Allah is The Creator, He can make something out of nothing. The closest we can get to being creators is when we think of a new idea, but remember even that is only because of Allah's permission.

Al-Baari' means The Producer. What does it mean to produce something? It means to make something... It's a bit similar to creating something.

Let's use building a house as an example, like we did with blocks last time. The first step is to have the idea to build the house - to have the idea and to imagine what it's going to look like. That first step is similar to Al-Khaaliq, creating something from nothing. That would be the job of the architect.

The next step is to actually build the house. This step is like Al-Baari', producing something which wasn't there before. For us, we need to use materials which already exist, like wood and cement and glass, to turn them into the new thing we want, like a house. That would be the job of the builder, not the architect. But for Allah, He can just produce things from nothing! He has both the names Al-Khaaliq and Al-Baari' to show that he does both the jobs of the architect and the builder (and the electrician and the plumber and everything else you can think of!) - He doesn't need any help in creating something.

So Al-Baari' is the actual making of something. Allah produces the plants and the animals. He created the first ones from nothing and now the ones we see nowadays are produced only by Allah's will. We know that Allah created everything, but we know that we can grow plants from seeds and animals have babies... Did Allah create those seeds and babies too? Yes! But not in the same way as He created the first of everything.

E.g. Where do chickens come from? Eggs. Where did that egg come from? A chicken. Where did that chicken come from? An egg... And so on and so on... Where did the first chicken come from then? Allah created it!

So Allah makes everything - either directly, like the Earth and the mountains etc., or indirectly, like the plants and animals we see today. Things are only made by Allah's permission.

Craft activity (20min)

Complete the page for the book. Talk about how this name means the actual making of something, like a builder builds a house.

Use craft materials and glue to make a collage of a house, e.g. strips of cardboard, newspaper cuttings, cellophane, etc.

When to use this name (8min)

Allah produces everything we see around us, even the man-made things such as a book - Allah didn't make it in the same way as he made the sun, but he made all the things the book is made out of... The paper came from trees, the ink came from oils and pigments (natural colours) etc. The idea came from a person's imagination and who made the person? So everything can be followed back like a chain to Allah making it.

If we want to make something - maybe we want to write our own book or design our own machine, a car, a toy, a computer or whatever it is - we can remember Allah as Al-Baari', the Producer, and make dua to Him to help us and to thank Him for giving us the idea. Anything we make is just changing something Allah has already made into something else.

On the back of their page, help the children write a few thoughts about the name Al-Baari' and their feelings.

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:

- Look at the life cycles of a plant, e.g. a sunflower and/or an animal e.g. a chicken (these are common organisms covered in the KS1 Science NC) in more detail. Have the different stages drawn/printed out and have the children arrange them into a loop.

- Help the children draw their family tree. Talk about how our ancestors go back all the way to the first man, Prophet Adam (AS), who Allah created Himself. (Ask the children if they can think of any other prophet who Allah made without (both) parents? i.e. Eesa (AS)!)

- Make a 3D model of a house using craft materials such as lolly sticks and glue. Talk about the effort it takes to build and how Allah can just make things from nothing with no difficulty at all!

- Read a book such as A Day with the Animal Builders, which shows the many different jobs required to build a house. Talk about how Allah does all those jobs Himself and how He just needs to say, "Be," to create something from nothing.

- Research how common items are produced in a factory (there are many videos on YouTube on this topic!). Talk about how each part of the production line is its own specific job, whereas for Allah He can do all of it all at once.


Please leave a comment if you know of any other activities related to this name!

Greek Mythology (2)

I spent some time debating how much detail we wanted to go into Greek mythology at this point in time... I didn't feel the girls would enjoy the violence aspect of the adventures at their current age... And Ancient Greek culture is a good topic base for Art, Geography and History lessons, so I'd rather have the time to plan a unit in enough detail to do it justice rather than do a rushed job now. 😶

With that in mind, I decided to use this week just to focus on the myths we've already covered in the form of another shadow puppet theatre (subtly revising work on light and shadows at the same time!).

The girls chose to do the story of King Midas and the Golden Touch.

Before they could do their play, first I had them rewrite the story in their own words in script format. This sounds a bit daunting for a 6 year old but MashaAllah they managed with some structured help!

After rereading the version in the book and comparing it with a version online (ideally we would go to the library but unfortunately we're without a car atm!), I had the girls tell me what they thought were the main parts to the story. We wrote these on scrap paper so we could then rearrange them into chronological order when they were done (this also helped them see if they had missed any key events out when summarising the story).

I gave the girls a storyboard template so they could translate the bullet point version into a storyboard. This was also useful in getting them to think about what might be on stage at that point during their shadow play.

Next, I had them write out the text in their storyboards on a new piece of paper but adding more detail, paragraphs and direct speech so it flowed like a story - and made them think about what their narrator and characters might say during the play. I had them do this pretty much independently as I wanted them to come up with different versions - a good lesson in how even though we might have the same thing to start with (we all read the same stories), they wrote them again in different ways. Maybe this could be why many different versions of the same story exist? Considering how many thousands of years old the stories are and how many times they must have been retold and passed down!

When they were finished, we recapped editing skills (we had done work that week on conjunctions and fronted adverbials, so they were looking out for those in particular!) and they made changes in a different colour.

(They wrote the words "everything" and "excitedly" at the end as spelling practise since they had misspelt them in their writing. Just chose one for them to do.😗)

Finally, I challenged them to work together on the laptop to turn their stories into one playscript. They needed to think about the layout themselves and talk together to agree on which wording to use! I created them a file on Google Docs for this so I could help with editing on my new laptop (gift from my husband, MashaAllah 😁) - they were amazed how we could all edit the same file at the same time! But it was really convenient so I think from now on we'll continue using Google Docs over Microsoft Word, inshaAllah.

The above was done over three consecutive days.

For their shadow puppets, we talked about how they could show the things turning into gold - how could they make the shadows change colour? I prompted them to think about layering - as we had previously layered blue and yellow cellophane to create a green shadow for grass - which materials could they layer to turn an opaque shadow into yellow?

When they were done and had practised it a few times, we recorded the show (each scene as a separate clip) and edited it on the laptop using Shotcut into one long video.