Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 07 - Building the Ka'bah

This is the last part of Prophet Ibraheem (AS)'s story I wanted to cover in the Reception year: how he and his son, Ismail (AS), built the ka'bah.

We read pages 40-44 together in the Migo & Ali book followed by pages 125-127 in the My First Quran Storybook, discussing the story as we went along.

I decided to do a few activities relating to this part of the story.

First, we reminded ourselves of which 3D solid the ka'bah is, i.e. a cube, and what the properties of a cube were: 6 square sides/faces all the same (thinking about other examples of cubes around the house, e.g. dice, boxes, to help). Then we talked about how we could build a model of the ka'bah using our Duplo blocks. Which blocks would we need? Which part did Prophet Ibraheem and Prophet Ismail build first? What shape would the base need to be? How tall should we make our model? How could we make the roof? I watched them work together to build their cube, prompting with questions along the way.

When they'd finished, I showed them some photos of the ka'bah and how its outside sometimes looks different, i.e. the design of the covering and how the cloth is sometimes lifted up, but in all the pictures the ka'bah is the same cube shape. I also pointed out where the black stone (hajar al-aswad) is situated, on the Eastern corner next to the door, and where the Station of Ibraheem (Maqam-e-Ibraheem) is, i.e. the stone Prophet Ibraheem (AS) stood on to build the upper walls. They remembered our recent Umrah trip and mashaAllah could link the experience with our lesson. 💕

I found all the images on Google, but you can download the pictures we used here.

I asked them how we could make our model look more like the real ka'bah and we talked about the covering being made from cloth... So we used a small black cloth to cover our model. (While I went upstairs to find some, I gave them the task of adding the Maqam-e-Ibraheem to their model; what colour/size/shape block could they use and where should it go?) After draping the black cloth on top they said it was still missing something: gold decorations! So we tied some gold ribbon across the top. We'll leave this model ka'bah for a few days for them (and their younger sister!) to include in their imaginative play - until they want to build something else. 😂

The other activity I did with them was to introduce the idea of 3D solids being built from 2D nets. I found an old cardboard box (food packaging is good for this) and asked them what shape it was: a cuboid/rectangular prism. Was it 3D? Yes! Then I showed them how to carefully open it out flat. Was it still 3D? No! How many faces does a cuboid have? Can you see the six different faces? Two smaller rectangles, two medium rectangles and two larger rectangles? I highlighted the pairs of faces in different colours and showed them how to fold it back into a cuboid again, then explained that we could do the same thing for a cube and this 2D pattern is called a "net".

I asked them how many faces a cube had and what 2D shape they were, so what might they expect the net of a cube to look like? Then I gave them a pre-drawn net of a cube each to cut out. I decided not to include the flaps at this age as I thought they might complicate things/be too fiddly for them. We talked about which lines they needed to cut across (not all of them!) then I highlighted the edges as a guide.

Once they'd cut the net out I helped them crease along the lines then asked them to try and fold it into a cube...

We compared our paper cubes with the cuboid from earlier... Which was stronger? Why? How could we make our cube stronger and how could we make it look like the ka'bah? After some discussion they decided they needed some black card. 💪 (This was our Science link and thinking about different materials 😀)

They stuck their paper templates (new vocab!) onto the black card and cut their net out again. I helped them fold the edges again, then we used sellotape to stick the sides together and decorated our models with strips of gold paper.

You can download our net of a cube here.

I was going to leave it there, but they wanted to put something in their folders... 😂 So I printed out a couple of the photos so they could summarise that part of the story and what they did!

You can download our worksheet as a template here.

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 06 - The Sacrifice

We read about Prophet Ibraheem (AS) being told to sacrifice his son (this time we used My First Quran Storybook, pages 114-117, as this part of the story isn't included in the Migo & Ali book we've been using so far) and discussed the story along the way, including how Prophet Ibraheem (AS) and Ismail (AS) believed in Allah so much and how they weren't afraid - comparing to how the twins might feel in the same situation!

As a simple reminder, I found a clipart of a ram online and printed it out for the girls to colour and glue pieces of wool onto, after sticking onto their choice of coloured A4 card. Even the toddler joined in! Then they both wrote a sentence to summarise what they had learnt.

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 05 - Ismaeel (AS) and the Zamzam

For this part of the story, we read pages 37 to the top of page 40 in the Migo & Ali book - covering when Prophet Ibraheem (AS) left his wife and baby son in the desert and how the well of zamzam water was found. Again, this was something they were already a little familiar with through previous work, stories and discussions to do with Hajj and Umrah - but to keep with the chronological order of the topic I felt there was no harm in revisiting it.

To recap what happened, we made a simple pop-up craft using A4 card. I prepared the pieces in advance: a horizontal piece of yellow A4 card with a 75mm tall strip glued at the edges a little up from the bottom, the outline of a fountain (about 50mm tall) cut out from blue card, the outlines of hills cut out from brown paper, 2 coloured lolly sticks (I didn't have blue or would have used those!). If your children are more artistically inclined than mine, you may like to let them create these parts themselves!

On the first day, the twins painted the bottom part of the card as well as the strip going across brown (cue revision of which colours from our paints mixed to make brown and demonstration of how changing the ratio of red/yellow/green changes the hue - though by the time they were done it was all one shade of brown anyway 😂) - to represent the desert sand. I would have liked to use sandpaper or craft sand, but we didn't have any to hand so insha'Allah next time! They also coloured in the zamzam water using blue glitter glue pens. We talked about what happened in the story as they worked, then left everything to dry overnight.

The next day, they glued the hills down (recap what Prophet Ibraheem's wife had to do and why, so where did they think they should place the hills on their paper?) and sellotaped the zamzam water to the top of the lolly stick.

Asked them to tell me where the zamzam spring came from and how - then I showed them how to thread the lolly stick under the strip going across so it could move up and down. I then helped them put a strip of sellotape either side of the lolly stick at the bottom of the strip of card, so the stick wouldn't move side to side.

Finally, I asked them what the two hills were called and the twins labelled them with their names.

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 04 - In the Fire

Before continuing with the story of Prophet Ibraheem (AS), I read the story of Frances the Firefly to the twins (a story I remember from my own childhood! Though that was linked with fireworks and Bonfire Night 😅) and we talked about the dangers of fire and how horrible it would be if our homes burnt down or we were trapped in a fire. Then I lit a match for them to see - with VERY (!!!) careful supervision they didn't actually touch the flame, they put their finger close enough to feel its heat.

Later, we read the next part in the Migo & Ali book (pages 30-36) and discussed it as we went along: what they thought about what happened, how it made them feel, etc. They related it to our previous discussions from reading about Frances the Firefly and looking at the match.

Then I gave them a worksheet each to fill in the gaps (they took it in turns to read each sentence and we talked about what could go in the blank - then they each wrote their own version of the answer) and the option to colour in the fire at the bottom. You'll notice it didn't matter if their fire looked realistic or not, it's more to do with the process to aid with their memory of the story. 😂

You can download the worksheet template here.

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 03 - Breaking the Idols

We continued reading about Prophet Ibraheem (AS) in the Migo & Ali book (pages 28-29) and discussed it as we went along. We stopped at the part just before the people decide to throw Prophet Ibraheem (AS) into the fire.

I drew an axe onto a piece of plain paper, one for each girl. I told them the handle was made from wood and the head from either stone or metal, so what colours do they think we needed? They decided brown for the handle and grey for the head. We ripped up some brown paper into small pieces then I asked them if they could think of a good material for the head... After some prompting they came up with kitchen foil because it was shiny like metal. 😀 Then we ripped some tin foil into small pieces too.

I demonstrated how they could "colour in" the axe using our ripped pieces of paper and foil and told them this kind of art is called a collage. They used PVA glue (a little watered down) and brushes to stick everything on and to paint a thin layer of glue over the top. They were a bit worried about putting white glue on top but I told them it would dry clear and shiny. 😂

When everything was dry I cut the axes out and they did a bit of role play, pretending to chop things down with their axes! Then we stuck them onto A4 card and they wrote a short summary of that part of the story.

For this exercise I told them to spell the words as best as they could, rather than me dictating correct spellings. I quite like this one's spelling of "idol". 😂

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.

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.