Second Pillar - Salah

Today I gave an introduction to the second pillar of Islam - Salah.

Namaz is the word they are more familiar with but I tried to repeat the word Salah or Salat enough times throughout the class for them. Here's a summary of what we learnt:

1. There are five prayers (Salah) in a day.
2. They are prayed at certain prescribed timings which fall during the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night.
3. These prayers are compulsory for a Muslim because Allah had commanded us to perform them.
4. The names of the five prayers are Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Magrib and Isha.
5. We can pray at any clean place. (I showed them a prayer mat that we use to pray at home.)
6. To pray, we face towards the Kaabah (showed them a picture and explained)which is in Makkah, a city in Saudi Arabia.

7. We find the Qibla, or direction of prayer, with the help of a compass or Qibla finder (I passed around a compass for them to see the needle move).
8. Salah involves certain postures including the Rukoo and Sujood. (All the kids had a go at demonstrating the Rukoo and Sujood on the prayer mat).

We also spoke about how Salah benefits us:

1. To bring people closer to Allah
2. To keep human beings from doing indecent, shameful and forbidden things
3. To purify the heart, develop the mind and comfort the soul
4. To remind people constantly of Allah and His greatness
5. To develop discipline and will power
6. To guide people to the most upright way of life
7. To show equality, unity and brotherhood
8. To promote patience, courage, hope and confidence
9. To train people in cleanliness, purity and punctuality
10. To develop gratitude and humility
11. To show obedience and thankfulness to our Creator

We then sang the following song to learn the names of the five prayers (to the tune of Bits of Paper):

Fajr, Zohr
Asr, Magrib
And Isha
And Isha
I pray five times
I pray five times
In a day
In a day.


Then it was time for an activity related to these names. I found the activity sheets here.

The five daily salaat book ,illlustrates the position of the sun for each prayer.

As usual, we ended this wonderfully productive class with yummy, healthy dates!

Overwhelmed with love!

Is it possible to be so overwhelmed with Allah's (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) mercy and compassion that I can't stop pinching my arm to see if I'm dreaming or awake?

Today's class was very very special to us all Alhamdulillah. Today, apart from the nine children already attending, we had two new kids gracing our class with their presence. And from these two, one is my daughter's very close friend, who happens to be a Hindu. Why would a non-Muslim child, a 5-year-old at that, join a Islamic Sunday school, you ask? Let me explain.

This child, R, spends a lot of time at our home. She is always welcomed with open arms and we love having her over for play dates with my kids. She spent a few hours with us yesterday when her parents were at work and her mom came to pick her up in the evening. While chatting about our day, I mentioned to R's mom that I was preparing for my Sunday class. She was immediately interested. She asked me what was taught in the class and when she heard words like 'Arabic alphabet' and 'Islamic prayers with meanings' she asked me if it was open to only Muslims. I think it took me a moment to answer. I repeated that the class focused on things that Muslim children need to learn, only the approach was different. She then said something which blew me away. She said she would love for R to be part of this class because she wants her to be more aware of different faiths and cultures. She said it would be an important part of her development as she would grow up to be more accepting of other people.

I cannot even begin to explain how wonderful it felt to hear words like that. We live in a world where intolerance is rampant, where people brutalise, kill and commit crimes in the name of religion. In the name of religions that themselves talk about peace, love, brotherhood and coexistence. In many parts of the world children are brain washed into hateful attitudes towards people of a particular faith. It is a shameful irony. But, apparently, like I found out today, there is hope for our kids.

So after I finished gaping at her with my mouth open, I recovered and told her that we would love to have R in our class and that she was always welcome in our home.

So R joined our wonderful class today, and I cannot stop thanking Allah for his mercy on us. All this while, here I am trying to get more Muslim kids to join our class and fretting over why the numbers don't grow fast enough. And then, POW!! Allah blesses us with an honour and responsibility beyond my wildest dreams. Alhamdulillah! I only pray that I am able to shoulder this responsibility and that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is pleased with my efforts. I pray that I am worthy of the love and trust I see in the eyes of the parents who are sending their precious little angels to our home every Sunday. Aameen!

Laundry Letters

I hope all of you had a wonderful and blessed weekend. We surely did, alhamdulillah!

Thanks to the grace and mercy of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, Sunday mornings are the highlight of our week. Gone are the lazy Sunday mornings. For the past 6 weeks, our Sundays are active and productive. Though we still try and squeeze in a relaxed and big, heavy family breakfast, post that, it's all about hurriedly cleaning up the house, showering and dressing, and getting the material ready for our class. Alhamdulillah, our class has given so much, not just to the kids who attend, but to me, to my husband, to my kids and to our family. I can think of no better way to spend quality time with my family. This 'team' effort is so precious to me that I cannot express gratitude enough to Allah for giving me this opportunity.

The kids had a fun, fun session this Sunday. It was more or less a recap session, where we just revised whatever we had learnt over the past weeks. Since, we had covered the five pillars of Islam last week, I went over them again with the kids. We sang the pillars of Islam song, but this time we stood and did it with actions. Let's face it, it's a Sunday morning and just listening to a woman talk and talk can tend to get boring. The mind is prone to wander. Especially if you are a child. So I needed to shake them up a bit and also get some action into the class. And it worked!

We resumed our recap session with energy levels magically multiplied.

We then had an interesting game called Laundry Letters. I found the game on this site where it's used for the English alphabet. There are lot of amazing resources out there which can be easily adjusted to your particular needs.

I started out by cutting out little dress shapes from different coloured chart paper.

Then I wrote an Arabic letter on each one of them.

We tied up a length of rope in the living room. Then I told the kids to hang the laundry out to dry alphabetically! :)

Talking to kids about Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala

After my last post, I shared the link to this blog with my family and friends. Jazak Allah khair to all you wonderful people for your duas, love, and encouragement. May Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala guide us and our children in our missions, passions and quests.

Please do share the blog with others who might benefit, especially Muslim mommys with young kids. And do share your own experiences of teaching your kids. I would love to hear them. We can all benefit from learning through different experiences.

Though the next class is still three days away, I wanted to write a short post about how to introduce Allah to the kids. By introducing, I don't mean the first time you talk to them about Allah. I mean giving them a fair understanding of who Allah is. Knowing and familiarizing ourselves with Allah, I believe, is a life long process. With every act of worship, we grow closer to our Lord and love Him even more. Just dwelling on the meaning of a single attribute/name of Allah can take us closer to Him.

Your kids will, in shaa Allah, experience this beautiful process in their own time. But the foundation for this relationship needs to be built up carefully. I have heard people teaching their kids to 'fear' Allah. Fear of Allah has been given such an important platform in teaching Islam that, unfortunately, love for Allah becomes secondary. Our kids need to know that Allah loves them more than their father and mother can ever love them. They need to know that, no matter what Allah, is always going to be there for them. They need to learn to love and trust Allah completely. Talk about fearing Allah can come much much later when the child is already close to Allah and will inherently not wish to do anything that would displease his/her Lord.

In my class we spoke about a mother's love. I told them that even though you might be naughty sometimes, your mother never stops loving you. She might get angry with you occasionally but only because she wants what best for you. So it is important to make your mother happy by showing her how much you love her back. Be kind to her, talk sweetly to her, be good, help her, etc.

I let this soak in for a while and then went on to speak about Allah's love for us. In shaa Allah, every class I hope to reinforce this fact and talk about at least one attribute of Allah. The last class we went over Tasmiya again (Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem) and we spoke about the words Ar-Rahman (The Most Giving) and Ar-Raheem (The Most Forgiving). I know most translations will prefer the words Beneficent and Merciful, however those are pretty heavy words for little kids; Giving and Forgiving are easy to explain and pretty much mean the same thing.

Being as young as they are, they need practical examples to help them understand concepts and new words so I give them plenty of that. Like talking about Mom forgiving you after you've done something bad. Also I asked each of them if they wanted to say sorry to Allah for something naughty they had done. They all giggled, not wanting to own up to anything naughty. But I coaxed further, saying we all sometimes do things we aren't supposed to, like getting angry with someone, or being rude, or not helping someone. But if we realise what we did was wrong, we should say sorry to Allah and promise not to do that wrong thing again. That was called asking for forgiveness. And even if you had done something really naughty, Allah would in shaa Allah forgive you. Because Allah is Ar-Raheem, The Most Forgiving. Even more forgiving that your Mom.

The kids seemed to understand now what Ar-Raheem meant. One boy said he doesn't pray. One girl said she had been rude to her mother. One said she fights with her little sister. So I repeated what I said about asking for forgiveness and how pleased Allah would be with us for being sorry for what we did. Because saying sorry makes us better people.

Do comment and let me know your experiences on talking to kids about Allah.

How many pillars of Islam are there? Count and you will see....

My daughter loves singing a song she learnt in school about the seven colours in the rainbow. One day when she was busy singing to herself and I was working on my lesson plan for the next Sunday class, I reflected on how easily children learnt things if put in tune and/or rhyme. So with my daughter's help we put together a few peppy numbers for our forthcoming classes.

This Sunday I introduced them to the Five Pillars of Islam.

I showed them the pillars I had made out of paper and explained what pillars were used for. Then I told them that there are five pillars that hold up Islam for each and every Muslim. The words were new to them so I just skimmed the surface in my explanation so that they get an idea of each pillar, but not necessarily a clear understanding. This was just an introduction to the pillars of Islam and the purpose was just to learn the names first. I plan to cover each pillar individually over the next five weeks, in shaa Allah.

I then gave them little squares which had the name of the pillars written with a picture that would help them remember what the pillar was. These were hand drawn and then photocopied.

I made them repeat the names as I passed them around - Shahadah, Salah, Zakat, Sawm and Hajj. Then I gave them a sheet of paper each on which they placed their palm and traced around it with a pencil. I went over the pencil drawing with my black marker and wrote Pillars of Islam in the center.

We then stuck the little squares, one above each finger. I did this with each child so that we said the pillars aloud while we were at it. So everyone got to hear and say the words quite a number of times.

Then I let them colour the whole thing in. Ah! Colouring is such a blissful activity. Every child busy creating a whirlwind of colours, yet with unparalleled calm and concentration. Even when I want to calm my own kids down or give myself some peace and quiet, I give them some colouring sheets. So, this peaceful activity gave me the opportunity to introduce our song. While they laboured with the crayons, I sang. Again and again and again. Till they were done. And by the end a couple of them were singing along with me.

This is the song we prepared for them.

How many pillars of Islam are there? (3)
Count and you will see.
Shahadah, Salah, Zakat, Sawm (3)
And the fifth one's Hajj!

There are five pillars in Islam (3)
Count and you will see.

To end the class, we had another Arabic alphabet recognition game. I stuck letters at different places around the room and had them find the letters in order - from alif to raa. Then I called out a child's name and a letter, and that child had to run to the letter. I did this till everyone had had a go. We all clapped and cheered each child. And alhamdulillah, they really knew their letters!

The Garden of Paradise

Since the story for Day 4 was about the creation of the first woman Hawwa (AS) and how Allah gave them the Garden of Paradise or Jannah to live in and enjoy, I began to look online for ways of explaining the concept of Jannah to the kids. Thats when I came across this blog post.

It was very insightful and gave a clearer idea of how to talk to kids about Jannah. When I told the kids that they could have ANYTHING they wanted in Jannah, their eyes grew wide with surprise. They said they wanted flowers and toys and balloons in Jannah. The boys of course wanted race cars. I told them to go wild with imagination and together we imagined chocolate rivers, cakes as big as houses, personal swimming pools, mountains of ice creams and much more. By the end of it they were giggling themselves pink and their eyes were bright with amusement and wonder. They were thrilled that such a wonderful place could exist!

I then gave them a sheet of paper each and told them to draw Jannah. I told them that their drawing had to have things that they wanted to see in Jannah. Yes, it was an exercise in creativity as much as it was an activity to learn about the promised garden of Paradise.

I learnt an interesting thing through this exercise. Children are inherently creative. Unfortunately, education sometimes kills that creativity along the way. The three primary level kids (between 7 and 10 years) drew a 'scenery' with mountains, sun peeping from between them, trees, a river and grass. When I pressed them further, reminding them that I wanted to see what they wanted in Jannah, one boy drew a car. A girl drew some fish in the river. I didn't push them any further, and truly their drawings were very good. But the lil ones... their drawings spoke of innocent and raw creativity, something that I believe every child has. Sparks that if nurtured young could do wonders. Their drawings had stars, multi-coloured trees, balloons, ice creams, toys. One even drew a mirror. Thinking outside the box is not a challenge when you are young, apparently.

Each of the kids explained to the rest of the class what they had drawn. Most seemed to be nervous and excited about sharing their thoughts in this way. We applauded and praised each and everyone of their precious work SubhanAllah. The whole activity was very pleasant and left a warm feeling of accomplishment on the faces of the kids.

Another fun activity we did was an alphabet recognition game.

I drew a tree for each of the kids, which they coloured. I then gave them a set of little 'apple' cutouts with an alphabet written on each one.

I called out a random alphabet and they picked it up to show it to me, before sticking it on their apple trees.

Adam (AS)

Day 3:

Apart from a recap of what we learnt in the earlier two classes, we did this.

I explained the meaning of Ta'awwudh. We spoke about the word protection. I also asked them if they knew who the devil was. I told them that we sometimes do naughty things or at least feel inclined towards doing something which is not right because the devil or shaitaan is whispering in our ear and coaxing us into doing wrong. He acts like he is our friend but he is not. He is tricking us and we must not be tricked! So to protect ourselves from him Allah has taught us these awesome words which would help in driving him away.

I must add here that I had not planned on any explanation to Ta'awwudh but Alhamdulillah while I explained it to them, the import of those words made such an impression on me that I was amazed at this process we call teaching.

Similarly, we spoke about the two attributes of Allah mentioned in Tasmiyah.

I told them the story of Adam (AS) being created, being moulded from clay. To explain moudling, I gave each of them homemade play dough to mould. It was an activity right in the middle of the story!

The activity proved to be a big hit and the kids didn't want to stop. One little boy wanted to make accessories like shoes, a hat and buttons! :)

Here is the link for the fabulous homemade play dough recipe.

Day 2: Allah's creation

It's Saturday night and in shaa Allah tomorrow morning I have my fifth class. But I must must must do the post for day 2, 3 and 4 before I sleep. Why? Simply because I know if I don't get this done now, I will not be able to get the post for day 5 up tomorrow and this lag time between the actual event and the post will become a habit that I detest. I refuse to let that happen. Alright then!

Day 2:

Every interaction and effort with the right intention leads us to more good and positive learning. Divine enlightenment, I like to call it. When we truly look, we find divine enlightenment in every little gesture, every little smile, every little tear.

On day 2 I realised that day 1 was just about warming up to my audience and my seeing myself as a teacher before anyone else sees it. Day 2 began with a lot of excitement, ideas and confidence. The kids looks happy to be there and Alhamdulillah I tried my best to make the session worthy of their eagerness. In shaa Allah I hope Allah blesses every Sunday of ours with oodles of child-sized curiosity, fun and blessings.

1. I began again with this.

I made the kids repeat the Islamic greeting 'Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatahu' and the reply to the greeting 'Wa Alaikum Assalam wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatahu'.

I gave them the following handout and explained the meaning of the greeting and the reply.

I also made a few of them do a mini role play where they said the greeting and reply to each other with the meaning. Of course they needed help with the words but they had fun with the impromptu role play.

2. I taught them the words 'La ilaha illalah Muhammadur Rasulullah Sallalahu Alaihi wa Sallam' with a wonderful tune that helped them pick up the words almost instantly!

3. We discussed Allah being the CREATOR of everything. I asked them to name creations of Allah. They began naming people and animals. I told them to look out the window and look for more of Allah's amazing creations. That way we got to name the sky, sun, birds, trees, mountains, leaves, insects and lots of other things under the category of Allah's creations.

I told them a story from the textbook which speaks about Allah creating the universe and the things he put in the universe.

4. We then had a related activity where they drew and coloured different creations of Allah.

I also had a colouring sheet for them.

5. It was the alphabet song time then. We went on to learn the next 3 alphabets and practised writing them.

A nervous, exciting and blessed beginning

I've been procrastinating. I should have written this post 4 weeks ago. Truth be told, we have completed 4 successful Sunday Islamic classes for young children. Woohoo! I wanted to document our lessons and activities for each class but now I'll just have to compress the first 4 sessions into this post and then, In shaa Allah, from next week I'll follow a weekly post plan for each class.

Let me first begin by telling you all about why we started this class, what it is all about and what we plan on doing.

For over a year now I have fretted over how to begin teaching the Qur'an to my daughter Zainab. She turned five this year and I've been beating myself up about not having regular Qur'an or Islamic learning sessions with her. My husband and I discussed getting a 'Maulvi' to come home and teach the kids but we realized that we, as parents, would probably be able to do a better job of introducing and teaching Islam to our kids. After all, Islam is our Deen, our way of life. Shouldn't parents be the ones teaching life skills and instilling the fundamental values of life in their own young ones?

That is when we decided that we HAD to start now. We decided to begin teaching them at a fixed time each week. Since my husband only has Sundays off, we decided Sunday morning as the ideal time for the class. I say class, even though it was initially just supposed to be us, because that is what was needed. Not just a talk or a few scattered teachings. A proper class that would cover what we wanted our kids to learn.

But as we discussed more about what we wanted to do I thought of all the other Muslim families around who probably went through the same feelings as I had been going through regarding bringing our kids up in an Islamic environment. You see, we live in a predominantly non-Muslim neighbourhood where the staples of my childhood, like the call of the Adhaan,living close to the masjid, attending eid prayer, being a part of a strong Muslim community, attending Islamic lectures, forums, classes, quizes, etc. are unheard of things. If I couldn't provide my kids with a Muslim neighbourhood, the least I could do was create a fun Muslim kids community, a group of peers, a set of friends who will have the same values, teachings, issues and questions that they would have as a young Muslim growing up in India.

And I decided that I wanted 'fun learning' to be the aim of this class. I wanted the kids to love coming to learn on Sunday mornings. So that called for innovative teaching and lesson planning. I started researching on the internet what other parents and teachers were doing with regards to Islamic teaching for young kids. Alhamdulillah for blogger moms! I found so many wonderful homeschooling muslim blogs who are doing amazing jobs with clear lessons plans and documented resources. In shaa Allah I will get down to listing and linking them for you soon.

Alhamdulillah, we began our class one beautiful Sunday morning in August with seven kids (including my own 2 kids). Over the last two weeks we had two more join. Now we have nine kids between the ages of 3 and 10 years. I have been trying to add to this number because there are so many Muslim children around the area but it looks like not everyone is jumping at the opportunity. It will probably take some time for some parents to realise the value of what we are doing. In shaa Allah. And of course, we cannot force anyone. Our job is to try. The rest is Allah's will. SubhanAllah!

So I have to admit I was a little nervous before the first class. I had very limited experience in teaching or even handling a group of young kids and I wasn't very sure if I could hold their attention and keep them interested. But alhamdulillah, once I began, Allah took over. It was great! The kids had fun and so did I.

I must add here that the confidence that Allah Subhanawata'ala and blessed me with through this class has been so amazing that I have realised another passion of mine. Since this first class I have begun doing story telling sessions for young children at a preschool nearby, where we try and instill the love for reading and books in kids from a young age. Again, a whole lot of fun, learning and blessed moments! But that is fodder for another blog. :)

Getting back to the topic, I'm following these textbooks (my faith...ISLAM, by Feizel Chothia and Naeema Desai)for the class. Masha Allah they are very well designed according to age. Right now I'm only using the Grade 1 book which is designed for a 7-year-old, but since I have kids younger than seven, I am not using the activities in the book and either thinking up my own or searching the web for them.

This is what we covered on Day 1:

1. I began by reciting Surah Al-Fatiha. I asked everyone if they knew what they were doing here. One said to learn Qur'an and another said to learn about Allah. I told them that they were both right and that we were also going to learn about Islam and a whole lot of things, and have a lot of fun in the process. I taught them the dua 'Rabbi zidni ilma' and its meaning 'O, Lord! Increase my Knowledge!'.

I gave them a print out of the dua with meaning, and we stuck little 'books' with the Arabic alphabet written on it, on the page, so that they associate knowledge with books. We discussed the word knowledge as well.

2. Who is Allah?
I first listened to the kids tell me who they thought Allah is. Everyone said that Allah is God and He lives in he sky. I then explained the words 'Lord' and 'Master' to them. I focused on the sentence 'Allah is one' and explained how much Allah loves us all.

I gave them a picture of the word Allah in Arabic to colour with crayons and made them repeat the word Allah as they were colouring. I wanted them to recognise this word and also I wanted them to picture this beautiful word in their mind every time we discussed Allah.

3. Arabic Alphabet
I asked them if they could sing the ABC song for me and we all sang it out loud. Then I told them that I know a song for the Arabic alphabet and if they would like to hear it. So I sang them the Alif Baa Thaa song and we sang it together about 3 or 4 times, as loud as we could and I could see the kids were enjoying it. I then introduced the letter Alif to them and they did some colouring. This is where I printed the alphabet flashcards from. Though they look really pretty in colour, I printed them in black and white, because, firstly it was cheaper :) and secondly, they could colour in the petals if they liked. THe flashcards really help in recognition through repetition and games.

4. Story time
I didn't want to introduce too much on the first day so I read them a book called the Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns - A Muslim Book of Colors, by Hena Khan. It is a beautifully illustrated book and is really nice to show preschoolers since it talks about colors within an Islamic environment.

5. Snack time
We ended with dates and water. :) I thought about making snacks or probably giving them some biscuits and juice as snacks at the end of the class. Not that it is necessary to provide food in such a class, but I thought it would be nice to eat something together and learn to say the meal duas too. I finally decided that giving them dates was probably the best option, since it would teach them the value of dates, get them to get used to eating them and also they would associate dates with Islam.