Busy Baby Mama blogs

The Prophet (pbuh) said “This is the month of charity in which believer’s sustenance is increased. Whosoever feeds a fasting person or gives a fasting person a single date or a sip of water, to break the fast, for him there shall be forgiveness of his sins and he will be saved from the fire of hell, and for him shall be the same reward as for him (whom he fed)” (Tirmidhi)

The children are  never too young to learn about charity. It seems the younger they are, the more compassion they have for those who do not have. I remember hearing that one masjid made Iftar baskets to give to the needy people around their area. So my daughter and I got busy, and made our own.

Here are the steps you can take to make your own Iftar basket.

1. Buy baskets at the 99cent stores, or sometimes thrift stores have a good deal of them! You also need cellophane wrapper , tape, and ribbons.

2. Buy food items that can make one family meal. For example-For Pasta Dish, Buy spaghetti, tomato sauce, spices, fresh oregano or thyme, pamasan cheese will go in the basket. You can even add your favorite recipe too.

3. Have your child put them inside the basket. Explain each ingredient will make  the recipe. Help your child wrap the basket with cellophane. Add tape to any openings. Twist at the top, and wrap it with tape to secure the top.

4. Embellish it with Ribbons and Eid Cards! This one was a dot paint Eid Card made by my little infamous artist!

Busy Baby Mama blogs

Thank you Rayah and Behi Abdelmaged for sending us this picture of your beautiful Ramadan Journals! We truly enjoyed looking at them! We hope that your journals will be filled with happy memories and reflections in this Blessed month. For those of you who would like to make your own Ramadan journals, here is the link. 

Sister Reminder blogs

Sometimes we tend to become over zeoulous parents/teachers, and become impatient with our children to learn Quran. You can imagine these little children who may see watching T.V. cartoons more entertaining being subjected to daily you-better-sit-down-and-read-Quran-or-else routine. Of course there must  be a sense of discipline in teaching this sacred text, at the same time, we must be flexible to the mood of the child, and know when to stop. Here are some steps and guidelines to teaching young children how to memorize the Quran in a fun and engaging way, whether it is in a school or home

1. Measure their goals and progress visually. Make a poster or reward board for memorizing so many surahs. Decide how many surahs you would want them to memorize and display the names on a bulletin board. Here, the teacher color coded each flower for each surah that the child memorized. As he/she finished one surah, they added a flower until the stem is complete. She made one stem for each student, and wrote their names on the stem. If this is too difficult, you can download surah charts that can be used to track student progress.

2. Repetition is the key to memorizing, but can be quite a bore in the eyes of a 4 year old after saying it for the 20th time. To get them to recite more, use toy microphones (about $3.00 from Toys R Us) to  make them feel like a star! One teacher had them fold crafted flowers with seven petals, and  recited the ayahs of Surah Al Fatiha as they touched each petal of the flower.

3. Reward them after each lesson. Young children need constant praise that they are on the right track. At this age, it’s more important that we give them the confidence and love to memorize. Make sure your lessons are easily accomplished by the students, so they all can get rewarded. Have a  treasure box made from an old shoe box and wrapped with gift wrapper and filled with tiny toys and treats. After every lesson, and each get to recite the ayahs they are memorizing, they get to dip in the box for their stickers, balloons, and party favors.

4. Record their voice and make CDs of all their surahs. What a fun way to celebrate their Quran Memorization! You can also send these CDs home as a gift to their parents for Eid, or gift it to the kids themselves as an end of the year graduation souvenir!

5. Celebrate! Children at any age love getting awards and prizes. You can have a ‘ceremony’ after all the students complete their surahs. Each one can take turns reciting their surah they learned on a toy microphone (or use karaoke to make them really excited!) After all students complete reciting you can give surah certificates with a small goody bag. We’ll be blogging  about this in the future. Insh-Allah.

The key to successful Quran memorization are based on 2 things: First the lesson should be easy enough so that the child accomplishes it with ease (For example the child will memorize 1-3 ayahs and practice for 15-20 minutes a day),  and second, there should be a consistent reward plan such as some listed above. Insh-Allah, after implementing some of these tips, you will have children not only memorize, but love the quran.

Busy Baby Mama blogs

The sweetest month of memories with reflections of worship, and tears and joy  passes by so quickly, it’s difficult to keep track of what really happens each Ramadan. Sometimes we have those beautiful unforgettable moments that get placed in the deepest part of our memory. We cherish it in our hearts…I remember those tearful moments like  praying Tahajjud prayer  with thousand other worshippers on the 27th of Ramadan at 96th street masjid in New York….or the happiest time when my daughter was born during Fajr on the 4th day of Ramadan. We chuckle at the time when my son was 3 years old running upstairs having a big play fight while we were making our Tarawih prayer downstairs (and we could hear everything!) I tell my children every Ramadan like oral tradition, we would remember some…and forget some.

That’s why I decided to make a family journal every Ramadan where we can be together and write down these wonderful times we share. We make one time during the day to write together, and the rest of the time they can choose to write on their own.  Before I go to bed, I jot down a few comments to leave my kids to encourage them to keep writing. By the end of Ramadan, the journal would be filled with fond memories, hadith, Islamic stories that can stay in our family tradition.

Getting kids to write might be a huge task, but I decided to make ONE  regular composition notebook to fill with our family inspiration the entire month. And that seemed to work just great for me. We have a box of markers, gel pens, color pencils along with pens. We keep inside  few swatches of scrapbook paper, clip art, stickers, and embellishments, and leave it on our coffee table. This gives chance for even Ramadan guests to contribute in our writing marathon. Some older youth might want to make their own.Why not? Every year they can add to it until it is full.

First cover the regular composition notebook with scrap giftwrap, fabric, and collage of pictures. Add modge podge if it’s mostly paper. Add letter foams to say “Ramadan Journal” Write all the family members’ names.

Inside the book, it can be a collage of writing mixed with photos, clip art etc.  You can add hadith and ayahs in english to help youth realize what this Holy Month is about. Every Ramadan, you can look back and see some events that we can laugh and cry about.

Here are the ones I made with my children….and don’t forget to share your photographs of your decorated journals so we can post it on Facebook!  

Busy Baby Mama Blogs

My child loved watching this video from Creative Kids. She loved the idea of the author narrating his own story and illustrating it all. Taking inspiration from this video, she went on to creating her own Ramadan story. It took her a few minutes to get started, but it kept her busy for over two hours putting her thoughts on paper. She then did the next best thing- created her own video; by narrating it and flipping her pages to her story on my laptop camera. It was a great project to do. She wrote about all the things she gets to do in this special month of Ramadan that she doesn’t get to experience any other time.

I personally love the fact that it was all on video because how often do we save our children’s work? The papers get put aside in a safe place only to collect dust and perhaps end up in the trash can a few years later. I even had an idea of using this video as a “Ramadan Mubarak” card to email her grandparents and family members. I am sure they will enjoy seeing her on video and make their Ramadan that much more special. It’s just our way of sharing the joys of Ramadan and parenthood with our loved ones. I hope you get inspiration to do this project with your little ones.  A 3 minute video is really simple to create and email to dear ones. I am hoping she makes one for Eid and we can email it as our way of saying “Eid Mubarak” Insh’Allah!

Artsy Ummi blogs

Could not resist to make a Ramadan Craft to say the Dua for the Ramadan New Moon. Didn’t get a chance to take pictures yet….will post them when I do. But in the meantime….here are the instructions:

DOWNLOAD HERE: Moon Sighting Dua Craft 

1. Print and cut out the download, and paste it on the paper plate.

2. Color the sky dark blue. Color the star a light shade of yellow.

3. Outline glue on the moon.

4. Pour glitter on the glue area. Take the excess off.

5. Tie a ribbon on top, and hang it before Ramadan, so that the whole family can remember to say the Ramadan Moon Dua.

Busy Baby Mama  blogs

My heart went out to a child who was holding a 9 month old baby during the late night tarawih prayer last year. I asked about her mom, and the 10 year old Egyptian American girl responded with a smile and not a trace of detest, “She’s at work, and my dad needs to pray” I thought to myself this could be a wonderful time to bring children together while adults are praying and do craft activities, and have babysitting services so that someone like my little muslim worker can get a little break to enjoy her Ramadan. I always see youth escape after 8 rakahs, running around the mosque enjoying the Ramadan moon care free of their parent’s eagle eye.

It’s Allah’s mercy on some of them, that they grow to love the masjid and Islam even though there are no fancy activities for them!  However much I admire their courageous and carefree spirit, I still wish that there can be a children’s program during Tarawih prayer and give them a fun time filled with games and craft activities to make their Ramadan memorable and special.

This can be started by few concerned mothers (even fathers) who frequent the masjid. They just need one room in which they can bring some art supplies, games, craft materials, papers and even playdough. Mothers who have their “month break” could watch the children (as long as they are not in a musalla area), or some young teenagers as well. If they can afford to, add small playground sets inside. If everyone want to contribute financially to this, they can even hire a baby sitter to watch the kids. Bigger centers that have extra space away from the musalla can hire instructors to give lessons in karate or taekwondo. Don’t forget to have a schedule posted for volunteers and times that they can be available for extra help. I believe it would run pretty successful if there is even 2-3 people involved.

Please let us know if you were able to implement this or are already doing it, I’d love to hear from you about it!

Artsy Ummi blogs

Since our post on advent calendars received a lot of attention from the crafty Muslim moms who ask “Why BUY when you can DIY?” I thought of sharing some awesome handmade calendars. So if you’ve got the time, and you want to practice your art skills, why not make your own?

Here is a list of great Muslim Advent Calendar Crafts that my creative hands want to get messy with!! Bring out the glue, paint, and scrapbook papers. This is so inspirational! I hope to get to blog mine too one day! May Allah bless these creative sisters! (Click on the each image to take you to their respective blog)

Umm Proffessional blogs

My always-on-Islamic-web-browser-Muslimah sent me this link www.outstandingramadan.com. There is a great e-book you don’t want to miss out reading before you start your Ramadan. Here is an excerpt from this book “Recharge Your Faith: How To Make your Ramadan Outstanding”;

“A successful Ramadan is all about planning; you must have a clear vision of what you want to gain and specifically how you are going to achieve it. This is why, as you will soon see, the majority of this book focuses on the time leading up to Ramadan. Whether you are a working professional or a mother with children, you will find that simple strategic planning of your schedule before Ramadan will free up your time drastically for ibaadah (worship).” -Amirah Mauthoor

My friend shared with me how she used this idea to fix her office desk. Here’s what she had to say:  ”I  cleared my computer desk (which is where I spend most of my free time), and created office central where my phone, address book, and other essentials are easily visible on the table top. I created my own Ramadan Reminders Calendar  which is posted on the wall with some ramadan activities I can do everyday with my family.  It’s simple list of deeds that can be done with your family in 30 minutes or less.

I put Muhammad Al-Shareef’s “Ramadan Wheels Chart”, “TJ Ramadan Calendar Activities” , and “TJ It’s Ramadan” up on my  colorful Bulletin boards. Lastly I  printed a copy of Sister Amira’s wonderful E-Book right next to my planner. This hopefully will keep me in connection with my goals this Ramadan.