Humpty Dumpty Totbook

This is my daughter, Amina’s totbook. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot that you could include in a totbook about Humpty Dumpty, would you? Think again!

This cute little totbook includes cut out and paste story sequence cards, colouring activities, and lots of facts to learn about eggs, such as how eggs can be used in foods and different kinds of animals that lay eggs.

It also includes some nice little art and craft activities.

I made this totbook with a sheet of A3 card folded inwards to A4 size.

These are a string of Egg Fact cards all about different animals that lay eggs.

Here are another set of Egg Fact cards about using eggs as food. Amina thought about the different ways we use eggs in our own food and drew some pictures to illustrate that.

Inside this flap is a picture of Humpty Dumpty that Amina coloured, cut out and glued down.

These are a set of letter E cards strung together with a word started with the letter E pasted down on each card. Why the letter E? E is for eggs.

This little book lets your child complete the story sequence by correctly pasting down the pictures in the right order.

Here we have some cards strung together shaped like horses. The cards are blank and so could be used as you wish. I decided to get Amina to think about and draw the different foods that horses like to eat.

This final set of cards are more scientific. It lists the different animal groups (fish, reptiles, birds, insects) that lay eggs as well as listing specific animals from those groups. Amina cut them out and pasted them down and we looked them up in our animal books to find out where they lay their eggs, etc.

On the back of the totbook Amina used art and craft supplies to make her own version of Humpty Dumpty with tissue paper, pom-poms, googly eyes, felt shapes and glitter glue.

If you’d like to make a similar totbook you can find the files available to download from my File Share Widget on the right of the screen as you scroll down the menus.

Dinosaur Totbook

We have been learning alot about Dinosaurs recently. My son Yusef has been busy making a Dinosaur Lapbook and he’s been enthusiastically telling his sisters about every dinosaur fact he has learned.

My younger girls wanted to get involved so I decided to make this Dinosaur themed Totbook with them. I found the templates for this totbook on the 1+1+1=1 website.

I made this totbook by taping 2 sheets of A3 card together and folding them in on themselves so that the folder becomes square-shaped.

On the back of the totbook I made a pocket to hold the various activity cards used in the totbook.

This is a colour by number type activity which my daughter Amina beautifully coloured. She had to add up the digits to find the correct colour number. I found this colouring page on the Enchanted Learning Dinosaur Page.

In the centre of the totbook are 26 alphabet tiles in lower case. And these are the upper case cards for the kids to practise matching upper and lower case letters.

This is a pocket holding cards of dinosaur halves and the idea is to match the two halves correctly in the space provided.

Under this flap is another puzzle activity. The kids need to recreate the ‘I Love Dinosaurs’ scene by correctly fitting the puzzle pieces into their correct places. They can use the guidelines to help or they can have a go at putting the puzzle together by themselves.

This is a small pocket containing letter cards for both Amina and Basma to spell out their names.

This is a pocket containing Brachiosaurus cut outs of various sizes to practise size sequencing.

These are a set of number cards 1-10 which can be used on the blank tiles to practise counting, number ordering, odd and even numbers and any other game you can invent.

These are a set of 26 dinosaur cards with one dinosaur representing each letter of the alphabet, i.e. A for Apatosaurus, B for Brachiosaurus.

The idea is for the child to sound out the name and match it to the correct letter tile, i.e. G for Gallimimus.

For kids who are very interested in dinosaurs, these cards are also useful for general research. We used The Natural History Museum’s Dino Directory to look up and do a bit more research about the dinosaurs listed on the cards, such as whether they are herbivorves or carnivores, and where in the world their fossils have been found, and then we would point that information out on our large wall atlas … and it’s amazing how many little facts stick in childrens’ minds, masha’Allah.

Finally, we have a set of puzzle pieces for the children to make shape-puzzle dinosaurs … there are shape pieces to make a Stegosaurus and a Brachiosaurus.

They can either place their shapes over the top of the dinosaur template or they can make their own dinosaur puzzle seperately.

Count to 10 File Folder

I made this file folder when my daughter Basma was just starting to count. She used to count things by touching but sometimes she would be counting faster out loud rather than matching the number of objects she was counting. So this little file folder game was great to help her slow down and count objects carefully and individually.

This file folder is A5 size and when opened out it shows chickens numbered 1 to 10 and a string holding a set of cards showing different numbers of eggs in baskets.

The idea is for the child to count the number of eggs on the card and match it to the corresponding chicken. This helps reinforce both counting and number recognition skills.

If you’d like to make a similar file folder game you can find the templates available to download from my File Share Widget as you scroll down the right of the screen.

2 letter Words File Folder

You would think that two-letter words would be easier to learn than three-letter words, but that’s not always the case. Many two-letter words in the English language are not pronounced how they are written and this can be confusing for small children who are just beginning to read.

So I was rather fortunate to come across this colourful set of two-letter words that I was able to make into a file folder. I found the templates on the File Folder Fun website.

Now I can sit and practise daily with Amina (and Basma) or even a couple of times a day to help her learn and remember the words. These words are usually learned based on sight-recognition as opposed to pronounciation (sounding out) and once these words are learned and memorised it helps to speed up sentence reading in future insha’Allah.

I also took the time to check an up to date English dictionary and I can confirm that these are all the most commonly used two-letter words in the English language.

For additional practise and reinforcement I also get Amina to write out and read back as many of the two-letter words as she can.

Islamic Art & Craft: Allah Created …

I recently bought an Islamic colouring book for children called “Allah Made the Sun and the Moon”. It is published by Goodword Books and can be bought for as little as £1.50.

The book contains different pictures of the creation within the Heavens and the Earth and can be completed using the colour-by-numbers instructions. But as a little money saving tip, I like to photocopy pages for my children to use, that way the book can be used again and again.

I photocopied this page about the creation of the Heavens and the Earth and I let Basma decorate it using art and craft things and while she decorated it we talked about how Allah created the Heavens and the Earth in 6 days.

Masha’Allah!

New Baby Lapbook

Masha’Allah, tabarak’Allah, I am expecting my baby daughter at the end of March insha’Allah so I thought it would be a nice idea to involve the kids in a family project that can help them better understand what it means to have a new baby in the family.

I was inspired to make this lapbook after seeing Umm Abdul Basir’s lovely lapbook here. She very kindly made printable templates available to download. The Islamic elements are her own design, masha’Allah.

Here is how the lapbook folds out.

On the first page is a set of 4 flaps that ask questions and give answers about what happens when the baby is ready to be born.

This is a diaper shaped pocket and inside we put the scan photos showing various weeks of development, we may have a couple more to include over the next few weeks insha’Allah as I have a few sizing scans to attend.

This nice little flap details the verses from the Qur’an with questions for the kids to answer and understand how Allah creates life in the womb.

Here are some adorable letters that each of the kids wrote to the baby, telling the baby how much they love the baby and what they are going to do for the baby when she is born insha’Allah. There are a few lines that they will be able to complete after the baby’s born.

Here are 4 cards containing details of the kids measurements as a little momento to show the baby when she’s grown up and so that the kids can see how they have grown compared to the baby.

This is a book to complete details on who the baby looks like but we can’t complete this until after she is born insha’Allah.

This cute little flap resembles a photo album and inside the kids have drawn the members of our family now and what we will look like after the baby is born.

My young girls had fun making this cycle wheel that shows the baby’s development from crawling through to walking.

This pocket contains a couple of activities.

First up is a set of family cards that help them to learn the Arabic names for various family members. Yusef practised his Arabic writing skills by filling out the cards.

And next is a nice jigsaw puzzle that depicts a Muslim Family sat around a table for dinner.

This pocket contains a set of cards which represent what the baby will need.

Basma stuck down red jewel hearts to represent love. Amina stuck down silver jewel hearts to represent hugs. And Samira drew X’s on this card to represent kisses.

The younger girls helped to match up and glue down the pictures of the items that we will need to prepare for the baby.

Here are a set of cute counting cards with a baby theme.

And finally a set of card that Yusef completed showing members of of family and how they are related to the baby. They will be completed after she is born insha’Allah.

ADORABLE, MASHA’ALLAH! 

Amina’s Phonics Lapbook

My daughter Amina is following in her older sister’s footsteps and is now starting the Progressive Phonics Program. She is starting to make a set of mini lapbooks based on the sets of reading books and worksheets available from Progressive Phonics.

My daughter Samira also made similar lapbooks when she first started with this program which you can view here.

Amina has been eager for a while to actually start reading and I wasn’t planning to start this program until she had left nursery but I recently took both Amina and Basma out of nursery in order to give them an early start and to establish a routine before our new baby daughter is born in March insha’Allah and I certainly don’t regret my decision because both girls are really enjoying learning alongside their older brother and sister, masha’Allah.

So after reviewing the sounds d-o-d and d-o-g and blending them to form the words, we started with reading book one. Amina would follow along on the computer screen reading out the words highlighted in red. Then she would complete the activity sheets over 2-3 days (all at once may be too much for some young children and you don’t want to overwhelm them because it will put them off).

I printed off the two new words that she had learned and she went over them with her pen. We also practised writing them out on a white board a few times so she became familiar with the shape of the letters and how to draw them correctly. Both reading and writing together help children to remember words more easily.

She coloured and pasted down a colouring page from the story and then completed the handwriting sheets to practise the individual letters.

This is then reinforced by completing sound association activities. Amina would colour in all the pictures of things that started with “d”, “o” or “g”.

I also included some additional worksheets that I created myself to help with sound association.

If you would like the additional worksheets you can find them available to download in my File Share Widget under Phonics Lapbook.

Handy Manny Totbook

This is my youngest daughter, Basma’s totbook based on the children’s character, Handy Manny.

This totbook contains mini-books and activities which teach colours in both English and Spanish, counting and number recognition, shape recognition and also teaches your child how to spell their name.

I found the templates for this totbook over on the 1+1+1=1 website.

Basma loves Handy Manny so she had great fun putting the elements for this totbook together because she was already familiar with the characters, and thanks to Dora and Handy Manny she can already count to 10 in Spanish and she knows a few Spanish words too.

So this is what the totbook looks like when it’s opened out. It fits neatly into a file folder, but I usually use sheets of A3 card as an alternative which can be folded in much the same way.

This is a little pull out tab with the letters that spell out Basma’s name. Here I drew out the letters lightly with a pencil ready for her to trace over with a felt-tip pen.

Since making this totbook she has learned to spell out her name with magnetic letters and she has almost mastered writing her name with a pen, masha’Allah.

In the centre of the totbook is a minibook that teaches colours in both English and Spanish, a few of the Spanish colours she was already familiar with.

This is a little set of cards that I strung together. On each card are a pictures of tools. Basma counted the tools and then coloured the number that showed the correct number of tools.

Basma loved this little flap book that shows all the tool characters from Handy Manny. She knew their names and she learned what kind of tool they were and we talked about what each tool might be used for, i.e. a hammer to knock in nails, a saw to saw wood. Then she coloured the pictures according to the character colours.

This little pocket holds shape cards. The cards are in pairs with lots of different shapes so we played matching games and memory games with the cards as well as learning the names of the shapes.

Finally I made a shadow matching game. I glued down 6 cards that show the silhouettes of various tools and then Basma had to place the correct tool cards over the top of the silhouettes.

Fantástico!

Allah the Creator – Pizza Book

I was inspired to make this cute little pizza book after finding it on Umm Rashid’s blog.

I made it with my younger two daughters, Amina 4 and Basma 3. They made one each.

I like the idea that you can pack lots of information into a book that you can fold up and hold in your hand, masha’Allah.

First of all I cut out two very large circles of card. I didn’t have any large sheets, so I ended up taping two sheets together, which was actually helpful for creating a neat fold along the taped line which ran through the centre of the circle.

Then I folded each circle into half and then again into quarters. I then unfolded the circles which now showed 4 equal quarter sections. I then slit the circle up the length of one quarter to the centre of the circle, this helps with the neat folding of the finished book.

When the circle was prepared, I folded it up to prepare the front covers. I did this late in the evening while the girls were asleep, in preparation for the next day, so my older daughter Samira helped to make the front cover titles.

You will see below the elements for the pizza book which I printed for the girls to colour and glue down. I have made these printables available in my File Share widget for anyone wanting to use them, or you can print your own, or draw your own even.

When the book opens at the first fold it reveals two sections, one on the creation of the Heavens and the Earth and one on the creation of the Sun and the Moon.

The girls coloured the picture of the earth while we talked about Who created the earth and who lived on the land (animals and people) and who lived in the sea (fish). And then the girls stuck sticky silver stars around the earth to show the stars in the heavens.

The second section shows the Sun and Moon. while the girls coloured we talked about Who created the the Sun and Moon and why they had been created (for night and day).

I should mention here that because my girls are young I decided to make this book with them over 3 days, completing two sections a day. That way they weren’t over-whelmed and it helped them to better recall what they had learned the previous day.

When the Sun and Moon section folds down it reveals two further sections. One on the creation of the Seas and one on the creation of Plants and Trees.

We used some shiny blue card glued down to represent the ocean and the girls added some beautifully coloured fish. We talked about why Allah had created fish (“…so that we can catch them to make fishcakes…” was Amina’s answer, masha’Allah.)

Then we talked about the flowers and trees that Allah created and why Allah created trees (to produce fruit). Then the girls looked at the picture of the fruits and named them all as well as what colour they all are, masha’Allah.

The final two sections are revealed when the Plants and Trees section is folded down. Both of these sections are dedicated to the creation of Animals.

As Allah mentioned in the Qur’an in various ayat including ayah 40:79, He created animals for us to ride on and to eat:

Allah, it is He Who has made cattle for you, that you may ride on some of them, and of some you eat.

So one section was dedicated to animals that we ride on such as camels and horses, and one section was dedicated to animals that we eat. I discussed this with the girls and we talked about what each of the animals give us, i.e. milk from cows, wool from sheep, eggs from hens and the fact that we get meat from all three.

Finally here is a picture of what the pizza book looks like when it’s completely opened out.

Glove Puppets

My girls are very creative and love all sorts of arts and craft. Recently I was in our local supermarket when I spotted a whole section of assorted sets for kids to make and do.

I picked up this set of 3 glove puppets for just £2.25. The material is all pre-cut which saves a lot of time and it even included assembly instructions. It included a large tapestry needle and tread and the material had the holes marked out so all my girls were easily able to stitch their puppets together with very little help from me and Samira did hers all by herself.

The girls then glued the remaining parts together to give their puppets features. They used a pritt stick glue which was fine at first but half an hour later it started falling apart so I got a tube of copydex glue (fabric glue) to secure the features and we left them to dry over night.

This is Samira’s monkey.

This is Amina’s kitten.

This is Basma’s butterfly.