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!

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! 

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.

This is a mini lapbook that my daughter, Samira made to help her learn all about the continents and oceans of the world.

When the lapbook opens out it reveals various worksheets and map activities and games.

In the centre of the lapbook is a blank map, nicely coloured by Samira, showing the continents of the world and next to the map is a pocket containing small labels.

The idea is for Samira to practise correctly labelling the continents and the oceans.

Here is a little word-find about the continents and a pocket containing cut-outs of the continents.

This is a worksheet which requires colouring to help remember where the continents are.

This is the black and white map with the continents already named and the idea is for Samira to fit the continent cutouts over the map in the correct places so that she becomes familiar with them.

And finally on the reverse of the lapbook is a quiz to test general knowledge of the continents and oceans.

If you would like to make a similar lapbook you will find the files available to download for free from my File Share Widget as you scroll down on the right of the screen.

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!

My daughter Samira has recently been reviewing nouns, adjectives and verbs, so I put together this table poster to help her remember how to distinguish between the three.

I printed off a set of word cards, in this case, all relating to weather and she used sticky tack on the back of cards to put them into their correct groups on the poster.

I had the idea to design this wall chart while my daughter, Samira was learning about Animal Classification. She made her Animal Classification Lapbook a couple of months ago and I thought this wall chart would be useful for all the kids to refer to anytime we need to look into Animal Classification.

The chart can be used to look up various animals from the different groups. And we can also practise identifying animals and putting them into their correct groups.

Under each sub group are a set of cards that can be removed and re-attached using sticky tack (although felt and velcro would work better, something I may re-do at a later date insha’Allah).

The Animal Kingdom is divided into two Phylum, the vertebrates and the invertebrates and the Phylum are then sub-divided into classes. There are 5 main classes of vertebrates and 4 classes of invertebrates.

I made a heading for each class. You can see in this picture below. Each heading includes details of the identifying features that are present in that class, i.e. Mammals are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, have hair or fur, etc.

The individual animal cards are then attached under the correct class heading on the wall chart. You can see that humans are classified as mammals but we have placed the picture of the human above the animals because of the unique position that Allah gave us when He favoured Mankind above all Creation.

Similarly, you can see under the Phylum invertebrates that there are various classes. Invertebrates are the most numerous of all the creation in the Animal Kingdom and some classes are sub-divided again into smaller groups. Such as the Arthropods who are sub-divided into crustaceans, insects and arachnids, each group having its own identify features that sets it apart from other arthropods.

Again, the cards are placed under the group headings. The group headings list the identify features so that the children can easily identify to which group the various animals belong.

If you would like to make your own wall chart you can find the printable files to download free from my File Share Widget which you will find as you scroll down the right of the screen.

We have been learning alot about Dinosaurs this week. 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.

The girls wanted to get involved so I decided to make this Dinosaur themed Totbook with them.

We have also been making Dinosaur File Folder Games and various arts and crafts. Next week we are planning to make a dinosaur diorama insha’Allah. And to round off the topic we will be growing our very own Triassic Triops (crustaceans that have been around since before the time of the dinosaurs), but we may have to wait until the weather warms up a little to ensure that they hatch insha’Allah.

More details very soon insha’Allah.

This is my daughter, Samira’s lapbook all about The Solar System. It’s almost complete and we shall share it with you soon insha’Allah. My son, Yusef also made his own mini lapbook about The Solar System about two years ago now. You can view it here.

The templates for Samira’s lapbook I found on the homeschool share website.

I am also making a Solar System Totbook with my younger two daughters Amina and Basma, aged 4 and 3 as well as some space arts and crafts.

Check back soon insha’Allah.

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.

There is also some nice art and craft activities that can be included in the lapbook too.

Check back soon for more details and photos insha’Allah.