Thursday 31 May 2012

Our miniature Kaaba is ready now..

Assalamu alaykum,

Alhamdulillah I have finished making a little Kaaba for my son. It probably took me 3-4 hours in total.
For this project I used box, felt fabric in 3 colors, thread and needle. (smile)

My apologies for the blurry images, I used my phone and didn't change the resolution.



I filled the box with some paper, so that it was hard and sturdy and would last a long time. I sticky taped the edges of the box. Took out the black felt and took the measurements around the box. I cut out long and shorter strips, rectangular shape for the door from yellow felt and sewed them onto the black felt. Then I joined the sides of the black felt and sewed the sides together. For the roof of our miniature Kaaba I cut out the square shape out of grey felt. Then I put the black felt piece on the box, placed grey felt on top of the box and joined the grey felt with the black. And ta-da, DONE, alhamdulillah. 

Yusuf and his animals..



Saturday 26 May 2012

Drawing and building masjids

Assalamu alaykum,


InshaAllah this is the continuation of the previous post. I want to share some of our masjid drawings and buildings today.


Yusuf like all the toddlers his age is very much into building blocks and towers. Toddlers under the age of 2 develop more muscle control and are able to combine blocks, stack them, or line them up. Blocks help children learn. By grabbing, stacking blocks together they build strength in their fingers, they learn and feel different shapes, increase eye-hand coordination. They come up with their own design structures and may use variety of blocks for pretend-play.



I got this stacking tower from IKEA, Yusuf calls it Allahu akbar, I call it minaret. He stacks blocks, jars, containers or anything on top of one another and calls it minaret. Alhamdulillah now he mastered to put the stacking tower in order and he does that easily. It's time to move to more challenging toys now. Our masjid dome (that I have made for Yusuf previously, see the Masjid craft) is mobile too as you can see in the photo. 


We have different kinds of blocks that I bought on discount, all of it came in one box plus I had different educational stuff and all wooden made, alhamdulillah. Yusuf finds it hard to play and stack some of the blocks, because they are a bit thin and are suited for children aged 2 and above in my opinion. So I help him to stack the thinner blocks one above the other. Here are some of our masjid and minaret buildings:



















I don't know if it looks anything like masjids and minarets, but we tried (smile). In the second photo Yusuf kept bringing all of his animals for the prayer, even his small animal figurines. It was fun to watch him at the end alhamdulillah. He was really excited. 

Whenever weather permits we go out in the backyard. We do some drawings on the concrete of our yard, water the flowers, blow bubbles, ride a bike, etc. Yusuf usually begins drawing himself, but then comes up to me and asks me to draw him different things. He usually asks me to draw masjid, transportation and trace his hands and feet. Below you can also see the examples of our masjid drawings on the paper.
















Friday 18 May 2012

Masjid made from popsicle sticks..



Assalamu alaykum, 

I haven't been posting for nearly 2 months due to health reasons. Bi ithnillah I will start posting and updating as much as I can from now on. 

As I mentioned earlier, Yusuf loves masjids and everything involving masjids, whether it be going to the masjid, drawing one or building it. Everyday we draw and build masjids, AbuYusuf takes us to the masjids too, alhamdulillah.

As a mom you always look for ideas on how to keep your little one busy. 

I saw this idea on the internet where you need popsicle sticks and empty container to keep you toddler busy for a little while. The child pops the sticks through the holes into the container, it makes noise when the stick slides in and the container makes noise when you shake it and toddlers seem to love that noise. I found an empty container just the right size and made 3 holes on the lid using knife and some fire.  

Yusuf liked the idea for the first few days, but now he just shakes the whole container with the pop sticks upside down to get all of the pop sticks out and asks me to build him a masjid. He first tries to do it himself, he gets upset because he can't get the pop sticks lining right and then calls me up. I know he is too young to get it right. But alhamdulillah he is trying to do other things that I have shown him with the pop sticks and making some progress. 


Below are some of the masjids we have build with the pop sticks: