When I'm Feeling Jealous

Alhamdulillah we bought another book from the "When I'm Feeling..." series. There were many titles from the shelf; "When I'm Feeling Happy", "When I'm Feeling Sad", "When I'm Feeling Loved", "When I'm Feeling Jealous". I asked my son to pick one and he chose "When I'm Feeling Jealous"! I just can't wait to see what title he will choose the next time we are coming back to these series to pick another one. I guess right now he's trying to figure out his own negative feelings (and the positive ones also). What are they? How to cope with them? Mashaa Allah books are good way to teach him about those. I can say that he really likes this kind of books that reflect his every day's feelings because he keeps coming to me and asks me to read these books for him.

What we did today..

Alhamdulillah, I'm grateful to Allah for what we have done today. Abdullah was happy and I was happy too.

It's water play time. I gave Abdullah a brush and a bucket and he can paint the wall! He's always so excited about this and imagine that he's a workman who's working hard to finish up building a house or something.

I took the chance to 'paint' some letters and we worked on some letters recognition; both Arabic and the ABC.

And, he just couldn't stop himself from bringing the joy to the next level :

He learned a few things that float on the water and those that don't. 

This is another activity that he did today which was new to him; one of the Montessori approach to developing child's language - the mystery bag. 

You will need a bag and a few different but familiar objects around the house and put them inside the bag. Ask your child to put her hand into the bag and describes what she can feel without actually saying the name of the object. You try and guess the name. After a while, change places with each other. This game helps your child to increase vocabularies and and also train the sense of touch.

I do think this game is nice because it is so fun to hear what your child is going to say to describe the objects. I can't help myself from giggling each time he described them. But masha Allah he impressed me. I'm looking forward to play this game again tomorrow.

We played some more fishing game with the alphabets of 'r', 'm', 'j', 't', 'l' and 'k'.

Alhamdulillah for all of this. A soon-to-be-4-year-old boy is so full with energy. I think well-planned activities can help to reduce the mess and chaos that he's capable to create :D

Plans.. plans.. plans!

So, here are my plans for my beloved son, Abdullah. As for now, I'm not thinking of a structural kind of learning or scheduled timetable. I won't set specific time for each activity and just let him take the lead. He is 3 years and 8 months. Inshaa Allah, I'll try to make things fun, interesting and let it be hands-on activities as much as I could because children learn better in context. 

- Quran reading

I use Iqra' books and Abdullah has just started Book 1. He can recognize 'aa' to 'ra'' in this 1 week alhamdulillah. I would like to make it a daily morning routine. It is really a challenge to make a 3-year-old boy to sit and read, as I always believe that children learn best when they can relate things to real life. So, rule no. 1, I will not force him to read and will wait until he says 'yes' if I ask him to. No. 2; while reading Quran, I will try my best to make him participate by asking him to identify a few ahruuf that he already knew. Inshaa Allah by this way he will know that the ahruuf that he read during our Iqra' session are actually preparation for him to read Quran the way his Ibu and Baba read.

- Quran memorization

I think I already started with short surahs memorization when he was 2. I kept reciting Surah al-Ikhlas to him and I don't realize when he actually got everything. It motivated me to proceed with other surahs; so now he memorizes al-Fatihah, al-Ikhlas, al-Falaq, al-Naas and al-Masad.

- Quran tafseer

This will be along side with Quran memorization. Each time we start new surah, I will read to him the story behind the surah so that he can memorize them easier. Masha Allah I've tried with sabab an-nuzuul for surah al-Masad and he is completely in love with them and always make me tell the 'story' all over again.

- Islamic Studies

This include Aqidah, Seerah, Hadith. Islam is a way of life and I like my children to learn about Islam and the knowledge of Quran and Sunnah through practicality. So let say at this early stage of childhood you can inculcate the Islamic values and knowledge about Allah, prophets, the hereafter and so much more just by practicing it in daily life and take time to explain them to your children so that they will understand better how Quran and Sunnah must be your guidelines and life's manual. And also, the Islamic studies will definitely go along side with Quran tafseer as we go through and discuss them over and over again.

Inshaa Allah, for the seerah of prophets 'alayhimus-salam and the seerah of Prophet Muhammad shallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam specifically, it will be great if I can make my children learn about them in our up coming story telling and read aloud sessions.

- Literacy

Of course the path to literacy must begin with a whole lot of vocabulary and letter recognition. I'm happy to adopt the Montessori approach. Inshaa Allah will share later the activities we have done so far. And now Abdullah just begun to recognize letter 'aa' and I don't know how and when - letter 'ss' and 'oo'.

- Writing

Again, am happy with Montessori way with the sandpaper letters and tracing letters on sand/salt/flour. We haven't started anything yet. Inshaa Allah i'm planning to do it soon. Just did a few tracing on workbook and he didn't want to finish them all. It's ok, no rush and no push.

- Numeracy

He can count from 1 to 10 in Bahasa, English and Arabic alhamdulillah. He is starting to recognize numbers. We will continue this through lots and lots of play! Maybe we'll make sandpaper numbers too.

- Physical games

Play and play and play until Ibu runs out of idea!

Sweet Darling Umamah..

I still need to do more reading and research for infant activities. So hopefully I will come up with a few fun activities for her. For now, I do a lot of talking to her to let her learn and build vocabulary. She always joins our read aloud session before bedtime. She just got her balance to sit and now she has more freedom to explore things with her two hands! She can cruise and definitely very active alhamdulillah.

I pray to Allah 'azza wa jalla to realize my plans and give me His guidance and help in educating myself and my children.