Our trip this year to Canada was less of sight-seeing trip and more of being in the company of people of Noor (Light). From our Beloved Hosts to the Scholars to our Special Friends, May the Allah bless and preserve them all. We did not stay in a hotel, we stayed in the humble home of a friend in Mississauga.
The way up to Toronto was smooth sailing. The snow on the ground didn't stop us, it made our yearning to Remember our Lord even stronger. We took a rest break for prayer and play.
We were not going to go to Reviving Islamic Spirit Conference this year as we just went last year. However, we were given an offer we couldn't refuse. And truly some of the best moments in Toronto was spent with our host. The Snow Fight!
I have taken another book "The Name and the Named" and made it kid-friendly. I love the applications in this book, and I wanted us to not just learn the beautiful Names of Allah, but to reflect on them. MashaAllah, this Fons Vitae Book gives practical application on how to do just that.
I am grateful for so many things in my life. My Beloved family is one of the most important. However, it was funny that most of the things on my list surrounded food and the BEACH... Am I that linear? All I need is my family, good food, and the Ocean to be happy. . . God, of course, is número Uno in my life, but Alhumdulilah He is everywhere and is beyond everything.
What are the things you are grateful for and do those things make happy? Beautiful Free Printable to write it down with two versions: either a verse from the Quran or the Bible. ♥
It was literally freezing at Ocean City Beach with temperatures as low as 29 degrees. But Humble Dad was working, so we joined him. We love the beach and we will go any chance we get. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you are probably tired of hearing me say this, but it is true! Even in freezing weather, just the sounds of the waves makes me feel wonderful!
Alhumdulilah, our hotel had an indoor pool. So we still had our wet time and fulfilled our physical education credit. This picture of S Man pushing off from the pool is amazing, I don't believe I took it. If I knew of a contest to enter it in, I would, so glad I decided to upgrade my Nikon again.
MashaAllah, I sometimes don't believe we have made it this long. Only through the Grace of God, can I stand in this moment and wish Humble Dad a Happy 15 year Anniversary. And only through the Grace of God can we do something we have never done before, take a vacation together ALONE!
I blogged about our situation already in A Lesson in Patience: how we have never had a honeymoon, so this really was a huge deal for me.
This Ibadah& Khitmah Checklist was inspired by one of my wonderful teachers Anse Tamara at www.rabata.org .
I just completed her game Pilgrims at Home during the first 10 days of Dhu- l- Hijjah , it changed my perspective on what it means to be a Muslim in America and the nearness to Allah we can realize anywhere. We do not have to travel overseas to gain this nearness, but we do need to travel beyond our nafs towards our inward strength. The workout I went through, flexing my Ibadah muscles is not easy and can be harder than entering a gym for the first time to flex physical muscles. But the gain is better than any toned up abs, as one’s physical body is temporary and our spiritual body is everlasting.
Read more about our experience with Pilgrims at Home in: The Hajj- 2013
We are a working class family and we weren't always at that status. Humble Dad and I married in our early twenties and will inshaAllah, God Willing celebrate our 15th anniversary soon.
During our marriage, we were starving students, poor, really poor, struggling to get by poor, rice and beans poor, and our current working class status with a boat load of Beloveds which means a boat load of expenses. We were so poor when we got married that we never had a real honeymoon and I received a promise as a dowry. As more Beloveds were born and less babysitting options were available, taking a trip as a Married couple without the Beloveds became a distant dream of the day when Lil A is old enough to stay home alone.
On Friday, we headed to New Jersey for Shaykh Jihad Brown's Aqidah class. You always know you are on the right path in life when everything compliments each other, the Aqidah class reinforced some of the lessons I learned in my Companions of the Prophet class from earlier that week. We were given such a warm welcome, we were fed, offered a place to sleep, and had the best of company. Surely New Jersey community is a blessed one with many of the Scholars from our recent Al-Maqasid Retreat residing there.
After leaving New Jersey, we rode the main highways for a long time. However, I always have the urge to get off the main highway and take the road less traveled. I like to see real people and real places, I like to formulate my own opinions of the world and moreover, I want to teach my children to see things for themselves. To understand that the world on television is a propaganda, but by talking to people and seeing things for oneself will we only begin to understand the truth.
I am excited about life in general, wherever God leads us, and this excitement pours over into our homeschool, especially our homeschool planning. It never goes exactly as I plan, God is always the Best of Planners. So here is my very planned out new school year~ based off my excitement, understanding that only a half of it may get done and knowing that We Will Learn 10 times more than I could of imagine planning.
It is only the 2nd day of Ramadan and it has already started out great. The days are long, the fast is hard, it's really hot and humid here in Maryland, but I feel wonderful. Yes physically I am suffering, but my spirit is great and isn't that what Ramadan is all about. Actually, Ramadan hasn't always uplifted my spiritual being like it should, in fact I had alot of stubborness and attitude when it came to Ramadan and Islam in general. I made a choice to become Muslim, but I wanted my Islam to fit all my preconceived notions about how things should go. I wanted to fast with water, because I thought it was backwards to fast without water, we need to be hydrated right? I wanted Ramadan on my terms: so what if I ate something 10 minutes after Suhur ended, I was fasting all the rest of the 9 hours and 26 minutes. I wanted to pick and choose what part of Islam I wanted to follow and I sure did not want to follow it as it was prescribed in the Quran and Hadith. I didn't care that people had been doing the same thing with excellent results for hundreds of years, I was ignorant, I was brain washed, and I was spoiled.
I am in the process of ordering books for our 2013-2014 year, a little later than I would like, but in the process I came across a fabulous article called "The Dangerous Article for Boys"
An excerpt from the article:
It is now well-recognized that boys are not reading. What is the problem? Most commentators want to say that boys have an aversion to books. But the problem is quite the opposite: books—modern books, that is—have an aversion to boys.
A recent edition of The New York Times Sunday Book Review featured a Robert Lipsyte article that attempts to address this problem. Here is the proffered solution:
[B]oys need to be approached individually with books about their fears, choices, possibilities and relationships — the kind of reading that will prick their dormant empathy, involve them with fictional characters and lead them into deeper engagement with their own lives. This is what turns boys into readers.
Excuse me while I dab my eyes delicately with my handkerchief, touched as I am by this tender thought.
Okay, let's get something straight here: solutions like this are part of the problem. I'm normally against shooting spit wads in class, but I am willing to make an exception in this one case. The entire educational establishment has tried for over 50 years to force boys into their effeminate mold, and in the process, they've succeeded in evacuating literature of all the things boys like in books: action, adventure, danger, bloodletting—and an iron moral code that is taught, not by smarmy sermonizing, but by immersing them in the moral universe of a story about a hero who not only believes in this code, but enforces it with a vengeance.
Our Spring Break was spent in Delaware at the Rehoboth Beach with one of my best friends in Maryland and Big A's best friend. Beach, Family and Friends is there a better combination? We are truly blessed.
I visited a Montessori School today and I was surprised and delighted to see Noor Janan Homeschool's Arabic Letters being used. I loved the colors that they used. It really warmed my heart.
Lil A was so excited about telling another parent about our Jummah (Friday) Goodie Jar, it reminded me that I should of shared it a long time ago.
The Goodie Jar concept came to me because of a couple reasons. I saw some really pretty painted gift jars on Pinterest and wanted to create some of my own. I wanted to create an incentive to be Good, in our culture somewhere being a Goodie-Goodie became bad. However, in the original story of Cinderella called Goodie Goodie Two Shoes, the concept of Goodie was a joyous happy GOOD feeling. In these recent decades, "Goodie, Goodie Two Shoes" has been used to bully other children out of having good morals and character. Because being good or angelic is unpopular and the devilish child is the cool kid. This must be changed, starting with my family- lets be a Goodie Goodie family.
The concept of saving our special treat until Jummah is not only a lesson in patience. It became our way of celebrating our holiday read Holy Day of the blessed Jummah. Some Muslims are under the impression that we only have two Eids: Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha. However, there is a hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon Him) that says: Oh Muslims! Allah, the most High has made Friday a day of Eid. So have a bath on this day, whoever has perfume should apply it, and use the miswaak (tooth cleaner) ~Ibn Majah
In fact, Muslims have many days of celebration and remembrance, Friday is the best of these days that happens every week! We don't have to buy into the consumer culture to make it special for our family and our communities. Simple things: like a piece of candy, a special Jummah storytime, a special Friday supper, feeding the ducks after Jummah prayer, inviting friends over for some ice cream, a community walk/hike in nature, a special Friday Halaqa and/or whatever creative thing you can come up with. The Goodie Jar was just my idea.
I used baby food jars, a masjid template and glass paint applied to the outside of the jar. I painted the lid and added a ribbon and a goodie jar tag. All the free downloads can be found under our Practical Life tab.
It is not so much competing with Secular holidays, but teaching your children to create joy in the life God has blessed them with. So this also fulfilled another part of our Homeschool curriculum called Life Skills. There is a wonderful book called Life Skills for Kids by Christine M Field. It is written from a Christian perspective, but it is very useful for anybody raising children. She talks about the art of celebrating life as a skill that must be taught. This is a beautiful lesson in appreciation and love of our Creator- the Life Giver.
So how do they earn a jelly belly, by doing Good deeds of course! Taken from the song "Who took a cookie from the cookie jar?" which again is another cultural dysfunction: encourage a child to steal and then blame someone else. Yes, this song needed a makeover. . .
"Who deserves a bean in their Goody Jar?" "I do!" "Who you?" "Yes! me." "What you do?" This teaches accountability, taking ownership for their behavior and responsibility. They list off the Good Deeds they should have did each day and is rewarded for it. They can patiently watch their jar fill up throughout the week, then on Friday they can eat their treats. Since they have waited for soooo long, they never feel the need to eat them all in one day. They stretch out their jelly bellies out over a couple of days and share them with their siblings and friends. I write the number of beans that should be in the jar with a wet erase marker, to help my Beloveds to stay honest.
A graph is a fun and educational way to chart how many beans Lil A has earned each day. I made a graph and song chart for those who are not Muslim also. Whether Saturday or Sunday is your special day, there is a free graph for you also!
Do you remember these color tablets from Montessori? They are a wonderful manipulative and easy to make too! A piece of wood, paint samples and some modge podge makes very inexpensive color tablets, read more on Living Montessori Now
When we went to the RIS conference in Toronto this past winter, we came home with gifts for friends. Two of our gifts were that of books. I love books, do you remember our bookshelf from our schoolroom post.
I like the smell of books, the feel of books, the pictures in books, and the language used in books. I like having them in my home, in my purse, in my bookbag and not having to drive to a library or a store to read it. I have not moved into the era of Kindle and ibooks, I still enjoy visiting small businesses that sell books especially old used books. We have a wonderful used dictionary from 1936, one of our most cherished books.
It's almost like the song, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is Silver and the other GOLD"
Books, real books, made out of paper are Gold. . .
So we gave the gifts of books, two books to one family, our gold with some extra special gems added to it.
Humble Dad gave the dad of this family a special book written by a wonderful Scholar of our time, Imam Zaid Shakir: "Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance" The gem: Imam Zaid signed the book.
The gem: we included our popular bookmarks with the book.
These bookmarks and booklogs are free as everything on our site, be sure to download and read. Even if you own a ipad or kindle, don't forget what is gold and read a real book once in a while.
