Alhamdulillaah: The Ramadan 2015 Activity Pack is Here!

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

** Post Updated**

Ramadan is close alhamdulillaah! This year, because Ramadan is expected to start a few weeks before school lets out (for some), the Ramadan Activity Pack for 2015 is being posted early alhamdulillaah. The pack is over 100 pages of Ramadan Themed activities that will help children review what they know about Ramadan, perhaps learn things they did not know about Ramadan, and review crucial math and language arts standards that they encountered throughout the school year in'shaa allaah.

The pack is intentionally structured to allow children to complete the activities independently in'shaa allaah. It is hoped that this structure accomplishes several things:

• It provides beneficial activities for children to complete during the day (after the school year finishes).
• It provides engaging, beneficial activities for children to complete at the masjid while parents are praying taraweeh.
• It aids in preventing summer reading & math skills loss, which is known to occur during the summer break, and which, according to research, contributes to the ever-widening achievement gap.
• It helps children master topics that they may have struggled with during the school year.
• It helps build children's confidence during the summer months and helps them move to grade 2 with a solid foundation in Language Arts and Math in'shaa Allaah.

To help accomplish these goals, all math activities in the pack have an example that shows children how to complete the upcoming math problems; the directions for all other activities are written at grade level so children should be able to read and comprehend the directions without needing help from an adult (but, of course, still be ready and willing to offer assistance if the child should need it). There is also a table of contents that allows children/parents to choose which activity to complete and track the student's progress. Each time a child completes an activity, he/she (or the parent) can go back to the table of contents and check that activity off of the list. There are also paper dolls that children can cut out and play with! At the end of the book, there is a certificate of completion that parents/teachers/activity coordinators can download, print, and present to children. A cautionary note: there should not be pressure placed on the child to finish the pack during the month of Ramadan. Encouragement yes, pressure, no.  

And here is a language arts pack for the last ten days of Ramadan that can be used with the Big Book of Ramadan Activities (i.e. the ELA pack can be added to the Big Book or it can be used separately in'shaa Allaah). You can see which concepts/skills are covered in the pack in this post.

Click here to download your free Last Ten Days of Ramadan Language Arts pack or download it free from A Muslim Child is Born's Teacher Notebook store!

So, are you ready for Ramadan?

Are you ready to help child(ren) grow spiritually and academically this month? 

Excellent! Then download your copy of The Big Book of Ramadan Activities here in'sha allaah! You can also download the activity pack from A Muslim Child is Born's Teacher Notebook shop! Please be aware of the Terms of Use for this and all resources on the blog.

Benefit, enjoy, and Ramadan Mubarak!

October Pages for My Morning Book now available alhamdulillaah

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Click on the picture to purchase insha'Allaah

Alhamdulillaah, the October pages for My Morning Book are available. This month, children will have the opportunity to work on the following skills: 

• Story elements: main character & setting using stories from the Qur'aan and Sunnah
• word work
• Illustrating sentences and short stories
• Sentence and word scrambles
• Predicting
• Sequencing
• Place Value
• Subtraction Review
• Solving Word Problems
• Addition fact families
• More and Fewer (with and without graphs)
• Longer and shorter
• Counting forward
• and more!

The 'See it' section for the word work (i.e. See it, Spell it, Write it) is blank so that the teacher/parent-teacher can decide which word he/she wishes his/her student to work with that day but the letters the student needs to build words are included with the pages. The math work for counting forward is blank so teachers/parent-teachers can decide which number they wish students to work with that day. Also, depending on the student's reading level, assistance may be needed to read and complete the work associated with certain stories.

These pages fit easily and conveniently into a three ring binder so students can turn the pages with ease. This also allows new pages to be inserted quickly. Additionally, the skills covered in this packet build upon what students learned in the Qur'aan workbook. Also included in the pages for this month are the necessary resources for teaching place value and decomposing numbers.

If you purchase this resource (or other resources), please do not email/send/give them to others. Please direct them to That Was Fun! so that they may purchase the resource for their personal use. Jazakallaah khayr for respecting the time and energy that goes into developing these resources!

And here is a freebie that also goes with the My Morning Book October pages!

This resource can be used when teaching children how to compare numbers. Students use the apples in a bowl cards to explore more and less (greater than, fewer than), and teachers/parent-teachers can use the apple number cards to extend students learning insha'Allaah. There is a worksheet included for students to record their learning alhamdulillaah. You can download this freebie here from the Teacher's Notebook store or here from Box insha'Allaah!

May Allaah accept your efforts and work!

FREEBIE: Quraan Workbook for Grade 1

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Alhamdulillaah, school is set to begin for many schools and homeschoolers. The beginning of the school year is a very important time for many reasons. It is during the first weeks of school/homeschool that students learn new routines that will help contribute to a positive learning environment. It is also during the first weeks of school that teachers/parent-teacher set expectations for the school year. These first weeks are critical then because they often set the tone for the entire school year. To help set a tone that is pleasing to Allaah, grade 1 students can work on this Quraan workbook.

Click on the picture above to download the workbook insha'Allaah

Some of the material students will encounter in this workbook include:

Reading:

Reading Comprehension

Retelling a story

Answer questions about details in a story

Begin to recognize that words are separated by spaces and begin to apply this to own writing

Writing:

Use pictures, words, and dictation to tell about a story

Talk and write about what happened to the main character in their story

Recognize, name, and  use end punctuation

Begin to edit their own pieces of writing

There are 3 rubrics included for each type of writing students will do, 3 student editing sheets - with these students self-edit prior to submitting their work with the happy proclamation that it is 'done'.

Students will also:

• Make lists
• Learn to add details to their writing by describing something/an object using strong adjectives
• Learn about Makkee and Madanee suwar and be able to list a few suwar that fall into each category
• Make a plan for the suwar they will read from al-Quraan and start to take ownership in making sure they read the Quran daily insha'Allaah.

Are you ready to start school? Then let's begin insha'Allaah! Click on the picture above to download the workbook insha'Allaah or download it here.

FREEBIE: My Writing Journal

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

It's hard to say just how important daily writing is for students. So many skills are taught and learned through this activity that a lot of focus is placed on it in classrooms. This year, students will write in their journals daily using this writing jounrnal insha'Allaah:

The journal is simple to assemble:

1. Print all pages (if you want a more printer-friendly copy don't print the first page and use the last page as the front cover for the journal).
2. Photocopy page two 21 times (1 page for each school day in September).
3. Photocopy page four or five (depending on how you spell the word colour) as many times as needed so that each student has 1 bookmark. This bookmark is to help students spell words that they might use during the first month of school in their writing. Page 3 is to show you where to fold down the book mark so you students can insert it into their writing journals. Once folded, the bookmark sits on the top of the page where the student last wrote.
4. Photocopy page six 4 times. Place this page after each 5th page. This page is for you, the teacher, to collect the journals once a week and look through that week's writing and write back to your students and briefly tell them about their writing for that week. The first section is for you to mention something positive about the student's writing, the second section is for you to mention some points you think the student should pay attention to or maybe some things that might help enhance the student's writing (i.e. like adding strong verbs or describing words to show and not tell). The third section is to again point to something positive in the student's writing. Here, you should strive to be genuine and honest. Look for something that resonates with you or something that you could relate to as you read his/her work or something that brought back a memory for you, and then, if you choose, share that with the student in this section insha'Allaah. 
5. Page 7 is the back page of the journal or if you want a more printer-friendly version of the journal, the cover of the journal.

Each month, I'll hope to upload new bookmarks, with new pictures & words, for the journal insha'Allaah - Check back! This is, alhamdulillaah, a FREEBIE. Just click on the picture, or the link above, or the Teacher's Notebook widget in the upper right hand corner, to download it.

Insha'Allaah you enjoy it and benefit from it!