Our little bundle of joy's here, alhamdulillah!!

Assalamu alaykum,

Almighty Allah swt blessed us with a beautiful baby girl last week, alhamdulillah. Please sisters keep us in your duas..
I guess I won't be posting as much, but I will do my best, inshaAllah.

Maassalamah,

Fine motor skills: buttoning

Assalamu alaykum,


Practical life exercises are the foundation of the Montessori environment. I like how the child gets exposed to so many of them from the early age. 

I have seen button snakes on the internet and I thought I will make one for Yusuf. Blogger moms have used flowers, shapes, leaves, etc. for that reason. And I chose to make mini masjids. It was a good practice for Yusuf, he was frustrated initially, because he couldn't manage sliding the mini masjids through the button, but then he started getting them on and was happy at the end. 




Google search button snake and you will get a lot of ideas and tutorials and here is one of them: http://www.craftbuds.com/felt-flowers-button-snake/ 

For more button practice, I made buttons on felt apple tree. I made big, medium and little apples, one pink apple, so that Yusuf could tell me which apple was different to others. 






http://www.montessorimom.com/toddler-scope-and-sequence-lesson-ideas-practical-/ - a long list of Early Practical Life skills for toddlers.



I also loved the idea of quiet books, there are so many variations of them on the internet..

Montessori activities for toddlers

Assalamu alaykum,

Elaine Ng Friis compiled a fantastic list of Montessori activities for the toddlers (2 years and up). Check it out here, inshaAllah:

http://elainengfriis.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/montessori-activities-for-pre-schoolers.html

Big vs little

Assalamu alaykum,

We have started on our early math journey, alhamdulillah. Yusuf is very much into numbers and counting in different languages, he surprised me by counting from 1 to 10 in Arabic the other day. He recognizes the numbers, but not the Arabic written ones. I will inshaAllah write a different post on numbers.

We bought some more animals to my son and alhamdulillah they were big in size. He has been playing with them a lot. It's good we have more of the same animals now (big and little), it was a good chance to introduce Yusuf the concept of big vs little. He heard us using the terminology a lot and he knew what we meant by it, but I thought I would teach him the concept by showing lots of examples. So we took out our animal box, found few of the same animals and placed them in a row.

I asked him to name me the animals and tell me which one was big and which one was little. And then we played with the animals.

We also took out two of the same bowls of different sizes and filled them with big and small objects. We filled the bowls with big and little sized shapes, letters, pom poms, blocks, spoons, shells and sponges, whatever we found around the house really..

We read the following book from our own library: "If you can.. We can!" by Beth Shoshan. We read it many times before, but this time we looked through it with the purpose of knowing who was big and who was small. 

   

New masjid

Assalamu alaykum,

Few weeks ago I have remade our little masjid. It was getting little dirty and in the past I saw my son using the masjid for different purposes. I mainly saw him getting on top of it to get the things out of his reach, if he didn't find any chair around. As I didn't fill the box with anything, it was slowly getting wrecked. Then I thought it was time to remake it. So the first thing I did was I opened the box and filled it with recycled paper, so it would last Yusuf for awhile, if he decided to climb on it again. He doesn't do it anymore though, I explained him that it was not a good thing to do. After I sticky taped the sides of the box, it was ready to be covered with felt fabric. I thought I would use felt for it this time, as I did it with the Kaaba. So I used the felt that I had in hands, the end result looks pretty much like the old masjid, except for the colors and here's the finished result:

From this:	To:

Eid time and building blocks

Assalamu alaykum,

SubhanAllah time has flown so fast and we are waiting for the next Ramadan to come now.. May Allah swt accept our fasts, ibadah and keep us steadfast in the deen, inshaAllah. Like most of you, we had really busy Ramadan and Eid, alhamdulillah. Yusuf was usually up with us for suhoor and iftar during Ramadan, I think he had a good time on Eid too, alhamdulillah. We visited family and friends and had many visitors coming to our house too.

I didn't have much time to decorate the house for Eid, all I did was hang more Eid balloons to our Ramadan wall and prepare Yusuf's gift. We bought Yusuf his first little thawb and he wore it for Eid prayer, mashaAllah. In his little box he had lollies, cookies, chocolate and Eid badge.

I think Yusuf was really excited about the gift box idea, he had been reading the Eid book over and over during Ramadan. And in the book Grandma Fatima prepared lots of Eid gift boxes for the kiddies. I wanted Yusuf to have his own little box of sweets for the day and mashaAllah he had been carrying that box around all day long.

Yusuf turned 2 this Ramadan, alhamdulillah. I haven't started any formal teaching with him yet, maybe when he hits 2,5 inshaAllah. But we do learn things here and there. He has been showing lots of interest in numbers and alphabet. He has learned to count from 1 to 10 in Uzbek and English and he does recognize the numbers, but I have yet to teach him the concept. He still plays a lot with his blocks and that's the time when AbuYusuf joins him. Together they build masjids and towers and other buildings.

He still brings his animals and puts them in a row to pray. I usually ask him to pack up his toys once he's done playing with them, sometimes he listens to me, sometimes he wants me to help him packing and other times he doesn't want to do it. But generally he is a good boy, alhamdulillah. Below he is putting away his blocks using kitchen tongs, he found the idea quiet amusing, although he didn't finish it to the end. Something else came up that caught his interest and I had to put the blocks away (smile)..

Time to announce the Winner!!

Assalamu alaykum,

It's time to announce our Eid Giveaway Winner, inshaAllah. And it belongs to the 3rd entry, which is Raisingsahabas. Congrats, sis! And jazakumAllahu khayran to all of you who took part in the Giveaway. InshaAllah there will be more giveaways and you win next time..

Sis at Raisingsahabas please email me your details to ummi2yusuf@gmail.com as soon as you can, so that I can send the prize to you straightaway, inshaAllah.

JazakumAllahu khayran to everyone once again!!

Our little Eid Giveaway

Assalamu alaykum,

Alhamdulillah we are happy to announce our first Giveaway fi sabilillah.

Eid Giveaway includes a handmade Eid wall decoration made from felt fabric and some Eid balloons. There will be 1 winner inshaAllah. Winner will be announced on August 14, 2012. InshaAllah there are 5 days till the winner is announced.

What you need to do to win?

Leave a comment on www.coolnessofeyes.blogspot.com: A brief entry about how you would like to spend this Eid with your kids.

Who can participate?

Any sister with kids and/or grandchildren, nieces, nephews inshaAllah.

How do we choose the winner?

I will number the comments left on the blog and write the numbers on the paper and Yusuf inshaAllah will do the drawing, he will pick a number randomly. InshaAllah you will trust us on this. The winner will have to contact me within 2 days, so that I can send the gift as soon as possible. I really want the gift to be received before Eid or on the Eid days, inshaAllah. 

When leaving a comment please leave your name or kunya and please do not forget to come back and check the results on August 14, 2012. That's when we announce the winner, inshaAllah.

If you are the winner inshaAllah, please send me your contact details to ummi2yusuf@gmail.com within 2 days of the announcement.

We hope you participate and please sisters spread the word.

JazakumAllahu khayran!!

Ramadan in the new house..

Assalamu alaykum,

Alhamdulillah we are witnessing another Ramadan, may Allah swt accept it from all of us, inshaAllah. Alhamdullillah we have been busy this Ramadan, we moved to a new house a week before Ramadan started and have been staying busy since then, alhamdulillah. Our new house is 3 minutes walk to the masjid and it's highly populated with muslims, alhamdulillah (smile).. We are very happy about the location!!

Yusuf was and is still excited about Ramadan, when it comes to iftar he usually comes and joins me at the table, we make dua and break the fast together. He also wakes up in the morning for suhoor time. His sleeping schedule have changed since the start of Ramadan and inshaAllah it goes back to normal.

These are some of our Ramadan decorations that we managed to do with my son. He was really excited being involved in the decoration process, he became a little helper, mashaAllah. InshaAllah he helps me out more with the festive decorations as he grows.

I made two wall decorations, first one is made from felt fabric and the second one is very easy to make. I just cut out masjid, minaret, moon and stars shapes out of paper and glued them on blue cardstock box..

Ramadan and Eid books

Assalamu alaykum,

We received books that we ordered for Yusuf from Goodword Books about a month ago, alhamdulillah. We bought him books on Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr and he loves them. As soon as the order arrived, he browsed through the books and chose his favorites. Ramadan and Eid books were among those. He brings them to me twice a day to read it to him and I also find him reading/looking at the pictures independently quite often. I find the books very good at introducing Ramadan and Eid concepts to our children and they are cheap too. The papers of the book are not thin and toddler can handle them well. It's not too crowded with the text. Eid book has more text in it though, but Yusuf still enjoys it. May Allah reward all of our brothers and sisters working for/with Goodword books and all others who are helping us in educating ourselves and our children. Ameen!

These are the books that I am talking about:

InshaAllah you can have a look at the sample pages of the book here:

http://www.goodwordbooks.com/product-details/Celebrating-Eid-ul-Fitr-with-Ama-Fatima--Paperback-/291.html

http://www.goodwordbooks.com/product-details/Welcome-Ramadan-/884.html

Puzzles

Assalamu alaykum,

Another activity we have been doing lately is playing with puzzles. Yusuf is getting good at placing puzzles back to their places. We have got different puzzles: wooden, cardboard, thin cards. You can make your own puzzles at home from cardstock or paper.

Yusuf does these puzzles easily:

And these cardboard puzzles come in 4 in a box. They are good quality and great at teaching Yusuf the objects, alhamdulillah. He likes matching things, so we usually end up matching the puzzle pieces to real life objects that we find around the house.


He has a bit of a difficulty doing the puzzle below, he can't quite put the image back together. He ends up finding the right puzzle pieces, he names the animal, but has difficulty putting the blocks in order.


I have bought these cards for cheap, they are so good, even though they are a bit thin.

DIY birdhouse

Assalamu alaykum,

There are lots and lots of websites out there, where you can find activities to keep your toddlers interested and busy (even for a little while), alhamdulillah. Ummi bloggers and other bloggers are a great help in this area too, alhamdulillah.


We made this birdhouse with Yusuf, even though he was only watching I consider it a group effort (smile). Like most of our other activities, it was done some time ago. I saw this activity on the internet, where you can print out the birdhouse and birdies and you involve your toddler in the activity. Here is the link to the website:


http://www.toddlertoddler.com/todays_birdhouse_fun.htm


And these are the shots from our birdhouse:

It is not only a fun activity, but also educational for growing toddler. He will get to learn new words, different colors, starts differentiating between the words in and out and practice his gross motor skills.

Nursery rhymes

Assalamu alaykum, 

Yusuf can differentiate between the text and the pictures when I read him a book. Sometimes I read and sometimes I keep it short by telling him the story in my own words and in our language. We mainly have books in English and very few in our language (Uzbek). Same goes with nursery rhymes. I don’t know many Uzbek nursery rhymes, so we read and learn them in English. There is website to few mini nursery rhyme books if anyone is interested in printing them out:

http://www.nellieedge.com/free%20little%20books.htm

I made a lapbook for Uzbek nursery rhyme and it’s about baby chicks. I made it awhile ago and Yusuf was too young then. I gave him the lapbook, he watched the pictures, we read the nursery rhyme and  later when I was not watching, he ripped off one of pictures. After that experience we had to go back to our board books or I just had to watch him when he was handling thinner books. He is now much better at handling lapbooks, paperback books.

If anyone wants to download the pictures for the lapbook, you can do that here and here, inshaAllah.

I have also made Yusuf a felt book, it was one of my first felt projects. Yusuf was around 1 then. I came across a short poem (nursery rhyme) about apples and thought I would make a book for Yusuf and use that nursery rhyme. It’s in Uzbek, it teaches about different apple colors and the word Bismillah before eating the apple. Up until now Yusuf reads his apple book and at the moment learning to say Bismillah properly.  

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..

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.