I was thinking of an activity to do with the children when they got home from school, then I thought, “let’s paint on the windows in the porch”. Ok, so our front door is a double glass door and has a surround which is all glass. People can therefore see into the porch. I had previously bought this sticky film which looked like frosted glass but in honesty it looked horrible. I kept it on for months, nevermind it’s off now.

When I was a primary school teacher, I would often paint onto the windows in my classroom. It made the classroom bright and the children loved it. I would keep the paintings in theme with what we were learning and it was like having extra display boards. So I knew you could paint onto glass and it wipes off easily.

I had to explain to my children a number of times what the activity was. At first, they thought I meant paint a picture and stick it to the window. Secondly, they thought I meant paint the window frame with a varnish. After a few more ideas, they finally got the activity. We looked at some ideas on the internet: stained glass windows, art on glass and of course, emojis. We got painting on the windows using the children’s ready mixed paint.

This activity is great to do in your children’s bedrooms, the playroom or any room where they spend time. All my children got involved including my one year old. We had great fun doing this activity, hope you guys enjoy doing it too.

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Your child will be able to be create and make anything. They will be able to practise their fine motor skills when drawing, painting, colouring in on the creation. They will also be able to practise their cutting skills when using scissors. They will be able to problem solve by thinking about what they want to make and how to make it.

Watch the video below for some tips on box model making.

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The focus of the lesson is for children to understand there are different animal groups, what those groups are called and examples of animals that belong to those groups. The lesson plan is very easy to follow and understand. It comes with a quick and easy activity for your child to do.

Click on links below to download.

lesson plan ks1 science Hurayrah the cat

Hurayrah the Cat science ks1 worksheet

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Topics to discuss using Hurayrah the Cat

There are many subjects and topics the book could lead you to consider in your learning:

Geography

• Madinah (look at the country and continent it’s in)

Science

• Grouping animals (using the animals featured in the story)
• Water cycle (linked to an Oasis, such as the city of Madinah)

Islamic studies

• Discuss the importance of Madinah
• Learn the Adhan
• Learn about Abu Huraryah and the many hadiths he narrated
• Learn about Qaswa in more detail

Art

• Create a desert scene with an oasis
• Draw a cat in a cartoon style
• Make a 3d market place using cardboard boxes

Literacy

• Speech marks – write using speech marks: what could the doves in the story have said
• Retell the story using small drawings: write sentences under each one to retell story
• Order the story: using small images order the story
• Write a list using commas (what they could have sold at the market)
• Character description
• Setting description
• Reading comprehension

Download and print out a mind map of these ideas here: lesson ideas for Hurayah the cat

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It’s lovely painting with your babies, toddlers or small children and with this paint you can relax about them exploring with their hands, getting all over their faces or in their mouths.

These are some of the learning opportunities babies, toddlers and small children will get from painting with this edible paint:

• Creativity and expression
• Fine Motor Skills
• Hand-Eye Coordination and Control
• Cause and Effect
• Concentration
• Language development
• Exploring the senses and discovering new textures

What you will need:

• Natural yogurt
• Food colouring

Method:

1. Put some natural yogurt into a bowl
2. Mix in some food colouring

Yes, that simple!

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Like most households, we have lots of Lego and both my boy and girl love to construct things. Most of the time, I will just let my children be creative with Lego and create whatever they fancy. However, sometimes I will give them an object to create or a theme to follow. I have set different theme/objects over the years: build your dream house, invent a new animal, create a flying machine, anything linked to space etc.

The dream house always seems to have an outdoor swimming pool and the new animal is always a mixed of two or more animals. I have set Islamic themes too. I ask the children to create a Mosque.

Before they set out building their Mosque, we looked at different areas in a Mosque. We used Dart Flights Harrows Quadro 3-Pack  book which was brilliant for explaining the purpose and the features in a Mosque.

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Dart Flights Harrows Dimplex 4010 3 Pieces is brilliant for children of a variety of ages. It is recommended for 3-7 years old, however, my 8 year old and 10 year old loved doing the activities the other day.

The books provide calm and useful activities. My 8 year old girl completed the colouring in and placing all the stickers in the correct places. We were able to discussion the 5 prayers, the difference between a dua and salah, the times of the different prayers and the names of the different salah.

My 10 year made his own Salah timetable. I could have made one for him on the computer and it would have been nice, neat and professional but children learn more from doing things themselves. He was able to practise using a ruler, drawing straight lines with the ruler, work out how many rows and columns he needed and knowing the names of the Salah and their order.

There are many additional activities to can do alongside All About Prayer (Salah) Activity Book:

• Design a prayer mat
• Prayer log book
• Prayer timetables

Dart Flights Bulls Player 100 Karel Sedlek Hellfire Std. 3-Pack

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A great activity to do alongside reading Ali and the Spider is a bug hunt. It’s brilliant for children to be outside in nature exploring Allah’s world. There are so many mini-beasts to observe, you could spend hours outside.

There are so many learning opportunities that will come up when you explore outside. we have a good chat about the butterfly cycle.

It teaches children to show kindness and gentleness to Allah’s smallest creations.

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We did an activity in the “Mosques around the World activity book”. It was all about the Masjid al-Haram so we discussion the importance of this mosque, how we face it five times a day, how all the Muslims in the world face this way to pray, counted its minarets and dome, name the Kabba.

After we completed the activity in the book, we built mosque using building blocks. We tried to recreate Masjid al-Haram.

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