If you are studying point of view in literature, or need to brush up on it, TJ Reading has a new Point of View section with teaching helps such as articles, powerpoints, and worksheets from around the internet.
http://tjreading.blogspot.com/2011/05/point-of-view.html
Today in one of the mail groups that I belong to, sent out an excellent excerpt relating to the often used phrase “take the good and leave the bad.”
It was an excellent reminder and between that and naseehah that a fellow Muslimah gave me previously, I have decided to unpost the reading lists that I had previously posted as I mentioned earlier, as they do contain some unIslamic content that I believed I would be able to discuss with my kids and sort out the truths from the falsehood.
Then today, I had read the treatise as well as a blog post on a fellow homeschooler’s blog about a Muslim mother who was letting her children attend the prom saying “They know they are Muslim, their Islam is not going to go out the window if they attend proms, award ceremonies, or graduations. They are always going to be exposed to things that are unIslamic, as long as we do the very best within our limits as parents, Insha’Allah our children will be fine.”
That and the naseehah from previously along with reading the treatise all resounded and even if I feel that I can allow my children to read some fiction for schooling (although I intend to be more discerning, in sha Allah), I do not want to be part of spreading falsehood and lies.
Here is the treatise, I highly recommend its reading as a reminder
http://www.salafitalk.net/st/uploads/takinggoodleavingbad.pdf
“An example of that: Two wells of water, one of them pure and clean and the other muddy filled with dirt and filth, so does one with intellect say: `Go to the second well and take from its water.’ The one with intellect does not say this.
So what if there was found one who was deterring people from the pure spring and calling the people to drink from the muddy well filled with dirt and filth…”
“And the Messenger of Allaah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam warned against reading the writings of the People of the Book even though they are not free of some truth.
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‘O my Lord, forgive me and turn towards me (to accept my repentance). Verily You are The Oft-Returning, the Oft-Forgiving.
As with other classes, it is helpful to keep an Islamic Studies binder, both for the teacher and the student. I’m in the process of organizing my Islamic Studies materials and always like to “gussy things” up. So, I am working again on filler material and dividers for my Islamic Studies Binder.
I have completed the first subset, for learning the Islamic calendar. Each set will include a divider, reference sheets, and any other useful information or diagrams, in sha Allah, related to the particular content.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11026810/is/00-binder/is-binder-71-Islamic-Calendar.pdf
Follow the Islamic Studies Binder page at TJ Islamic Studies for updates, insha Allah.
We’ve been blessed this year to have a house with date palm trees, alhamdulillah:
On the first day of Ramadan the boys got some dates from the tree:
Their haul, alhamdulillah.
So far, we’ve broken all our fasts with dates and water, ma sha Allah and we’ve only eaten about half the dates.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/1542/sticky+date+cake+with+caramel+sauce#null
…. the kids love to make date milk by pitting dates, and boiling them in water to form a runny paste then adding milk and straining it.
Health Benefits of Dates
I was reading up on the health benefits of dates and came across these articles:
Health Benefits of Dates (Family Nutrition Online)
Health Benefits of Dates (Organic facts.com)
One of the things that we try to focus on for Ramadan (and in sha Allah it carries over for the rest of the year, of life…..) is increasing good deeds.
Last year we did a secret good deed pal “project” where we all picked out family members’ names from a container each day and we had to do good deeds for that person for the day. No one knew who anyone got (ok, well some people weren’t that great of keeping it a secret), but we really enjoyed that.
Another thing we did was to put a shell in a container (we live near the beach now, yeay! so shells are sometimes plentiful in the household) for each good deed/work we saw someone else perform. The kids really liked seeing the container fill up.
In everything, of course, it is important to remember/talk about the reasons/intentions behind these good deeds….to earn the pleasure of Allah, not mom or dad or strangers (although it is nice when they are pleased with us as well).
Here are few more ideas for this year that I thought I would share:
We have started a “good deeds” section on our Ramadan bulletin board. In sha Allah we’ll post pics or at least text of good deed ideas, to remind us throughout our fasting day, in sha Allah of things we can do.
I came across a good deeds site (non Muslim) – 365 Days of Goodness that was enumerating good deed ideas for each day of a year. One thing I liked was that they categorized deeds into categories such as deeds for family, friends, strangers, animals, the planet, etc. I thought that it would be a great activity to take a list of good deeds (I found some at http://1000gooddeeds.com (Muslim)) as well as other places around the net and sort them (and you could just brainstorm your own) into the categories and post on the board.
Then, each day, strive to complete 1, 2, or an target number of good deeds per category each day and perhaps write about what they did at the end of a day in a journal and tell how this might have pleased Allah. Maybe a good deed for our own self could be added.
Another idea that a good friend of mine suggested was to put good deeds cards in a bowl (deeds that were simple and can be done around the house) and have the kids pick cards out and perform the deeds. We did this with chores in my house for awhile and it was popular (for awhile), so I think this is a neat idea as well that we may try.
In sha Allah by trying to step up it up during Ramadan, doing good works, I hope that it will help us to be more conscious of that outside of Ramadan and see that there are so many simple things that we can do on a daily basis to please Allah and make things easier for others/other creatures as well as help this earth that Allah has blessed us with.
