I was just thinking about how teaching our children about Islam naturally can help them in non Islamic matters as well.

I was sitting down with my preschooler and asked him which was his right hand. He lifted up his right hand. Then of course it turned into a little game and I asked him to lift his left leg, left hand, point to his left ear, right eye, etc.  He only got one wrong one time, masha Allah.

I can’t help but think that some of it may have to do with the fact that we teach him to eat with his right hand and when we see him eating with his left remind him to eat with his right hand.  For the older ones (and sometimes him but not as much), I try to remind them to start dressing with the right side.

It seems like it has been a lot easier to reinforce the concepts of right/left with my children who were born after I had become Muslim than I remember with my children who were born before I had become Muslim. 

Anyway, I am just glad that we haven’t had to really do any left/right activities to get this concept across. Of course, its always fun to do creative/art related activities, but at this point, they would really just be for fun and more reinforcement.

We’ve never really studied science formally, just a little here and there, but as my older kids are getting older, I wanted to try to tackle that subject.

So I have been surfing the net and found lots of free science resources including really neat online textbooks, worksheets, games, free curriculum, science recipes and more. You can view a listing of them at Talibiddeen Jr’s Science Page.

Science file folder game- Living/Non living Sort (Pre-K - 1)

I’ve just put some printables for this concept on my main site, Talibiddeen Jr. They can be left intact for worksheets or cut apart for a file folder activity.

http://www.talibiddeenjr.com/earlychildhood_preschoolskills.htm

There are three printables, a food theme, a body part theme, and an Islamic theme.

My three year old and I were doing the cards today and he referred to the smallest one as “puny.”

I have been busy making file folder games and what not for my middles and older kids, and so my preschooler wanted some games. I made  him a shape game (see previous post) and although he asks for it, I felt a little guilty that he didn’t have more variety (although we have come up with some different ways to play), so I made him some printable matching games. He LOVES matching games, and so to give him some variety, I made several themed sets including food, snack food, transportation, toys, weather, Islamic themed, clothes, and shapes.

Preschool Match Ups (aka Concentration)

I also made some algebra file folder games for my older two and surprisingly, masha Allah, they went over well with BOTH of them, including my 15 year old son. (He preferred that to worksheets, I guess). So I have about three made (exponents match, signed number addition, and turning English expressions into algebraic expressions). So Insha Allah, I’ll get those uploaded within the next day or two and have more in the works, insha Allah

Rounding to the Nearest 10 File Folder Game

I haven’t been able to find any groups related to Islamic based lapbooking/notebooking/file folder games, so a friend of mine and I decided to start one. It is for women only. If you are interested in joining, please go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islamic_lapbooking

and apply.

Insha Allah, we hope to provide pictures of sample Islamic based lapbooks that members make, as well as links to online resources related to lapbooks, and also we hope that this group will serve as motivation for those of us who are interested in making lapbooks but have never done so or are not typically arts and crafts people (as well as those who are).

I made up a few board games for my six year old who is working on the short vowels a, i, and o.

Short vowel a CVC words

Short vowel i CVC words

Short vowel o CVC words

Insha Allah, as we go along, I’ll be making more games/activities to post.

Shapes game I made for Musa, my three year old.

Well, my third grader is working on memorizing his multiplication facts and I wanted some little activities other than drill sheets.

Below are some printables for practicing the math facts that we have made. My 12 year old daughter and I brainstormed themes for the different times tables and she is the designer/creator of these printables (she’s more artistic than I am). So this is her project this week and I will be adding on printables for the different tables (x3, x4, etc) as she completes them, insha Allah.

They can be made for file folder games or possibly compiled into one book for a lapbook.

These will eventually end up on the main TJ site, insha Allah.

x3 Tables - Pizza Theme

x4 Tables - Shirts/Hangers

x5 Tables - Mittens and Hands

x6s Tables- Soup/Soup Spoons

x7s Tables - Candy/Candy Jar

x8 Tables - Octopus (defaced)/Cave

x9 Tables - Open Book/Bookmark

Once they are all complete, I am planning on putting them in one book so they will be handy insha Allah.

If you are looking for other ideas for using them, other than just matching, you might try placing the unmounted pieces in a tic tac toe board or bingo and playing those games with them or get a board game template and make some sort of board game.

For the lapbook/file folders, I would also suggest varying the parts that are mounted, sometimes mount the answer, sometimes mount the question.