Autumnal Sunshine

Today was a truly beautiful September day, maashAllah. We went to the woods today to witness the trees in their autumn rituals, producing crab apples, beech nuts, helicopter field maple seeds, haws and sloes, all in obedience to their Creator, Allah. While the natural world around us fulfills it's life cycles in total submission, the Ramadan rituals for us humans are more a matter of choice. Not that fasting for the Muslims isn't compulsory, of course it is, but fasting is a very personal matter, if someone wishes to break their fast in secret, who can stop them? The hawthorn tree cannot choose to produce blackberries this year, but a human being can decide not to believe, not to fast. This is what makes fasting so special. Only Allah knows whether you have really done it or not, and there is unique reward for that, a drawing closer to Allah.

Abu Hurairah reported that the Prophet (saw) said that Allah said "The Fast is for Me and I will give the reward for it, as he (the one who observes the fast) leaves his sexual desire, food and drink for My Sake. Fasting is a screen (from Hell) and there are two pleasures (moments of happiness) for a fasting person, one at the time of breaking his fast and the other at the time when he will meet his Lord. And the smell of the mouth of a fasting person is better in Allah's Sight than the smell of musk."(Al-Bukhari)

The boys wanted to fast today, but I forgot to wake them up for suhoor. R was not impressed. I took the trouble to point out that they could still keep the "good conduct" part of the fast, as we learnt about in yesterday's activity. If anything keeping temper controlled, and avoiding cross words is a harder part of the fast for them than the leaving of food and drink! It certainly adds weight to be able to say, "Don't argue with your sister, you should be fasting from that type of behaviour!", and so on!

Of course I forgot to take a camera to the woods, so it's a garden picture instead. Aren't those berries a wonder though? SubhanAllah.

Plates and links

Ramadan decorative plates in progress. Today's quote was

"He who does not desist from obscene language and acting obscenely (during the period of fasting), Allah has no need that he did not eat or drink." (Bukhari and Muslim)

Ia has been doing a lot of her learning online recently. She is still working on letter and sound recognition and this website has proved very helpful. It is so straight forward to use, and responds excellently to error. She has also made lots of use of links from here, for maths and English. For now she seems to prefer dealing with these things on screen, rather than using books, cards or puzzles.

U has just informed me that she needs to go to the dentist because a bit of one finger nail has broken off.

Noticing

Being the first fast, today proceeded more leisurely than yesterday. Yesterday was rush, rush, rush, cramming the day full, but today there didn't seem to be the need. As usual Ramadan brings a different feel to the day, a peaceful mood. Even the morning air felt balmy, it was a beautiful day here, maashAllah.
The boys chose to fast today, and kept it until the end, alhamdulillah. Last year they kept 10 days, this year they are aiming at 15, inshAllah.
We got some of our usual things done, but what I really noticed today was how U is expressing herself more and more. How funny the thoughts of a 2 year old are. She thinks she is going to grow up into a brother and wear "pants", she found that she couldn't do up her own pyjama buttons, so that means "I'm not big now", she likes using the word "either", to mean also or as well, "I want banana either". Between everything else, there should always be time for conversations with U!

Ramadan Mubarak (and skeletons)

Ramadan Mubarak!

"Whoever observes (fasts) during the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith, and hoping to attain Allah's Rewards, then all his past sins will be forgiven." (Bukhari)

It has been a busy day, alhamdulillah. The girls made bracelets. Very important. The boys did bits and bobs of all sorts, including a Ramadan chapter from the Iqra textbook/workbook set "Our Faith and Worship". I use it selectively, as I'm not sure about all of what's there, but the boys like the workbook mix of puzzles, gapfills, short answers, diagrams etc. It certainly offers a good format into which to fill your own content.

And what about the skeletons? Our first science unit this academic year is on moving and growing, so I'm looking for related links, starting with human skeletons.

Try this, this, also this, and this one, finally this.

I'll make those links less clear next time, ok.

Nearly Ramadan

We have come across a couple of interesting stories from the history of Islam today. The first came up in our continued reading of the seerah of the Prophet (saw). We have reached the time of the digging of the trench around Medina. At that time there was near famine in Medina and many of the sahabah were very hungry. They used to tie stones to their bellies to reduce the hunger pains. (Lets just hold that thought for the coming month).
One day, during work on digging the trench, Jubair ibn Abdullah (ra) noticed the Prophet (saw) had two stones tied to his stomach. Thinking of how hungry he must be Jabir asked to be excused, went home to his wife and asked her what food she had. She had only a small goat and a little barley, but she set about cooking, while Jabir went back to invite the Prophet (saw). The Prophet (saw) asked Jabir about how much food he had, and said it was plenty, so he asked all the other sahabah from the dig to join the meal. Jabir was so worried that he did not have enough food for so many, but when the Prophet (saw) dished up the food there was plenty, even enough to distribute to other people outside. Allah had blessed this meal and made it plentiful.
This story was noted in the history by Ibn Hisham.
The boys loved this story, and wrote it up, (which was the day’s English exercise).
The second story they liked was linked to the ayat we studied today, as part of our Ramadan preparation, “And eat and drink, until the white thread of dawn appear to you distinct from its black thread…”2:187 When this was first revealed, “of dawn” was not revealed, and some people were confused and tied to their legs or placed under their pillow, two threads, one white and one black, and went on eating until they could differentiate between the two. There is also a hadith about someone asking the Prophet (saw) about this, and so it was explained, and “at dawn” was revealed as well.
We read about this in the Tafseer of Ibn Kathir.
Those were our Islamic studies for the day. They have also been sitting in the garden, reading about dinosaurs. If I ask them to choose their own topic it is usually castles or dinosaurs.

Preparations

I suppose there are two ways to get ready for Ramadan, the personal preparations, and the home ed ones. But the two overlap, and insh Allah we all learn more. Last week I was reading "Fasting in Ramadan" by Dr Abdul Karim Awad. This was good revision for me and helped me organise my HE Ramadan plans. I have plans, but won't be sharing them in advance in case of falling short! Instead I will record whatever materialises out of them as I go along, inshAllah.
Today I started making use of that very useful looking TJRamadan site. We read the introduction to the book mentioned above, then looked at the lunar cycle links on TJRamadan.
I thought that this year we will make paper plate decorations, highlighting quotes from Quran and hadith about Ramadan. Why paper plates? Because we usually have food on plates, but we are fasting, so we have knowledge about fasting instead.
Today we studied "So whoever of you sights (the crescent on the first night of) the month (of Ramadan) he must observe Saum (fasts) that month...." 2:185

So those are the plates, as I mentioned before we are not artists, but we have fun!

I've been...

Alhamdulillah. Now I'm back and its time for me to get ready for Ramadan!