We Pray Towards the Ka'ba - 30 Day Craft Challenge

We Pray Towards the Ka'ba - 30 Day Craft Challenge

Salam crafting family, here's what I came up with for Day 6. Today, this mama was feeling slightly burnt out so I kept the craft super simple. It was a refreshing change and the result was fantastic! The lesson associated with our craft was highlighting the fact that, as Muslims, we pray towards the Holy Ka'ba. I had a chat with them about the origin of the Ka'ba and that it is widely known as the "House of Allah". 

With this craft, kids are able to perform a wonderful art activity (with minimal parental help) and learn an important lesson as well. This activity required some trial and error on my part but I'm quite happy with what we came up with. Scroll down and take a look!

Materials:

• White paper - thick paper like card stock for best results, but any white paper will do
• Streamers, 2-5 colours ideally
• A black square cut out of construction paper (approx 7cmx7cm)
• White school glue
• Scissors
• Something to decorate the Ka'ba (we used gold adhesive paper)
• Hand Sanitizer
• A spray bottle with water inside
• Paint brush

Steps:

1. Set up your streamers on the paper as you wish them to appear on your design
2. In order to hold them down, spray some water through your spray bottle
3. Squirt some hand sanitizer over the artwork
4. Use the paintbrush to spread it all over, making sure that you cover the entire paper with the hand sanitizer (it should appear wet)
5. Set a timer for at least 3 minutes and allow the colours to bleed through
6. Lift up the streamers slightly to see if the colours have spread onto your paper
7. If you are satisfied with the colours, lift up and remove all the streamers and discard
8. Allow the paper to dry (about 15 minutes)
9. Using the school glue, paste the black square onto the paper, representing the Ka'ba
10. Decorate the square with yellow or gold 
11. You may add any text you like on this paper with a marker, or leave it blank
12. If you like, ask your children to keep it with them when they perfom Salaat in order to remind them which direction they are praying towards. 
13. This is such an easy craft, you can repeat it as many times as you like!

Super easy supply list

Start arranging the streamers to make a design

This was Hadi's design

Here's Hani's design

Spray some water to hold the streamers in place

Start squirting some hand sanitzier

It needs to be all wet!

Use your paintbrush to make sure all of the streamers are covered evenly

Make sure you let it soak in for 3-5 minutes

Now the fun part: check to see if the colours are coming through

Lift it all off!

Here's what it might look like

Let this dry for about 15 minutes

Hadi was so happy with the results

We included it in our prayers today and it gave our prayers a new life!

And that's it for today, folks! It's a short and sweet activity that you can do without breaking a sweat. I know its not much but it had a wonderful impact on myself and my kiddos. I hope you are able to do this with your kids. Please post a picture on Instagram if you do - don't forget to tag and follow me @WishfulWaufa. Would love to hear some feedback as well - please comment below! 

"Glory to Allah" Bird Feeder Craft - 30 Day Craft Challenge

"Glory to Allah" Bird Feeder Craft 
Being Kind to Animals

Salam and congrats on making it to Day 5 of our crafting challenge! Today's craft is sure to spark excitement in your children's eyes. As always, we will be keeping the craft super easy and using items that can be found around your home. In addition to the craft, you will have the opportunity to teach your children how important it is to show kindness to all creatures of Allah (swt), including animals. I was lucky enough to have a book as a reference to further enhance this lesson. We read the book called, "Being Kind to Animals", by my cousin, the talented, Samira Zaidi Rizvi. If you wish to purchase this book, click here. 

We were able to extend our lesson by adorning our bird feeders with the phrases, SubhanAllah, Alhumdulillah, and Allahu Akbar, in Arabic and English text. We talked about how the animals are constantly praising Allah (swt) in their own way. One way of us praising our Lord, is appreciating His beautiful creations, such as the birds with their lovely chirping, and flowers with their vibrant colours and enchanting scents. 

You are free to paint, decorate and create your bird feeder as you wish - the most important part of this activity was the lesson it carries. We found this activity to be short and sweet - took about 30-45 minutes. If you do this activity, please send me a picture through DM on Instagram @WishfulWaufa. 

Materials

• Empty juice/milk carton or small sized cardboard box
• Wooden skewer/wooden spool or plastic straw
• Paint or construction paper to cover the carton/box
• Printouts of the words, SubhanAllah, Alhumdulillah, Allahu Akbar (download)
• Bird seed mix (we made our own with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts and raisins)
• Sharpie
• Scissors
• Tape 
• Glue
• Yarn or string to hang the feeder
• Optional: colouring utensils or stickers to decorate

Steps:

1. Use Sharpie to draw the shape you desire for the opening of the bird feeder (see picture) on two ends of the box/carton
2. Cut them out with scissors
3. Using your scissors, make a small poke in the box below the shape you just cut out, and slide the wooden skewer through to the other side
4. Now it's time to decorate your bird feeder. We covered it in construction paper by taping. However, this isn't ideal for all types of weather. You can also paint it and it would withstand more harsh weather. It was rainy today, so I brought our bird feeder inside for the night. 
5. Once the box is covered, you can glue on the phrases of praise. We put Allahu Akbar on one, SubhanAllah and Alhamdulillah on the other. 
6. In order to decorate the bird feeder, we used glitter adhesive paper to put borders around our phrases of praise. 
7. Through the opening on top, we carefully poured in our bird feed mix.
8. Now it's time to use string or yarn to allow our bird feeders to hang. Poke holes through the top part of the box, insert string through those holes on both ends of the box, similar to what we did with the wooden skewers. Tie a knot so that you are able to hang the feeder. 
9. Go ahead and hang the feeder outside! 

These are most of the supplies for today, also need glue!

This is the shape we wanted for the opening

Use scissors to cut it out

Paint or cover the box in paper, be sure not to cover the opening!

Poke a hole with scissors and slide the wooden skewer through

Glue the words of praise on to the box

Decorate as you please

Notice the book in the back!

Carefully pour in the bird seed. We added about 1/2 cup of it.

Poke holes at the top for the string and slide the string through on each side

Hang outside!

We chose to hang ours on a tree

It started to rain so we brought it inside. Will hang it again tomorrow! Hopefully we can get a picture of a bird too!

Thank you so much for joining us again today. I hope you are enjoying the activities so far. Please leave some feedback below. Also, don't forget to subscribe by changing your view to Web Version. See you again tomorrow!

My Prayer Tracker Craft - 30 Day Craft Challenge

My Daily Prayer Tracker Craft
With Free Downloadable Printout
(Click Here to Download)

Salam and welcome to Day 4 of our Ramadan Craft Journey. I've realized that the kids are a bit more appreciative of crafts that have a practical use. After making this type of craft they have a sense of accomplishment. Today's craft certainly meets that goal. After making the Prayer Tracker, our kids will be able to see how satisfying it is to set out a goal and accomplish it through out the day. I've also incorporated some other important lessons in this craft, such as the Sun's daily journey across the sky and learning the names of our daily prayers in both Arabic and English Text. 

My kids are still a bit young but it's nice to incorporate timeliness at a young and impressionable age. In this craft, children slide beads/pasta along as they complete their daily prayers. As a parent you can also reward your children for being able to take all of their beads across at the end of the day.

As with all of the crafts that I've been posting, you may make adjustments and inclusions based on your ease, and what items you have on hand. For example, I would have liked to place our Prayer Tracker in a photo frame (after removing the glass cover). I just haven't been able to get out much these days! Take a look at the crafting process below and please comment as well! 

Materials

• Free Printout (link is above) - works best with thick paper such as card stock
• Scissors
• Heavy duty tape such as packing tape
• Sharpie
• Wooden Skewer
• Beads or Pasta (something that can slide such as penne)
• A cardboard panel to hold up your tracker (if you aren't able to get a frame)
• Optional: Colouring utensils and stickers to beautify the tracker!

Steps

1. After printing the Salaat Tracker, cut along the dotted lines on each side of the horizontal line
2. Insert the wooden skewer on one end of the line and insert 5 beads/pasta on the other side
3. Insert the other side of the skewer through the other cut
4. Use the strong tape to hold the skewer in place from behind
5. If possible, label beads or pasta with letter corresponding to the Salaat (F,D,A,MI)
6. You may also label the rakat count on the corresponding bead (see below)
7. Now is a good time to talk about the journey of the Sun through the sky as the day progresses
8. We made pictures to reflect this journey, you may also use stickers to show the presence of the Sun vs. Moon
9. Optional: Colour or shade in the rectangles
10. If you don't have a picture frame, tape the cardboard panel to the back of the tracker. To do this, bend the top of the panel and tape it both front and back (see image)
11. Lift it up the tracker and allow it to stand 
12. Your child can now slide the beads across! 
13. Tip: if the illustrations of the Sun are a bit faded, feel free to trace with a black pen to increase visibility!

Take a look at the supplies

Cut the two dotted lines and insert one side of the skewer

You may have to trim the skewer in order to fit the length of the paper

Insert Beads

Alternatively: insert pasta

Tape skewers in place, you may want to tape a few times to secure it

We wrote the letter corresponding to the Salaat on each bead

Then we wrote the number of Rakaats to perform on another side 

Be sure to secure your cardboard panel

On the inside as well

Hadi wanted to use gemstone stickers to show the journey of the Sun

Standing nice and tall to display our progress!

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My Prayer Cloud - 30 Day Craft Challenge

My Prayer Cloud Craft

Salam crafting community! Given the current worldwide situation - I thought it was important to incorporate prayers in our daily routine with the kids. However, whenever we raise our hands for Dua, the kids are often blanked out. This is why I decided to make a "Prayer Cloud" with them. This way, every time they begin to pray, they can refer to their cloud, and look at the pictures and words that will remind them of who and what to pray for. 

With this craft, the kids brainstorm everyone, and everything that they wish to pray for. "Time for Namaz/Salaat, Hadi"!. "Wait Mama, let me grab my Prayer Cloud"! They can use it as a reference for as long as they please!

Making this idea into a craft was extremely fulfilling and had an immediate visible impact on my children. I hope it will be the same for you!

Materials

• Cloud Cut-Out on white paper (I like using thick Cardstock paper for crafts)
• Scissors
• Glue - we used white school glue
• Markers or any colouring utensils
• Cotton balls (we didn't have any so I cut cotton pads into small pieces)
• Pompoms to add colour

Steps

1. Cut out the shape of a cloud on your white paper. I didn't use a template, I just free-handed it
2. Draw a border about 5cm around the cloud with a marker, make sure the drawings don't cross into the border
3. Hand out the cloud to each child, and sit with them and brainstorm all the people and things that they would like to pray for. They can write words or make drawings depending on their preference.
4. Once the drawings are complete, use the school glue to stick on the cotton swabs and pompoms. These give your craft a fun cloud effect. 
5. Set your craft aside and allow to dry for 30 minutes. Our cotton and pompoms stuck on very nicely!
6. Have on hand for prayer time!

Here's the supply list

Draw a clear border like this

Let the kids get creative!

Of course, Hadi's dad is the first person he wants to pray for.

Lot's to pray for

For drawings that aren't clear, help label so that we remember what they are

Thanks for viewing! Please comment below.