November Unit: Animals in Winter, Hibernation and Seerah (Part 3)

The third component of this month was Islamic Studies, which is further divided into 3 categories, each tying in with the other.

• Name of Allah: Al Hafidh
• Akhlaq of the Month: Cleanliness
• Prophet of the Month: Prophet Muhammad SAWS’s early childhood
• Islamic month: Rabaul Awwal

Name of Allah: Name of Allah: Al Hafidh – The Protector. 

Meaning: He is the One who protects the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, records the deeds of His slaves and protects the believers from danger and Satan, and from committing sins.

Occurrence: Al-Haa dh: 3 times; Al-Hafeedh: 3 times.

Evidence: “Allah is the Best Guardian.” (Surat Yusuf: 12:64); “My Lord is guardian over all things.”(Surat Hud: 11:57)

This name ties in with seerah as we are focusing on Prophet’s childhood. Each of Prophet SAWS’s caretaker passed away one by one, he was taken care of by Allah. He was under Allah;s constant care.

Craft: take a light coloured construction paper and write the name al-hafeez on it with white crayon so that its not very prominent. Tell the children to use a dark coloured pencil and colour over it, so that it becomes more obvious. Explain the idea that Allah is always watching over us and protecting us from harm.

Akhlaq of the month: C is for Cleanliness 

Hadith: Cleanliness is Half of Imaan

Book: 30 Hadith for Kids by Zanib Mian

Talk about spiritual heart – how it grows when we do good things. 

Craft: Cut out a heart and explain the concept of whole and half by folding the heart in half. Draw 3 things that makes the spiritual heart grow. (Cleaning up room, finishing up your plate, sharing toys, smiling at someone) (Javeria’s idea)

Prophet of Allah: Prophet SAWS – Year of Elephants and Prophet’s Early childhood

• Books: Goodnight stories from the life of Prophet SAWS (Goodword Kids)
• Life of the Prophet SAWS for children by Goodword kids 
• Story of the Elephants by shade 7
• My First Quran with Pictures: Juz’ Amma Part 1 for explanation of Surah Feel

Dua: Durood and its importance. Short durood from Hisn ul Muslim so kids can memorize it easily. Also mention that it should be read 10 times in the morning and evening. Print out the durood in a shape of cloud and paste it on blue construction paper. Let the children 10x to remember that they have to read this 10 times in the morning and evening.

Craft: Cotton pad sheep craft to represent Prophet’s role as a shepherd. (Javeria’s Idea)

Qualities of the Prophet: Mention one quality of Prophet SAWS and stick a cloud cut up of glitter or simple foam stickers, so each time they look at a cloud, they remember the qualities of Prophet SAWS (Javeria’s Idea)

Islamic Month: Rabbiul Awal

A little history: Prophet SAWS was born in the year of Elephants in 571 AD. The book Story of Elephants is a beautiful pop-up book that explains the history in a very child friendly way. Mention that the Prophet SAWS was born this month. He also passed away in Rabiul Awal. We do not celebrate the Prophet’s birthday because he never did, his wives did not do it, nor did any of his companions, during his life or after his death. They expressed their love to him by following his sunnah and by following the commandments of the Quran.

Craft: We sewed an Elephant using felt and stuffed it with cotton balls. (Courtesy to Javeria whose brilliant idea it was and provided us with the elephant cut out)

FREE LESSON PLAN

Here is the free Lesson plan in pdf format for the month of November. I hope you benefit from it inshaAllah.

And that’s a wrap for the month of November. The month of December will not be as structured as this one because of the holidays, but we will try to get something done. I will be sharing that in the next post inshAllah.