I have been having a very hard time finding Arab or Islamic crafts for my daughters (ages 9, 8 and 4) to do. So I asked them if they would like to invent our own crafts for the month of Ramadan.
The days are long in the summer and it's good to keep busy doing something other then thinking about food. They were very excited by the idea and we headed for the library to do some research. Of course there were no Arab, Islamic or Ramadan craft books, except for the occasional book on how to make an Egyptian mummy.
But instead of being sour lemons, we decided to make lemonade!
We took a stack of books home (21 in all) that looked like they have the most potential. I'm also a big fan of FamilyFun magazine and we did some reading from my collection of the past three years. I gave them post it notes, which they tore in stripes and used them as place marks for the crafts they wanted to do.
There were more crafts then days, so they had to decide together which ones to eliminate and which ones to keep. It was so great to see them spend some family time together, talking it all out.
The first step was for them to create a calendar for the whole month, which I did very easily using Excel. Once I gave them the calendar, they wrote down the craft, the book it was in and the page number where they found it.
They picked some silly things to do that were not very Arab, Islamic or Ramadany, but I let them pass, since it might be fun to take a break every once in awhile. And really, isn't it important to also create some games to pass the time?
They also decided to take Fridays off from crafting and have a Free Day. I was very proud of their selections and decisions for the 30 crafts.
For each craft, we will have a supply list, take photos of the supplies and show the process step by step. This will make it very easy for you and your children to follow along with us.
It will look very similar to the Crescent Moon & Star Yarn Window Art Ornaments we made last April.
So get your glue guns and googly eyes ready and let's have some fun crafting, inshall'Allah!