Umm K’s Ramadan Lapbook

My friend, Umm K,  has made this beautiful Ramadan lapbook. All handmade, lots of detail and no printouts!

At the top of the picture there is a mini book of facts relating to Ramadan. The booklet opens out as plain papers with information written inside, see below. The page photographed contains verses from Surah Alaq.  The following verse is also included:

“Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you asit was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al- Muttaqoon (the pious)” 2:183

Lots of different information on Ramadan could be included in here.

Below the facts mini book Umm K has sewn a felt pocket, inside which there are two minibooks of dos and don’ts. Actions to be encouraged in Ramadan, such as reciting more Quran and giving saqaqah, are inside the circular minibook marked with a tick (or check), and actions to be avoided, such as lying, backbiting are inside the book with the cross.

On the other side from the covers are the mini books of a few stapled pages.

The last mini book on this side of the lapbook is a three page layer book on information relating to Taraweeh, Laylatul Qadr and duas. I really like all the decorative touches, maashAllah.

On the left half of the lapbook there is an extension page. When folded in the extension page has a checklist for daily ibaadah, including  completing of all prayers, Quran memorisation, recitation and study of  tafsir, and a selection of good deeds; smile at a Muslim, give a present or food, gain knowledge of Islam, go to meet another Muslim, visit an ill person.

These are suggestions, the checklist can be tailored to suit the individual using it.

The checklist is on a piece of A4, folded in thirds, business letter style. Inside is space for making notes on achievements and goals for Ramadan, maybe prayer times, notes on dhikr, whatever you choose. The checklist is supposed to be used as a tool for a Ramadan active with ibaadah, inshAllah.

When the extension page is folded out, on the other side of the checklist is a calendar for the month, to be used along with the checklist, inshAllah.

The other two mini books in this section are the “Rules for Fasting ” mini book and “Targets in Ramadan” secret book.

The photo above shows the minibook and the decorative pocket which it slots into. The booklet is simply papers folded and stapled together, with the verse from Surah Al-Asr and decoration on the front.( Click on the photo to enlarge it.). Inside the pages are left blank, to be filled in with personal targets for Ramadanand other journaling.

The booklet fits into the decorated pocket for storage. The simple decorative touches with the coloured markers make it look special, maashAllah.

The last mini book is the one on rules for fasting.

The cover is made from card.

Inside, the booklet is divided into sections, with little tabs made by sticking pieces of coloured paper onto the pages, marking the sections.

After the verse on the opening page:

“Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was sent down as a guide to humanity also clear signs for guidance and judgement between right and wrong.” 2:185

There are sections on what is permitted while fasting (using miswak, swallowing own saliva etc), what invalidates the fast (deliberate eating or drinking etc) and lastly, a list of those exempted from fasting, (the sick, the traveller etc.) The level of detail in this section can be expanded the older the learner is.

I really like the way Umm K turned this lapbook into a really personal and active learning tool, with the inclusion of the checklist and journal. It is good for young learners trying out fasting, and also great for young people experiencing their first compulsory Ramadan.

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Book Review Lapbook

Lapbooks are so versatile! Have you thought of using a lapbook to present a book review? In this example a friend’s younger brother made a lapbook about a book that he enjoyed reading.

There are lots of things you can do with this

– Write about a favourite or important character.

– Write about the story setting.

– Write a summary of the story, you could do this in comic strip form inside an accordian book.

– Write themed vocabulary lists.For example this book was about robots, so make a robot words list.

– Write about what you liked or disliked about the story.

Use lots of drawings, colours and shapes associated with the story. Even deciding what pictures to include is part of the book review process, recalling the places, characters and objects from the story. In this lapbook there were stars, a telescope and a silvery planet to illustrate.

This type of lapbook project is great for a child to do all by himself, as the only reference source required is a book of his choice. Something different for the summer maybe! InshAllah.

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Prophet Dawud (as) lapbook

I think that the study of Prophet Dawud (as) is well suited to a lapbook because there is relatively little information on this Prophet, and what there is consists mainly of short facts.

My sons completed this lapbook study over three days.

The picture shows two lapbooks, one for each son.

These were the sections:

The central piece of writing is an account of how Dawud(as) killed Jalut in a battle, as described in Surah Baqarah:251.

Below that, also in the centre is a simple folded book about the fasting and prayer of Dawud (as), based on the Hadith in Bukhari 3420, ” The most loved salah (prayer) in the sight of Allah is the salah of Dawud and the most loved saum (fasting) in the sight of Allah is the saum of Dawud. He used to sleep for the first half of the night and offer prayer for one third of it and sleep again for one sixth of it. And he used to observe fast on alternate days. And when he encountered an enemy he never fled.”

Next to this section is a book outline shape about the Zabur.  On it is written, “We surely made some prophets better than others, and We gave Dawud a Zabur (or book)”  Quran,17:55

On the top right is a simple folded book with a mountain picture on it.

Inside is written a few sentences about the sweet voice that Allah (swt) gave Dawud (as), and how when he recited the birds and mountains would glorify Allah with him.  Also: ” And we subjected the mountains to glorify (Us) along with Dawud, and (also) the birds….” Quran 21:79

Below that is a hand shaped section with the following hadith written on it, “The best (food) man eats is that (he eats)out of his earnings and the Prophet of Allah, Dawud ate from what he earned with his hands” Abu Dawud , 3528.

On the left of the lapbook, the top section is a simple folded book with a balance scale on the front. Inside are a few sentences about the kingdom and authority given to Dawud (as) and about his judgements between the people, such as mentioned in Surah Sad:24.

Lastly is a mini book with a picture of chain mail,

Inside is written a sentence describing how Dawud (as) was the first to make chain mail. Also: ” And We softened for him iron, (saying) “make wide coats of mail, and measure well the links and do righteous deeds. Surely I am seer of what you do.” Quran 34:11

I sincerely hope the above information is authentic and correct. Any mistakes are my own fault.

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Knowing Allah Lapbook

For this lapbook with my ten year olds I thought that I would try something different. I wanted to see if a lapbook could be combined with a textbook study. Notes or answers from a book study could easily be jotted in an exercise book, but would they ever be referred to again? So, I decided to try making notes into a lapbook! This is similar to the Hands of a Child lapbook approach where the information for completing activities is contained in the study guide. For this lapbook the study guide was this book:

This is what we did with it:

My sons are not that interested in decoration and presentation, so we used different colours of card to make the lapbook look more interesting. We used templates and simple flip flap style books and layer books.

Basically we studied the book, chapter by chapter and after each section we would make a lapbook mini book highlighting the key information. The sections were:

Some of the names of Allah

Some of Allah’s qualities

Qualities with bodily names

Understanding Allah’s qualities

Seeing Allah, the difference between this life and the next

Summary of the Pillars of Emaan

Where is Allah?

This is a simple greetings card fold, with lots of small ones inside with the names written on them. We chose a selection of the names listed in the book.

For each section the boys simply copied out key information from the textbook. I made use of the lapbook templates from Homeschool Share.

For a flip flap book, such as above we would write a statement on one side of the card and the evidence from the Quran or hadith on the other side.

I will not describe the details of each minibook because in order to get the details correct on this type of topic reference needs to be made to Al-Jibaly’s text, or another similar book. This style of lapbook could easily be applied to any textbook study, and could be a way of making textbook study more interesting.

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Reflection Lapbook

I did a practical project on reflection with my daughters, and gathered together whatever could be done on paper into a lapbook. The following pictures are from my 6 year old’s lapbook.

The hama bead butterfly sticks down easily using ordinary PVA glue.

These are the activities I could include in the lapbook:

worksheets from Enchanted Learning on completing a symmetrical drawing, and identifying symmetrical flags, another sheet on completing shapes

colouring a butterfly

making a hama bead butterfly

cutting out shapes from folded squares of paper and marking the “mirror line”

making fold over reflection paintings

These are activities we also did as part of the project but which could not be included in the lapbook:

Using a mirror to examine pictures and things to see how reflection works

Building models from bricks to create balanced and unbalanced shapes.

Using a pegboard to make reflections. (Put an elastic band around the middle of the board, make a design on one side, then reflect it on the other.)

“These shapes have a mirror line”. We drew a line down the fold to make it stand out.

To arrange the paintings I stuck the one underneath completely to the folder. The others I layered over each other, only sticking them by a strip at the top.

Two of the worksheets I folded and stuck inside the lapbook, the third one I just stuck on the back cover.

This is a really easy and relaxing lapbook to try!

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Gifts From Allah Lapbook

This lapbook is based around one very simple concept, that we have so many gifts from Allah that it is impossible to list them all, and that we need to be grateful to Allah (swt) for all the blessings we have.

On the lapbook cover “And if you try to list Allah’s favors, you will never be able to count them all.” Quran 14:34

There are many, many ideas that could be included in this lapbook. We did mini books to illustrate a few ideas and then decorated the lapbook to illustrate others. Once you start to discuss and think about all the gifts that Allah (swt) bestows on us, the children themselves will come up with lots of suggestions, inshAllah.

To illustrate and strengthen understanding of blessings from Allah I used some old lesson plans, written some years ago by another friend.

For example, whenthinking about our hands as a blessing from Allah I began the session by putting thick mittens on the girls’ hands, then asking them to perform tasks such as picking upsmall objects, putting on and fastening their coats and shoes, etc. Of course they found this impossible, and they could then begin to realise how important agift our hands are to us, and then be thankful forthem.

when thinking about our tongues, I asked them to try to say certain words and sentences withoutmoving their tongues at all. I asked them to say words such as “little” without letting their tongues touch their teeth. Through these activities they came to realise the importance of the tongue for speech.

similarly when learning about the eyes, I blindfolded the girls and asked them to perform certain tasks, such as reading, and recognising a person without touching or hearing them. These kinds of activities can be extended to include any other parts of the body you wouldlike to study, legs, lungs, ears etc.

Each time I got the girls to think of a list of things theywould not be able to do without their hands, eyes etc.

The tongue shape lifts up!

I did not only want to focus on parts of the body however. We chose to also domini books about water, and the seasons. When learning about water we thought about all the uses for water that we have, and how much we need it every day, indeed , how all living things need water to live. The study of water could be a whole otherproject, so we could only cover it briefly here.

We wrote about wateron the back of a droplet shape.

My daughter also wanted to draw about the seasons. She especially wanted to draw about ice creams, to represent the summer!

We also made lists of gifts from Allah to stick into the lapbook. Some of the gifts from Allah are not easy to illustrate!

Our list: my body, my health, my family, my friends, the Muslim Ummah, my Islamic belief, fresh air, sunlight, food, night and day.

For each of these we were able to discuss what these meant to us.

When my friend wrote lesson plans around this topic she extended it to cover some of the amazing attributes that Allah (swt) has given to His creation in the animal kingdom, for example the ability of some ants to always find their way back home, the long distance flights of the albatross, and the ability of the camel to go for days in the desert without water. I felt that this was too much for this lapbook, indeed the topic deserves a lapbook of its own. Maybe I’ll make one, inshAllah!

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Zakat Lapbook Project

This lapbook was devised from a series of lesson plans written several years ago by a friend. I have included the plans more or less as they were written, as they form a good discussion base. They are written with a group of children in mind, but are easily adapted for use with one child. When role plays are called for, the parent can take a role, and even soft toys can be used to play the parts of other people!

Following the plan for our project, we began by thinking about the real necessities for our lives, how money is required, and how zakat is used to help the poorest in society meet their basic needs.

ZAKAT

Part 1

Aim: To establish that there are basic essentials in life that we all need.

Lesson 1

Aim: To establish that we need food to prevent hunger.

 

Begin by asking the children what they had for breakfast. Did anyone have nothing for breakfast? How would you feel now if you had had nothing for breakfast?

Look in your lunchboxes. Talk about what you have. Use one child’s lunchbox as an example. Take out one small item, such as a grape. Close the box and ask the children to imagine that today that is all they would get for lunch. Talk about this. How do they feel when they are hungry?

1. Draw stick men pictures and label them to show how we feel when we are hungry. (tummy ache, tired, cross, sick, headache, dizzy) 
2.  Ask them if it is nice or good to feel hungry. Ask them what they need to do when they feel hungry. Get out a small snack. What do we say before we eat? We remember Allah because Allah provides us with food. Give each child a snack and say bismillah together. Say alhamdulillah together after eating the snack.

 3. Show the children a selection of pictures of foods. Ask each child to select what he would like to have and why. Then show the children half a crust of plain bread and say that that you have not got any of the foods in the picture, you only have the crust. Discuss their response.

 

4. Ask them if we need food. Why? How would it be if you had no food?

Explain that some people have very little food.

 Ask where our food comes from. It is given to us by Allah.

 

5. Display various pictures of foods. The children make pictures of foods they like by drawing or collage. Write “Alhamdulillah”.

 

  

Lesson 2

Aim : Establish that we need homes to protect us.

 

Begin by reminding the children about the last lesson. Elicit that we need food. Say that today we will talk about something else that we need. Ask the children where they live and ask them to describe their home. What do they like about their home?

When it is rainy/ cold/ windy/ snowy outside how does it feel inside your home? If you had no home and had to sleep outside what would happen to you?

Show the children pictures of homes around the world. Discuss how those homes suit their climate. Ask who provides us with our homes. Elicit that Allah provides us with everything, including our homes.

 

1. The children draw pictures of their homes with a weather background showing a wet or cold day or night. Write “Al hamdulillah”. When each child has finished he can display his work and explain that Allah has provided him with his home to protect him from the weather, (and any other reasons that the child may have thought of). Weather reasons are focused on here in order not to cause the children to worry about dangers outside the home. These things can be discussed if the children mention them first.
2. Explain that some people do not have homes. Why? People usually have to pay rent or pay to buy a home and some people do not have the money for that. This may be a difficult concept to put across as the children may find it hard to imagine that a home has to be paid for as they will not have witnessed a cash transaction being made for it. They may have lived in their home for as long as they can remember and just feel it to be naturally theirs. It may be especially shocking for them to realize that their home actually belongs to someone else; the landlord.
3. Using Lego or other building materials ask the children to build little houses. Give the houses to one child and explain that he owns all the houses but he would like other people to pay him and live there as he does not need them all himself.
4. Say that each house costs  100 per month. Give each child a piece of paper with a number on it to show how much they can pay each month. Some have enough, others do not. The children role  play asking to live in a house and being accepted or refused. Those who are accepted are given a model house.
5. Discuss the outcome of the role play. Encourage the children to think about the problem of not being able to afford a home. Again thank Allah for the homes we have.

Lesson 3

Aim: Establish that we need clothes to protect and cover us.

 

Begin by reminding the children about the last lessons. Elicit that we need food and housing. Explain that today we will talk about something else that we need.

Remark on the weather today. How does it feel? Discuss the clothes that the children are wearing or would need to wear if they were going outside. Relate the clothing worn to the weather.

Show the children a picture of  hot places and cold places. Using a few items of clothing ask them which clothing they would need for each place. You could use a winter coat, a jubba, a sun hat etc. Discuss the possible outcomes of wearing the wrong clothes.

1. Draw pictures of clothing worn on hot or cold days and label.
2. Ask the children to imagine only having canvas shoes to wear on a wet day, or only having short sleeved clothes in winter. Talk about how this would feel.

Establish that we need clothes to protect us.

 

Then move on to the concept of clothes covering us.

 

The last part of Ummahmoud’s lesson plan involved a role play. This can’t appear in a lapbook of course, but it is still part of the project.

Begin by discussing briefly what zakat is, who gives it and that the poor have a right to part of the wealth of the rich.

Then discuss the essentials required for living (food, housing, clothes). The children need to be reminded of these.

1. Each child is  given some money and is asked to allocate some of it for spending on food, some for housing and some for clothes. The rest they put aside as saving. From the saving they then role play giving some money to someone assigned as the poor person.
2. Divide the class into two groups. Half are to role play rich people, and are given some money. The others are to role play poor people. One poor person is without food, another without a home and another without adequate clothing. The children role play, the rich person approaching the poor and discussing his needs with him and then giving him some money.

At this stage the children are being introduced to the act of giving and do not need to know that zakat should be organized by the state. They are also not old enough to understand the calculation for zakat.

 

For other parts of the lapbook I cut out bits of other resources I had. Unfortunately I do not know where some of these originally came from. If you recognise anything here, let me know in the comments, so that I can acknowledge the producers.

The resources consist of simple drawings and text, which can easily be hand replicated.

The booklet at the bottom of the picture has three pages, with text reading “Allah has given some of us a lot of wealth”, “He has given some of us less” and “Some of us have very little”.

While making this booklet you can discuss with your child how wealth is a responsibility and a test, and that Allah wants us to share whatever we have with those less fortunate.

The booklet above illustrates zakat as the 3rd pillar of Islam. The other flaps fold down on top of each other.

Above is a simple cloze exercise, explaining zakat, and then a further explanation written under a label of Zakat written in Arabic.

 

Above, overview of the lapbook.

Below, the front cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Symmetry Lapbook

A lapbook does not have to be a long project. A lapbook can be assembled in a day or two, as a mini project. In this example a friend of mine wanted to introduce symmetry to her daughter, mainly through the use of drawings. Early study of symmetry usually involves lots of artwork, for example mirror painting (where a picture is painted on one side of the paper, then the paper is folded to print on the other half), or paper cut outs (where shapes are cut from a  folded paper , then the paper is opened out again). These activities are great fun to do, but at the end you have a collection of papers which can easily get lost or jumbled up. A lapbook is a good way to pull all these examples together, and store them so that they can retain their meaning. 

The word “symmetry” is not symmetrical, as illustrated above!

This lapbook comprises several sections.

Examples of symmetrical shapes with the line of symmetry marked.

Examples of non-symmetrical shapes, with lines drawn as suggested “mirror lines” where the child was asked to place a mirror to check for symmetry.

Mini fold with symmetry information.

Symmetrical pattern made from cut outs.

Cut out shapes, some folded, with symmetry lines marked where approriate.

The colouring on the top left shape is clearly not symmetrical (someone got carried away with the felt tips) – but you get the idea!

The writing says “If you put a mirror in the middle of the shapes you will see if the shapes look the same on both sides or if  they look different.”

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Literacy Lapbook, About Me

This is a short, simple lapbook designed to encourage early writing. My daughter is at the beginning of learning to write sentences independently and in this project I asked her to write without copying. She wrote out a draft version first, so the final version you see here has been corrected and rewritten.

The first section we made was this flip flap book, containing one simple sentence under each flap. My daughter had to think up the sentences she would write about herself.

Inside this heart shape I asked my daughter to write about things she likes. Simple as that! She wrote, “I like rabbits, I like to play in the snow and I like pink.”

For this “I am a Muslim” section I used cut outs from an Islamic studies workbook. I wanted to include information which relates to a young child’s understanding of what it means to be a Muslim.

Continuing with the same simple idea we made simple greetings card style folds and my daughter wrote a few sentences to describe her home and then her bedroom.

For this layer style book we did some measuring and weighing! Practising writing numbers and units of measure such as cm and kg.

We also made a section on “My Family”, using a family tree style diagram. To avoid drawing pictures of family members I asked my daughter to draw pictures of things to represent each person, for example she drew footballs and cricket bats to represent her brothers and a pile of books to represent her little sister.

For more ideas on how to make various booklets for a lapbook, including the layer style book, enter “lapbook lessons” in the You Tube search box, which leads you to lots of tutorials on how to fold different books.

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Prophet Yusuf (as) Lapbook

This is a lapbook I made with my sons last year, when they were aged 9.

After we had read through the story of Yusuf (as) we selected the following areas for the lapbook:

Layer book on Yusuf’s (as) family, (Ishaq (as), Ibrahim (as), Yaqub (as), Binyamin and the ten half brothers. We simply described the relationship between these family members.

Map of Canaan and Egypt in the time of Yusuf (as). We drew this map from “Atlas of Quran” (published by Darussalam). It shows the lands where Yusuf (as) lived.

Binjamin and the Golden Cup. Writing about this part of the story in a cup shape book.

Yusuf (as)’s garments. Writing about the blood stained shirt, and the shirt which Yaqub (as) placed on his face and his eyesight was returned.

The Well. Writing about the throwing of Yusuf (as) into the well, and what happened next.

Dreams. Here we used an envelope style fold, forming four sections. The four dreams (Yusuf’s childhood dream, the King’s dream, the cupbearer’s dream and the baker’s dream) were each written about in their own section.

Yusuf  (as) in Egypt. Brief, point style notes on the events in Egypt. (Link takes you to the beginning of this only.)

In the “bubbles” on the lower left of the lapbook there is writing about lessons which can be learned from the story of Yusuf (as). (Always obey Allah, patience, forgiveness, hardship is followed by ease for the believers).

 

The story of Yusuf (as) is long and detailed. In this lapbook we focussed in on certain aspects of the history, not expecting to be able to cover everything. There is still lots of writing in this lapbook!

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