A nice cup of Talbina, reviving the Sunnah and a Hajj project

Assalamu alaykum,

pray you are all well and in increasing Iman in this very special Month of Dhul Hijjah.

The last few days have been pretty productive for the kids as well as for me.

This year the Month of Hajj is extra special as we have a close family member who left for the pilgrimage and a couple of dear sisters. May Allah accept their hajj. Amin.

I took out the Hajj books we had since years and decided to let the kids choose a project to make for Hajj.

They opted for the Kab'ah made out of cardboard and tissue paper. They also wrote their impressions about Hajj in their little 'diaries'. The diaries was an idea I introduced sometime ago for the kids to record their outings and also to jot down impressions, ideas, suggestions and generally anything to do with their daily activities.

So far they have been very useful.

Back to the Hajj project, we used various websites for the kids to see real pictures of the Kab'ah, Hajj, Marwa and Safa, the stoning at the Jamarat and the black stone. One for all is Virtual Hajj

The kids dressed up with an ihram and circumbulate the Kab'ah they made in cardboard repeating the words of Talbiyah. I used tow white bed sheets (single) for them to wear.

It was funny to see them but a good educational tool as they have learnt the words of Talbiyah and in a way felt a tiny little bit about being pilgrims. Mash'Allah!

We carried on with Calvert and Schofiled and Simms. S can now read most of the words I gave him and he can enjoying books at level 1 and 2. We tried level 3 but it's still too advanced. Insh'Allah soon. A is slowly going with Calvert. It's more to do with me than him.

I am using all my will to carry on with Calvert but it's so hard at the moment. We just turned lesson 74 and 6 more to go before Test lesson 80. Insh'Allah soon.

Calvert teacher is very happy with A progress and said that he is more advanced in his work for the 2nd grade. Mash'Allah!

Kids started with their new Qur'an teacher. They have just done 2 lessons and we are really at the very beginning with this new teacher. I will update when I have more details.

On Friday, as promised I took the kids for a day out. I'd like to make Friday a special one for my kids and we thought (with another sister) to take our kids to Discover. Pics to follow.

The past Sunday has been a very special one for me. I finally got around to learn something I wanted to since 2006: Hijjama or cupping.

I attended a 6 hours course in East London. In the past I studied other remedies such as aromatherapy and herbalism. But I always wished to learn something from the Sunnah and to revive one of the Sunnah is such a blessing and so rewarding!

Within the 6 hours course, we learnt lots of theory related to the 3 types of cupping:

-dry cupping;

-massage cupping;

-blood letting cupping or wet cupping.

Much of the time was spent to learn about safety and hygiene. We then finally got to practice what we learnt on one another starting with dry cupping, massage cupping and after wet cupping.

We used two different pumps (one for wet cupping and one for dry/massage) and different cups (cheap ones for wet cupping and good hard ones for dry/massage cupping). We also were encouraged to use disposable gloves, aprons and mask.

During this very day we learnt about other remedies from the Sunnah such as ithmid or khol, black seeds oil (nigella sativa) and Talbina (wholegrain barley flour) which I am drinking now with hot water and honey! Yum!! I will write down more about hijjama and Talbina later insh'Allah. I have already practiced on a sister and my dh was the next 'victim', lol!

And now for the pics!

Talbina

Talbina cooked ready to be drink!

Discover- winter scene.
S colouring a big poster in Discover
A is colouring too.
Discover

Some more from Discover

Discover, reading area.

A Puppet show. S2 is enjoying watching.

One of the book we used for the project