Story of the Elephant

Read: The Story of the Elephant: Surah Al-Fil (Quranic Pop Up Book)

Activity: My Qur'an Story Pop Up Book
Have children create their own A4 folded card pop up books. The cover page can be decorated with the title and Surah chapter reference. The scene together with the elephant play pieces can be used by the children to retell the story in their own words.

Activity: Elephant Blowers

Lesson: God is Most Powerful

Extension Activity:
Imagine you are a reporter for a local newspaper in Makkah in 570 and have been asked to cover the attack of the Ka’ba as it unfolds. Write an account with a headline and descriptive witness statements.

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Quran Word A Day: Naml/Ant

Learning Objective:
- To learn about the story of the ants and Prophet Sulayman (as)
- To appreciate the amazing creation of the ants
- To take away a lesson from their lives 

Qur'an Word: 
Naml - Ant

Qur'an Verse: 
Until when they came to the valley of the Naml, a Namlite said: O Naml! enter your houses, (that) Sulaiman and his hosts may not crush you while they do not know. 27:18

What we can learn from the ants:
Ants are incredibly hard workers and excellent at sharing! If they find some food, they immediately pass the message onto others by leaving behind a special smelly trail that the other ants can follow. Ants share everything they get. They never eat anything alone. They even have two separate stomachs; one for their own food, and one to store food for others! Now that's a level of sharing we can look up to and try to practice inshAllah.

Books: 
The Army Walks through the Valley

Amr and the Ants

Video Clip: Simple Facts about Amazing Ants

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The Camel: Reflecting on creation

Lesson Title: The Camel; Reflecting on creation

Lesson Objectives:

- To learn the Arabic vocabulary for camel

- Appreciate the design of the camel for the desert

- Know that everything in creation is a sign of Allah

- Understand the importance of spending time to think about the world around us

- To experience ways to slow down and become more aware 

Quran Verse:

Tafukkaroona fi khalqi 3:191

Think about what Allah has Created.

Lesson Introduction:

In the beginning when the Qur’an was revealed, the Prophet (saw) lived among the Arabs in the desert of Makkah and Madinah. Without camels, travel in the desert would be extremely difficult. Camels were the main animals used everyday for riding on and to help carry heavy loads. Camels even gave nutritious milk to drink.

In the Qur’an, Allah tells us to think about the way the camel has been created, (88:17). Allah has especially designed every single part of the camel so that it can live and serve people in the hot desert.

The camel is a sign of Allah. Although we cannot see Allah, we can see signs of His creation all around us. 

Allah tells us in the Qur’an, tafakkaroona fi khalqi, to think about what Allah has Created.

Thinking about the creation, help us appreciate the wonderful world Allah has created and the many blessing He has given us. Thinking about the creation, teaches us about the Creator! It helps us to become close to Allah and makes us realise how incredibly amazing Allah is!

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) in a hadith has taught us that worshiping Allah is not just lots of praying and fasting but it is to always be thinking about Allah. He even tells us that to spend an hour thinking about Allah and His creation is better than 70 years of worship! It shows us how important it is to do what Allah has said and tafakkaroona fi khalqi, to think about what Allah has Created.

Activities:

Camel Factsheet

Breathe!

Mindful Eating: Raisin Experiment

Download complete lesson plan: The Camel; Reflecting On Creation

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Camel Factsheet

Lesson Objectives:

- To learn the Arabic vocabulary for camel

- Appreciate the design of the camel for the desert

Quran Verse:

Tafukkaroona fi khalqi 3:191

Think about what Allah has Created.

Download PDF Camel Factsheet

Download complete lesson plan: The Camel; Reflecting On Creation

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Do Your Best For God!

Lesson Title: Do your best for God!

Lesson Objectives:

- to learn the Arabic vocabulary for Bee

- To learn about the bee and how honey is made

- to understand that Allah taught the bees how to live and make honey

- to appreciate the greatness of the bee and to take lessons from it
- to understand what our job is

Quran Verse:

jahidoo fi sabilihi 5:35

Work hard and do your best for Allah

Lesson Introduction:

The bees work busily to transform the nectar into honey. Each bee has a special job to do. They work together, help each other and share their food.

A small insect like the bee does such an amazing task! In Surah Nahl, the chapter of the bee, Allah tells us that He is the One who taught the bees where to build their hives, how to collect the nectar and how to make honey. 16:68-69

Bees work so hard! They even make more honey than they need so they can share with us!

The honeybees do their best and spend all their time doing the job that Allah has created them for, to make honey. The bees obey Allah.

Allah tells us in the Qur’an ‘jahidoo fi sabilih’, to work hard and do our best for Allah. 

Allah has given us so many blessings and skills. Like the bees, we must always work hard to obey Allah and do our job of becoming the best we can and make Allah happy.

Always Bee your best!

Download complete lesson plan Do your best for God!

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Animals in the Qur'an

The Elephant
Arabic Letter of the Week
Handprint Facts
Story of the Elephant
God is the Most Powerful

Birds
Arabic Letter of the Week
Handprint Facts
Floating Ball Experiment
Birds in Nahjul Balagha

The Bee
Arabic Letter of the Week
Handprint Facts
Do Your Best For God

The Spider
Handprint Facts
The Wonderous Web

The Camel
Handprint Facts
Reflecting on Creation

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God is Most Powerful

Lesson Title: God is The Most Powerful

Lesson Objective:

- To recall the story of Ashabul Feel
- To learn the Quranic vocabulary for elephant and birds
- To understand that Allah has power over everything
- To understand that even though We can not see Allah, we can feel His Power all around us

Quran Verse:
Innallaha 'ala kulli shayin qadeer

Indeed Allah has power over everything 35:1

Lesson Introduction:

Elephants are the largest and strongest land animals in the world. Yet from surah Feel, we learn that birds and tiny stones killed the massive elephants. It shows us that ‘Allah has power over everything.

Allah brings the sun up each day, He makes it rain and snow, Allah can move the heaviest mountain and the biggest sea! Allah is the one who gives power to the wind to blow.

In the Qur’an, Allah tells us to think about these things so that we can understand how Great He is!

Allah asks us, have you seen the birds soaring high above? Who is it that keeps the birds up in the sky? It is Allah, The Most Powerful that holds the birds up in the sky!

Air is invisible but you can feel it when it moves. We can’t see Allah but we know that He is there because of what we see and feel all around us.

Activities:

Animal Handprints

Windmill Craft

Floating Ball Experiment

Birds
The Elephant

Download complete lesson plan God is Most Powerful

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Floating Ball Experiment

Lesson Objective:

- To understand that even though we can not see Allah, we can feel His Power all around us.
- It is the Allah the Most Powerful that keeps the birds up in the sky

Quran Verse:

Allah has power over everything 35:1

Introduction:

In the Qur’an, Allah asks us, have you seen the birds soaring high above? Who is it that keeps the birds up in the sky? It is Allah, The Most Powerful that holds the birds up in the sky!

Activity:

Can you make aball float in mid air?

Hold up a ping pong ball or balloon (add a penny for weight) and watch it drop

The ball needs something powerful to hold it up

Blow a hairdryer on cool setting from beneath the ball and watch it float above!

The power of air helps keep the ball afloat in mid-air.

By itself the ball would fall, but the power of the air gives it strength to keep it from falling.

But who gives power to the air?! Allah is The All Powerful. It is Allah who is in control of everything and has power over everything. Allah is All Powerful, He keep the birds up in the sky!

Air is invisible, yet it can be felt. Allah too is invisible, yet we know He is there because of what we see and feel around us.

Activities:

Birds

Download complete lesson plan God is Most Powerful

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Handprint Animals from the Quran

Learning Objective:
To know the Arabic vocabulary and learn about some of the animals mentioned in the Quran

Activity: Handprint Animals
Use Google images to inspire you with ideas for animal hand print art. You can use paint, adding detail when dry or draw the animal outlines using colour pencils.

Compile the pictures into a special handmade book, labeling the animals with their Arabic vocabulary and adding a few facts.

Download and print Animal Fact Files 
Learn about each animal and what Allah tells us about them in the Quran.

Games
Arabic Letter of the Week

Extended Activity: Quranic Lessons from Animals in the Qur'an

The Elephant and Birds

The Bee

The Spider

The Camel

Resources:
Animal in the Qur'an Snap Cards
To reinforce the Arabic vocabulary, play games like animal snap, pairs and charades.

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Bird: Ta'ir

Ta'ir: Bird
Features of a bird, feathers, beak, wings
Allah holds each one up in the sky! 'Innallaha 'ala kulli shayin qadeer' Allah is the Most Powerful!
Floating ball experiment
Paper plate craft/ hand and footprint art
Bird spotting and learning names
Different beaks, different foods

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Arabic Letter of the Week: ف

Feel: Elephant
- Read some interesting elephant facts
- Role play the story of Surah Feel and learn that Allah can do anything even knock down huge elephants with stones from the beaks of birds
- Appreciate how clever elephants are by watching a clip of them painting. 
- Wear a sock and paint with your 'trunk'.
- Feel objects blindfolded with your 'sock trunk' and discover it to be much harder to guess them
- Play against the clock to see how many marbles you could transfer between containers with your 'sock trunk' compared to using your hands
- Look up some elephant crafts online E.g make a CD elephant
- Use the word 'feel' instead of elephant throughout the week
- Highlight all the letter ف in Surah Feel

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Ankaboot/Spider

Learning Objective:
- Making children aware that there are over 100 chapters in the Quran with different names.
- Sura Ankaboot (29) takes its name from the spider's web mentioned in the surah.
- Learn about what Allah tells us about the spider in the Qur'an.

Spider Facts:
Spiders have 8 legs and most have 8 eyes as well!
They spin webs using a sticky material from their body called silk.
The web traps insects for the spider to eat. 

Allah tells us in the Qur’an
- Allah talks about the spider's web in Surah Ankaboot. The spider puts in a lot of effort to weave this beautiful web but it is blown away so easily.
- A spider built a web over the cave that the Prophet was hiding in and it helped to keep the Prophet safe

Activity: Hand print spider and web
Weaving wool across a painted paper plate

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