Thank You Allah for Everything!

Allah has given us so many things. And He keeps giving us. In order to thank Allah for all the things He gives us, we have decorated His name with beads and glitter dust. We really hope Allah will like this. While decorating, we talked about Allah and we zikir (repeatedly reciting Allah's name) too. We really had so much fun remembering You, Allah! We hope You remember us too!

Get the coloring template here.

Allah is Great!

Thank you Allah for the idea!

We hope you like bead and glitter dust!

Iyra's

Iesha's

Iris's

Thank you Allah for,

giving me rezeki,

beautiful eyes,

making me a gorgeous girl,

giving me Mummy and Bapak. 

(Allah, please don't give me Bapak and Mummy die).

Thank you Allah for,

knowledge,

beautiful clouds,

flying birds,

and flying kites,

yummy food,

my books,

planet Earth,

colorful Saturn.

Thank you Allah for,

very beautiful animals,

cute cats,

adorable kittens.

I see dolphin makes bubbles,

and also volcano bubbles.

I want to go to the Pink Lake in Australia.

O Allah, please make me go there now.

I love you Allah.

(I asked Iris what are the things she thanks Allah for, and so she made this beautiful list).

Magic Painting

This is painting and reading activity combined. We had to paint to get the words appeared on the paper. This activity got instant hit from the girls. You only need to gather simple materials such as white cardstock, white wax crayon, water color and paintbrush. First, write out the words on the cardstock. It is preferrable if you write out the words they just learnt. I wrote words from 'My Green Day' and these words were for Iris. I jot down simple words for Iesha because she now mastered 'Bacalah Anakku' book 3, whilst for Iyra I just drew her a flower. Let see how they did it.

What we need

They started painting.

Iris was truly amazed with this activity.

Iyra enjoyed it too!

Iesha tried sounding the word out.

Iris learnt few new words.

Iesha wanted more.

Iyra was happy with the hidden flower.

Read aloud: My Green Day

Save the Earth!

This is the right book at the right time. With the El Nino strikes it's power, we do really feel better with this book. We need ideas on how to save our planet Earth, and this book comes to rescue. The book is about activities that can be done by a preschooler to help make the Earth a better planet to stay. Here are some of the green activities suggested by Walsh:

1. Making presents/ festive cards from scraps and cut-off papers. Recycle, recycle, recycle.
2. Finish up the meals.  Walsh stated a fact that we normally throw out one third of our meal.  "If we bought only the food we actually needed to eat, we wouldn't have to grow or transport so much food, which saves lots of energy."
3. Shorten your shower time to only 3 to 4 minutes. Save our water.
4. Use nature to play. Products of Earth are so much fun to play with! Play hide and seek in the trees. Playing outside sounds so much fun than well..gadgets.

Walsh sounds practical, especially to kids. It's not about 'you need to crush then recycle your soda cans' kind of thing. It's about fun options to simply have a 'green day'! 

Later on, Iris drew this lovely Earth bigger than the Sun. And I spotted Brazil. 

Iesha has this kind of funny thought. She drew Mummy Earth and Baby Earth. And the Mummy Earth showers her baby with snow, "Kesian Baby Earth panas."

Welcome ya Ramadhan 2014!

Iris on 'Where is Allah?'

Iris showed me her new drawing. I was baffled with the word Allah all over her drawing and asked her why. She gave me a brainy question instead, "We can see all things Allah created, but why we can't see Allah (the Creator)?".  I was in awe as I too was struggling with that question in my whole life.  It now seems so clear to me that every one of us is so keen to really 'see' Allah, despite our age. I tried to skip the question at first, but I answered her anyway, "Allah wants to make huge surprise in Syurga. Once we entered it, tadaa!! Allah is there for you to hug." I can't think of any better answer, but she hopped in joy with such comforting promise. Insya Allah.

Ahlan ya wasahlan ya Ramadhan. I hope Allah will guide us to perform our best in this holy month!

...and we failed.

The elephant toothpaste was in our Experiments-To-Do (ETD) list for quite some time. We needed Bapak to smuggle a bottle of hydrogen peroxide liquid from his office.  Due to the fact that Bapak was a MARESMART (read non-smuggler), he didn't do such thing. So I kept on searching and asking from the hair salons but to no avail. Finally Bapak found a bottle with only RM6 in a pharmacy near our house. We put our lab coats on and wished that we could make an elephant happy!

What we need:

1. A bottle

2. Hydrogen peroxide liquid

3. Liquid dish washing soap

4. Dry yeast

5. Warm water

6. Food coloring

What to do:

1. Pour hydrogen peroxide into the cup.

2. Choose your toothpaste color that makes your elephant happy.

3. Drop the food coloring into the cup.

4. Stir the ingredient.

5. Drop some liquid dish washing soap.

6. Mix them well.

7. Mix dry yeast with warm water.  First, pour hydrogen peroxide ingredient into the bottle, then add that dry yeast ingredient. Stand back and get ready!

However, we have failed!

We need to get this next time! Be patient, Elmer!

What we were up to?

We did quite a lot of things actually for these past few months.  And one of them was baking!  I am known to the world as a horrible baker who definitely can't bake. But for my girls who are known as Nerdy Nummy's die hard fans, I bake. I just simply can't get along with eggs, and butter, and flour and most probably anything to make cake.  But the support I got from my girls was endless and so we baked. Together. Well, the results were not that bad at all. At least we have that cakey texture. So here are some of the experiments on eggs and butter. 

Guess what cake they made? Hint: that 7 cups.

Yes, the upside down rainbow cake.

They glued each piece with whipping cream.

Good moms let their kids lick the beaters. You're welcome.

Keep gluing.

They put some decorations.

And more.

Elmers

Iyra put some elephants on her dress.

Licking start now.

Never judge a cake by its icing!

See!

In 10 minutes...

We tried to make banofee pie too!

Simple chocolate cake.

We read book on cakes too!

Iris wanted to make cookies.

And she tried.

She just did it! She must be so proud of herself!

Iris wants this for her birthday. "I want this white (she pointed to off-white) Kitchen Aid mixer for my birthday." (I mean seriously, how can she said Kitchen Aid so fluent when my first word on mixer was on my 30s? And it was Pensonic.)

Missing us?

Read aloud: Five Little Fiends

When Iris first read the title, she then asked me, "Kenapa fiends, Mummy? Bukan friends ke?" I then too soon realized it was spelled without r. The word never occurred to me until I picked up this book.

This book is about five little fiends, who live in statues on their own far, far away land. Every day they come out to marvel at the world together. It is a good feeling to see the fiends holding hands together while marveling at the world with their backs facing us. We could feel the goodness of friendship and sharing in an instant. They would marvel so much that each fiend desires to hide in his statue the thing he marvels the most. Each fiend then takes for himself the sun, the sky, the land, the sea and the moon. They admire their stolen objects to their heart's content.

Then they started to realize that the world means nothing without the rest. 

'The sun would not stay up without the sky,

the sky was nowhere to be found without the land,

the land started to die without water from the sea,

the sea would not flow without the pull of the moon,

and the moon could not glow without the light from the sun.'

So the five little fiends decide to put everything back in the world as it is. Once they had done that, they were able to appreciate their surroundings again.

Just like any other reviewers, it is questionable why Sarah chose fiends over something else, like monkeys or elephants, or just simply a little human being? Then I thought to myself that maybe she wants the story to be unique as there are many children books with animals or aliens as the main characters. Nonetheless, it still contradicts with my belief that no such fiend would ever live in any statues, (haha.) My girls however, realized "Kenapa muka fiends tu macam tu je?", as I confirmed that they meant the fiends are more likely to be in 'blank slate'.

Other than that, it is a good book. Some points to emphasize over the book are:

1. The importance of sharing

2. True friendship

3. Our world and the purpose for each object (sun, sky, moon etc.)

4. Effect of greed

And the most basic and important question to ask is:

Who created all these?