Jumu'ah Rangers - Al Baseer

When I got to know that two of my mummy friends were going to organise weekly playdates on Asmaul Husna (Names of Allah) at Botanic Gardens, I knew the little girl had to be a part of it. With His Will, she got a place in the weekly Friday playdates which ran from May till late June.

For the first playdate, the children were introduced to the hijaiyah letter ب with two activities. One was a lacing activity and the other was decorating the letter with glitter glue and paint.

Lacing the letter ب

Getting in on the action

Decorating the letter ب

Then during circle time, the Jumu'ah Rangers were each given a personalised badge with his/her face on it, to hang around their necks. Then out came a magic bag with magnifying glasses and cameras inside them. The children then got to make their own binoculars for them to bring on their adventure.

What's in the magic bag?

Ready to make her binoculars

Pasting stickers after taping up the rolls

Choosing stickers is always fun

And after some songs were sung, off they went to Drama Land to help Ranger Ba (ب) look for the missing dot. During the search, the children were told that Allah is Al Baseer (The All-Seeing) and He can see everything at all times. 

Listening attentively to Ranger ب

Off to Drama Land to look for the missing dot

After they were back from Drama Land, it was time for stories! Oh how I love stories. The first was the story of ب ت ث. The story was accompanied by lovely hand-drawn story boards and I'm so glad that I took a video of the story being told. 

Next was the story of Ilyas and Duck Search for Allah. That's a story that all the children were familiar with and masyaAllah it was accompanied by the prettiest hand-made backdrops. After that, the children got to tie up twine for their very own goggles!

Beautiful backdrop for Ilyas and Duck Search for Allah

Posing with their goggles

We got to bring home a print-out of Al Baseer and so the next day, the little girl used an ice cream stick to smear blue glitter glue all over it. And we also made our own craft activity of ب using glittery paint, twine and googly eyes. I also enforced the lesson learnt on Al Baseer by letting the little girl watch an episode of Misri Bunch on YouTube.

Our take-home activity

Our follow-up activity

Jumu'ah Rangers may have ended last Friday but the little girl and I will have fond memories of our playdates at the park. Both of us have benefitted greatly from the sessions and I'm glad I had made numerous video recording of songs and stories. May Allah reward the mothers immensely for all their efforts in putting together the programme for us and may their plans for the future be realised.

Science@Play - Five Senses

Our second session of Science@Play, which was at the end of March, was on the Five Senses. The children had a sensory galore with ten stations for them to play, explore, create, and experiment. We couldn't cover all ten stations but I think we went to eight of them. 

The first station we went to had kinetic sand on a mat. I know the little girl is usually very hesitant of getting herself dirty so early into a playdate before she has warmed up. As I had expected, she didn't want to touch the sand at all. Oh well.

Moving along we went to a station that had colourful plastic eggs in an egg tray. The children could shake them to hear the contents and guess what were inside. Or they could shake them to match two eggs which had the same contents. Now that's a mess-free starter activity which suited her just fine.

 Shaking the eggs

 Colourful eggs in a tray

Next was a fun station for the children to explore with shaving gel, paint and glitter. After spraying some gel into a tray, they decorated it with different coloured sparkly glitter before deciding to explore further with their hands. Since she had warmed up I assumed, the little girl was ready to get her hands dirty.

 Adding some sparkle to their shaving gel

 Let's get messy!

After washing the gel and glitter off her hands, we went to the next station for some play with scented dough. She spent quite some time there playing together with her friend. And while she was busy with the dough and cookie cutters, I spent some time catching up with friends.

Playing with dough and cutters 

While she was busy with the dough, I looked around at other stations. There was a station with colourful yummy-looking jelly for the children to eat. They could even play with the jelly if they wanted to but the little girl wasn't interested in it. 

Colourful jelly to eat or play with

There was another station where the children could experiment with water in test tubes to hear the different pitch that they make when struck with a tuning fork. Only thing is, I didn't think they were given a tuning fork. A tuning fork usually has a shorter handle with longer prongs but what they got was something with a long handle and very short prongs. When I tried hitting a test tube of water with it, it just made a dull thud. Hmm.. There was a shaker and a xylophone too for the children to explore but the children were more than happy to just transfer water using the pipettes.

 Transferring water using transfer pipettes

I think this is how a tuning fork should look like

After some time, I decided to lure her away from the scented dough and asked if she wanted to make a rice shaker. She still held a piece of dough in her hand while filling her shaker with rice. Then I taped both ends of the shaker with craft paper and tape and we got for ourselves something to make music with.

Filling her shaker with rice

Next was a station to make a sensory board. She probably missed out one or two materials but she got nine different materials neatly taped onto her board.

Her sensory board

And while almost everyone else had opened up their lunch boxes and were munching away, the little girl was suddenly attracted to the water and pipettes. And so she sat there transferring water from a plastic cup into glass test tubes. She had used a transfer pipette just the day before at a playdate session with Growing with Colours so she was probably enjoying the new instrument. 

Though it might look rather mundane to be just transferring water, but I was grateful that the little girl could control the pipette well enough to guide it into the small opening of the test tube without spilling water. At times like this, I thanked Him for giving me such golden opportunities to watch my daughter learn and practise a new skill she had picked up. That very day, I asked my brother-in-law if he could get a few transfer pipettes for the little girl and he did! Now we use those pipettes mostly for watercolour art. 

Practising her new skill of transferring water with a pipette

I know we missed a few stations that day but it's okay. One of it was to make a paper tambourine and another to taste foods with different tastes. There's no point in rushing her through and I would rather she has ample time to enjoy each activity thoroughly before moving on. I remember going home really happy that day for a fulfilling noon with my daughter. 

Growing With Colours

A few weeks back, we attended an outdoor play session by Growing with Colours. Earlier in the week, a friend of mine had gotten a pamphlet from them which listed their weekly activities for the outdoor sessions, hence I decided to give it a try. 

We received a reply from the GWC team with details of the session; like the price ($12 for trial), duration (1 hour), time to meet (10am) and venue (near the playground at Pasir Ris Park). Although the session is for an hour, it would be packed with activities - circle time, art activity, sensory activity and snack time. On the pamphlet, it was written that the activities would be suitable for children up to 30 mths old so I enquired since my daughter had turned 31 mths old. I was told that it would be okay for up to 36 mths old. We would have another 5 months left to take part in the activities by GWC then. Everything seemed perfect and I was looking forward to it!

On the day itself, we went to the park and spotted the pink tent and balloons from afar. The two mothers behind GWC, Normah and Rahmah, greeted us warmly and we made ourselves comfortable on the mat. It was a cosy group as there were only six toddlers for the session, including the two girls who were the daughters of the duo behind GWC. Some of the children were reading or playing with toys but my little girl was happy to sit and observe, as she always does in a new situation.

Then we were asked to gather for circle time. There were some singing and movement led by one of the mothers. Again, the little girl was happy to watch. But then came the part where the children were presented with their own pictures that the mothers had handed over earlier. The children then pasted their pictures on the "Who is here today?" board. Unfortunately, I had not brought a picture for the little girl. The organisers were sweet enough to have written her name on a piece of apple-shaped paper so that she still had something to paste. Note to self: Bring a picture next time!

Pasting his picture on the board

Then out came a covered box for the children to put their hands in. They each picked a ball of different types. They were introduced to the different types of balls and were shown that the balls could be used to make a piece of art when dipped in paint.

Picking a ball from the box

Making an art piece with a round ball, bouncy ball, spiky ball and rose ball

The children were then given a piece of paper, different types of balls, and some paint. They dipped and printed away with the balls. The little girl's favourite had to be the bouncy ball which is my favourite too as it makes pretty fireworks pattern on the paper. And it's so fun to bounce it in paint and then bounce it on paper! 

Bouncing the ball away on her paper

Her art work which I call "Fireworks"

Next was sensory play. The children were given their own trays with dollops of frozen coloured shaving foam. The shaving foam had melted a little under the hot sun but it was still a whole lot of fun. The semi-melted shaving foam looked and felt just like ice-cream and for a moment, the children thought they had been served with some on a hot day. The children were also given an assortment of scoops and containers to play with the shaving foam. 

Scooping some foam into ice-cream cones for pretend play

More scooping into ice cube trays

Free play

I was amazed at the amount of work the ladies had put in into carrying out the activities. It felt like an outdoors session of Julia Gabriel! I felt though that the activities (art and messy play) were a little too short. The little girl was still printing with the balls when they started clearing away for the next activity. In general, I stay away from structured classes for now to avoid hurrying the little girl from one activity to another because she can spend a long time doing an activity that she likes.

But I understand that there is a targetted age group of 18-36 mths old. The activities couldn't be longer so as to sustain all the children's interest and attention, especially the younger ones, and not just mine. I totally get that. I will still attend the sessions as they are affordably priced and I can get ideas which I can replicate at home. And they are outdoors too! 

Due to that reason, we went for another session with GWC last Sunday. Hafsa was also celebrating her birthday that day at the park so we decided to attend the session with GWC before the celebration and more free play at the playground. There were more than twice as many children than the previous session we attended which surprised me as I thought there was a maximum number of children accepted per session. 

Circle time

We gathered round for some song and movement during circle time. After that, two boxes were taken out and the children reached in to take out a number. Then the organisers revealed the activities for the day - number stamping and playing with goop. The children were divided into two groups and each group would start with an activity before swopping. 

What is in the box?

We were given an aluminum tray, some goop in a ziplock bag to scoop out, some food colouring, and transfer pipettes. The little girl wasn't so keen to get her hands dirty in goop but she was more interested in using the pipettes to squirt some food colouring onto the goop. While she was busy with the pipettes, my hubby and I were busy playing with the goop. It felt like hard plasticine when we tried to scoop it up, but once in our hands, it dripped down like liquid. But after a while, she got her hands right in too. It was obvious that the parents were having as much fun with the goop, if not more.

Using transfer pipettes for the first time

Daddies having fun with goop too

Finally getting her hands in the goop

Parents couldn't have enough of goop too

It took a while before the little girl was ready to swap to the next activity which was number stamping. By then the other children were cleaning up or changing clothes. She did just a little stamping and then she was done. Oh well, whatever makes her happy.

Printing with numbers

Bubble time and goodbye song

By then the children, and the parents too, were hungry so we took out our picnic mats and food to start munching while the organisers were cleaning up. Then we wrapped up the session with some bubbles and a goodbye song. We decided to get the package with GWC too which cost us $64 for 4 sessions. Individual sessions cost $18 each after the trial. We were told the next session on 13 April will be on the book We are Going on a Bear Hunt. That would be so much fun! Inshaa Allah we'll be there as the book is one of our favourites and we've watched the play too earlier this year. Till the next session!