ICO Network Arabic Textbooks and Islamic Studies Textbooks

Asalam alaikum

I am really happy to have found the ICO Network website. Inshallah you will find this a really useful website to aid your child's journey in learning Islamic Studies and Arabic Studies.

The materials published by ICO are of the highest quality. They have demonstrated excellence in their endeavour to deliver high standard, engaging books and textbooks that aim to teach children Islam and Arabic.

My daughter's islamic school uses these text books as part of its curriculum for Islamic and Arabic Studies. I'm sure those mothers who are homeschooling have been searching for a professional set of textbooks for their children. These mothers as well as those whose children are unable to access an islamic school would be very interested in these texts. 

I definately recommend this publisher's works. I like the way the same characters are used throughout the curriculum, it is comforting for children to see Lulu, Yara, Wassim and Shadi crop up in different books and settings. Children find the lively drawings, colours and layout of the pages very engaging. 

The use of creative graphic design and fonts are also aesthetically pleasing. There has been a great deal of child psychology and teaching studies that have gone on in the production of these materials. 

One of the major, very major problems with the texts however is that the text is completely in Arabic. From the title to the end notes. So for those ajami (non-arabic) mums and teachers these books present a hurdle that needs to be overcome. For those who can afford a tutor or an arabic friend to help out with the translation then these books are very beneficial. For those who can not then the books still provide a great of help, especially for writing and recognition of letters and word formation. What the teacher would do at my daughter's school would be to print out a list of instructions with page numbers and fill out a table with translations for that particular unit of the week. 

There is also another website called the First Education website which is listed with the ICO Network's website but I though I'd share it here again. This website is the distributor in the UK. Though I haven't used it I'm sure inshallah it will work for Australia. 

ICO Network website: http://iconetwork.com/

First Education website: http://first-education.co.uk/


I pray that this post is beneficial to sisters and brothers

Asalam alaikum

Umm Musk 

Contact Film and Leather Activity

Engaging with our children in fun Halal activities is a great way to strengthen our bond with them. Inshallah :)

Asalamalaikum,

I love colours, feathers and a good activity the children can do by themselves. This one is perfect for all these categories. Inshallah this helps sisters looking for ways to squeeze in some extra chores or ibadah.  

Getting children to create amazing art with colourful dyed feathers by sticking them onto contact paper proved out to be very fun and very pretty.

I've found it especially hard to get my 2 year old doing activities that require minimal supervision. Everything arty seems to need alot of attention and equate to cleaning up a big mess at the end. Whoever has stepped away from a toddler art table for even 2 seconds knows what I mean. (My previous house had white carpets, they were not as white when we moved out),

I love the fact that I don't have to help little BabyGirl2 with glue, tape or peeling sticker backing. There were just feathers to sweep up when they finished making this my favorite activity.  

All that is required is a sheet of contact paper, non-sticky side stuck against the wall or fridge with tape and off they go sticking away.

I used a yellow contact film (I couldn't seem to find it anywhere except at Big W and except in yellow) and the feathers were from the art section from an asian dollar store.

You can substitute feathers with pom poms, pipe cleaners, felt, streamers, cut out shapes and so much more.



Asalam alaikum :)

Umm Musk

Junk Mail Crafts - Healthy Eating Collage

Some of the most fun arts and crafts can be created with things that are lying around right under our noses. We made use of junk mail this morning but cutting it up and creating pages of health posters. 

Junk mail is fun to look at but a chore to dispose of. There's nothing that I see more messy in my house than a pile of scrumpled, overly colourful, glossy pages of ads. So it was great to cut it up into tiny pieces and make good use of it. It was great because I didn't have to print anything out or sift through my arts and crafts boxes to find suitable materials. It was less stressful art time since I did not to have to plan anything out in advance. 

I've been trying to get healthier with my children so we made health posters about what junk food is and what healthy food is. Both Baby Boy 1 now 3 years old and Baby Girl 2, now 2 years old found it exciting to recognise and lable household items whilst going through the grocery ads. They identified junk and health quite well which surprised me since I didn't think 2 years could tell coke has absolutely no nutritional value. Subhanallah. 

We made a page of junk food and a page of healthy food. We practiced learning the names of things in both english and in arabic too since that's the language we're trying to learn right now. We found tamar and burtuqaali and that's about how far my fruit vocab goes for now - dates and oranges! 

Woolworths has a Jamie's Garden promotion going on right now which I found very useful sincethe pictures of fruit were so cute. We've been collecting a few of those garden stickers too.

Lessons learnt: Labelling, language skills, knowledge of health issues, fine motor skills through using scissors.


Umm Musk :)

Islamic School vs Private School vs Public School

Asalamalaikum,

I remember just a few years ago a two sisters were sitting near me in an Islamic centre discussing sending their children to the local Islamic school.

A world far away from me I thought as I cradled my first newborn, I had a world of problems of my own. I was a new mother, confused and battling with the hundreds of women swamping me with contradictory baby advice. It seemed I was doing everything wrong according to everyone.

One aunty would tell me to put my child's head under a doughnut pillow, another friend insisted a flat metal plate would give her a better head shape, others considered a bean bag for a good round skull, my father bought my baby a travel pillow to sleep on while my mother hand made one, filling it with rye seeds. I was so overwhelmed by the decisions, listening to everyone and everything I ended up giving my daughter a lopsided head, one side ending up larger than the other. 

This year my daughter started school and I faced a very similar crossroads once more. 

An aunty sweeps down on me from one side insisting that public schools are better than Islamic ones. After all her children went to public schools and they are now Daees and Islamic political activists. Public schools ensure that children learn to tackle non-muslim critique early on in life and these skills will be taken into university and the workplace she tells me. Public schools will make your children strong she concludes. Look at my children, they are absolutely fine, yours will be too.

Another collegue of my husbands needs to create doctors out of his children. Surely this isn't possible at Islamic schools, the education standard is simply not as high as Christian private schools. Private catholic schools are the way to go in his opinion.

All sorts of other family members, friends, collegues, neighbours, shopkeepers, and dog-walking people on the street who meet us and give us their humble opinions.

I felt like the mother of a newborn again. There is one's own pain of battling with the mind, followed by a bombardment of conflicting advice. Life has taught me a valuable skill: ignoring. This time around I am better prepared at learning to ignore advice - my daughters head has not quite recovered from its lopsidedness and serves as an excellent reminder of implementing this skill.

Alhamdulilah there is only one type of advice we find useful regardless of the matter or the age of our children. The advice of Allah and his Messenger salalahu alayhi wasalam.

I heard a mother say on this issue of school selection "in the end we have to decide what Allah would be pleased with" and hers is the advice I will go with inshallah.

I have read the recent report published by Hizb ut Tahrir pertaining to the issue of government intervention and agendas carried out within Islamic Schools via funding and through strictly enforced policies. It does make me nervous I won't deny it.

I see the intervention with my own eyes in the form of buildings on which wealth has been squandered,  I see the tight skirts and heavy makeup, I see the wandering eyes of male teachers when they free-mix with the female teachers, I hear the crass, loud laughter from the staff rooms, I see the negligence of these role-models reflected in the students and I feel a heavy sickness in my stomach. I feel doubts troubling my heart, "is this truly the environment that Allah would be pleased with?"


But at the end of the day I see myself before Muhammad peace be upon him. I see him as he might have watched me in my decision making process. I imagine him and transport myself 1400 years back in time, I imagine that the pagan Quraish had created a school, the Arabian Christians priests had established a school and the Muslim sahabah (ra) had established a school. Which school would he salalahu alayhi wasalam have encouraged me to send my child to?

The muslims of today are no comparison to the sahaba, the schools we have built are not truly free from corruption and intervention, they have financial mismanagement and the teachers at not quite hafidh-ul-quran mualim ad-deen shayk-ul-islam rahimahuallahs but...

Allah has blessed us in this dry barren land with a rich soil full of potential. We have legal, functioning and academically successful Islamic schools. I want to try at least make some use of this blessing. There must be a reason Allah has allowed this.

Despite all that I have seen, I am still sending my daughter to an Islamic school this year alhamdulilah. Regardless of everything, these are institutions where the remembrance of Allah is made daily, the praise of Prophet (pbuh) is sent, there is the ability to offer two prayers on time with the community, our children hear the greetings of salam and ultimately our children obtain a sense of community.

The most important lesson taught at Islamic schools however is tolerance of different approaches to Islam. Although this is a lesson taught subconsciously, we all learn as a family to respect muslims who hold different views, who dress differently, who drink differently and who think differently.

We strive to have mercy on those who have not quite developed their iman yet and to humble ourselves by appreciating those muslims views that surpass us because of our own lack of iman. If tolerance, respect, mercy and humbleness are virtues my children can learn from being placed at an Islamic school then alhamdulilah this is the decision I will stick to with continuing duas of istikhara inshallah.


Umm Musk :)