When I told the class that I would cover the story of Prophet Ibrahim (as), at least three of the kids said “We already know this story.” (only 3??) Of course they know it. But did they know that Ibrahim (as) was the only one in his town that did not worship idols? Did they know that he was a tween when he advised his father to keep away from idol worship? That topic actually brought up a number of stories, where the kids talked about all the times that they tried to correct their parents.
I used this story to discuss what it means to have an Islamic identity. Everyone in the room identified themselves by different things: by their possessions, by their location, by the color of their skin, and by their hobbies. I pointed out that regardless of who they are or where they came from, they could all identify themselves as Muslims. What does that mean? Does your Muslim identify affect your actions at school? At home? Online?
The underlying theme of the second class was “Trust Allah but tie your camel.” There are so many aspects to the story about the discovery of Zamzam. In this class, we talked about the lengths to which mothers go to protect their children. We talked about the desperation that Hajar must have felt as she ran between Mount Safa and Marwa. We knew that she trusted Allah (SWT) when Ibrahim (as) left her and Ismail in the desert. However, she took initiative when she saw that her son was dying of thirst. These main ideas are the ones that I covered with the kids, where we connected this concept with recycling, with taking care of our devices, taking medicine, and studying for tests .
Here are some pictures of the LEGO catapults the kids constructed in the first class.
Resources:
Class 1 (approximate time 1.5 hour)
Lesson Plan and wksht
Class 2 (approximate time 1 hr)
Lesson Plan and wksht
