Ramadan-Friendly Unit Plans

Adeeba Jafri

Adeeba Jafri

Adeeba is the author of several books including The Baby Garden, A Zoom with a View and Show Yourself.

It’s the beginning of Ramadan. You’ve been anxiously waiting for the moon to be sighted. The decorations are up. Your Pinterest feed is loaded with Ramadan crafts and activities that you can’t wait to do with your kids. You have already downloaded a series of lectures on your Spotify or ITunes account. You look forward to taking snapshots of your children and husband listening to said lectures, and thus, solidifying your role as the perfect Ramadan-mommy.

How many of us have started the month of Ramadan on this high? How many of us have started listening to lectures with the kids, only to find them whining, complaining, having to use the bathroom or (in my case), scrolling through their phone while these lectures are on? Many of times, we have to ditch our Ramadan goals of doing some version of Islamic studies because we need to focus on the cooking, the cleaning and then more cooking.

I’m not one to lecture any Muslim mommy on how to prioritize our Ramadan goals. If anything, the times I spend in the kitchen or cleaning gives me a few minutes of solitude. I would just like to help you achieve one of those goals, which is to conduct three easy, Islamic studies lessons for the entire month.

The lessons, the worksheets, and the presentations are already done. You don’t even have to prepare ahead of time. Just pick the unit that your kids would be most interested in learning this month and open your laptop. As you move through each slide, just read the sections corresponding to the slide and have your kids fill in the corresponding worksheet. It’s that simple.

The reason I do my lessons in 3-4 units is because

(a) I’m obsessed with finishing things. Give me a goal and I WILL finish it and

(b) kids lose interest after a few lessons. Case in point: I taught a series of lessons on tafseer series for a group of 15 tween boys and when the boys came in and saw that we were covering (yet) another surah, they all groaned. Seriously??

Here are the different unit plans you can work with. They’re all free of charge. I only ask for one thing (actually two): please let others know where you got the lessons from and please send me pictures! I’ll share them!!!

Elementary Age

Names of Allah Unit – 4 lessons

Allah is As-Salaam

Allah is Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem

Allah is Al-Ahad, Al-Khaliq and Al-Muhyi

Allah is Al-Aleem, As-Sami’, Al-Baseer

Pillars of Islam Unit – 3 lessons

Angels in Islam

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Belief in the Angels Notebooking Pages by Iman Homeschool (supplementary)

Prophets and Messengers

Salah Unit – 5 lessons

Unit Plan

Introduction to Salah

Prayer Timings

Khushoo’

Wudhu

Adhan

Salah Checklist

Seerah for beginners – 4 lessons

Why Study Seerah?

Army of the Elephant

Pre-Islamic Arabia

Early life of RasulAllah (saws)

Tweens

Shukr (thankfulness in Islam) – 3 lessons

Introduction

Your Body

Animals in Islam

The First Prophets of Allah (swt) – 1 lesson per Prophet

Prophet Adam

Prophet Nuh

Prophet Hud

Prophet Salih

Prophet Ayub

Prophet Zakariyah and Yahya

Prophet Isa

Story of Prophet Musa (as) – 3 lessons

Lesson 1 – Musa leaves Egypt

Lesson 2 – Musa faces the Pharaoh

Lesson 3 – Musa and Al-Khidr

Teens

Sahabah Series

The Life of Abu Bakr (RA)

The Life of Omar bin Khattab (RA)

The Life of Uthman Ibn ‘Affan

Tafseer of Short Surahs (one lesson per surah)

Surah Falaq

Surah Nas

Surah Asr

Surah Masad

Surah Ma’un

Surah Duha

A Study of Surah Fajr – 4 lessons

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

A Study of Surah Takwir – 2 lessons

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

A Study of Surah Alaq – 2 lessons

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

As I mentioned earlier, these lessons are FREE! All I ask is that you share the lessons with others that might benefit from them, mention where they came from (of course!) and contact me with your reflections.