2013_2014_Coverage

Tomorrow, we plan to play a game of Jeopardy in the class. The preparation material for this game can be found on your lesson plans that was shared several weeks ago. We have reviewed some of it during our class the past couple of weeks as well.

I also hope everyone is working hard to finish up the essay project due next week. We did a quick survey in the class last week and most of the students said that they have researched or are in the process of researching the main points for their essay. I appreciate all the help that parents can provide to their kids in finishing up the project on time. Please note that next week is the final deadline for the project. The week after, I will hand over the graded reports back, along with your final grades and discuss your progress, inshallah.

Don't forget your Dua's for this quarter!

The lesson plan for the last quarter has been added to the list of files at the bottom of this page. Also added, is the Du'a for this quarter. The lesson plans and Du'a will be handed out in the classrooms as well. Please review this and plan your work accordingly. This quarter, the special includes the essay project on the Seerah (biography) of the prophet Muhammad (s). The details of the project will be discussed in the class. Parents are strongly encouraged to help their kids out in research and preparation of this project.

This week, we will meet in the classroom. As planned previously, there will be a quiz on the Zikr for this quarter - both Arabic and English translation. The quiz will be oral. There will also be a test on the topic of Salah on April 6, 2014. The students will be required to know all positions of Salah with proper posture (as discussed in the couple of sessions that we had), Surah Al-Fatiha, the sayings in Ruku and Sujood, and Tasha-hood - Arabic and word by word meanings in English.Please note that this is our major coverage for the Spring semester, therefore, the test scores are very important towards your final grades.

Please continue to work on your last week's assignments. See comments below for the past couple of weeks for guidance. Feel free to email or call me if you'd like to discuss your child's assignments.

This week we will continue with our class of Salah as we did last week. It took us more time than anticipated to cover the basics of Salah last week. As a result, we didn't get the chance to go over the meanings of Salah. However, it does give all another chance to review and be prepared :-) Please look at the details from last week below to get yourself ready.

Also, the essay project starts tomorrow. I will provide more details on the website and via email soon inshallah.

We are planning on doing the enactments of Salah this week. The entire class will gather in the main prayer area downstairs after Zhur. We will cover following items:

1. All articles of Salah: Qiyaam, Ruku, Sujood and Jalsa. The emphasis will be be to go through each one of them in a proper way. We will identify common mistakes and discuss how to avoid them.

2. Sayings of Salah: Surah Al-Fatiha, Saying in Ruku, Sujood and Tasha-hood. They need to know them by heart in Arabic (since these items are essential for any Salah to be complete). Most of my students already know them. Please practice while emphasizing the importance of uttering them with proper pronunciation and slowly. Don't rush through them :-)

3. Students that know the word-by-word meaning of Surah Al-Fatiha will get 3 free passes at homework in coming weeks (meaning they will be exempted from doing homework for the next 3 weeks).

4. Students that know the word-by-word meaning of Surah Al-Fatiha and sayings of Ruku and Sujood will get 4 free passes at homework in coming weeks (meaning they will be exempted from doing homework for the next 4 weeks).

5. Students that know the word-by-word meaning of Surah Al-Fatiha, sayings of Ruku and Sujood and Tasha-hood will get 6 free passes at homework in coming weeks (meaning they will be exempted from doing homework for the next 6 weeks).

Let me give you an example of what word-by-word means: I would ask, for example, about the meaning of the word الحمد and they need to answer, "the praise". The reference material is at the bottom of this page, look for Salah_Translations.pdf.

Please practice Salah at home regularly.

Homework for this week is the continuation of memorization of the Zikr and sayings in Salah. Please try to finish Surah Al-Fatiha along with its translations. We would like to move on to the last part in this series (Tash-ha-hood) as soon as we can. As it states in the lesson plan, you also had to review the material covered in the classroom on Feb 9. For now, I will not ask you to do that. While presenting this to the class last week, I felt that this is a bit overwhelming for the students. There isn't enough time to cover that much. Therefore I will restructure the content a bit to make it more lesson-oriented - lessons learnt from various stories in the life of the Prophet (s). The Salah Enactment part of the lesson plan is still on and the first part of that series will be held on Sunday Feb 23, inshallah.

Please follow the new lesson plan for the 3rd Quarter that has been uploaded last week. You can look at the bottom of this page for file titled Lesson_Plan_Jan26_Mar16. Also available for download is the Du'a/Zikr for Quarter 3. The homework for this week (as emailed to all parents earlier) is what the new lesson plan says for Jan 26. Please bring your completed homework in the class today. We will read the story of Ayyub (as) today inshallah. We will also go over the quiz together to point out mistakes and gaps. Please review the following video at home for your next week's homework.

ATTENTION PARENTS: There will be a parent-teacher meeting the next Sunday, February 2, 2014 at 11.00 am right after assembly. Note the new date. My apologies to moving the date. I will have more detailed reviews available for your kids inshallah.

Please follow the updated lesson plan for the 2nd quarter. The quarter ends next week. Besides regular homework, please prepare for the quiz next week. You should expect to prepare from the chapters and classroom material that we covered during the first quarter. This includes basics about all form of Ibaa'da (Salah, Saum, Zakah and Hajj). It will also include the Du'a from both quarters (along with translations) and vocabulary of Surah Al Fatiha from the flash cards. If you don't have the flash cards, please create one at home by downloading the "Salah_translations.pdf" attached at the bottom of this page.

ATTENTION PARENTS: There will be a parent-teacher meeting the followingSunday, January 26, 2014 at 11.00 am right after assembly. Note the new date. Please plan on discussing your child's progress and his/her achievements and areas of improvements. This is also the opportunity for you to discuss any areas that I, as a teacher, can improve on or talk about adding value to the classroom.

The classroom presentations went very well. I was impressed by the amount of work that students put in their presentations. We missed a few students and therefore decided to not reveal the results until we give them the chance to present as well. So, here is one more chance for you who were not able to make on Dec 22. Please come prepared to present "Your Favorite Masjid" to the class.

Some of the students were confused about the homework. They were gently reminded to check the website on a regular basis. The homework was switched around a bit owing to some changes in the coverage. However, students who missed out on homework submissions for Chapters 11 and 12, have one more opportunity to do so on Jan 5. They will also get the updated version of the lesson plan for the remaining weeks in the second quarter. Also don't miss out on memorizing du'a and its translation and the flash cards for Surah Fatiha. We covered an additional ayah that means "guide us to the straight path" (word by word).

There will be slight change in the class work for Dec 15 and Dec 22. The class on Dec 15 will cover material originally scheduled to be covered on Jan 5 in your lesson plan (Prophets of Allah - Ibrahim (as), chapters 11 and 12). On Dec 22, we will conduct a review of your favorite Masjid presentation. The homework that was due on Dec 8 (answer questions on page 97) is now due on Dec 15. In addition, homework due on Dec 22 will include answering questions on page 53 and 57 (chapters 11 and 12). We will postpone the Game (originally scheduled for Dec 22) until some time in the next quarter (Spring semester).

Please continue to review the Du'a and the flash cards for Surah Fatiha including the following words: Al-Hamd, Lillahi, Rab, Al-Alameen, Ar-Rahman.

We have started the second quarter last week which runs from 11/10/2013 to 01/19/2014. The students have received the lesson plan for the entire quarter (also found at the bottom of this page - Lesson_Plan_Nov10_Jan19.pdf) and the Du'a for the quarter (at the bottom of this page, look for Dua_Qtr_2.pdf). I will encourage all parents to review the plan with their kids. Looking back at the last quarter, I think we made decent progress in reviewing basic principles of Islam. The students memorized a du'a, learnt meanings of some of the initial words of Surah Al-Fatiha, participated for Muslim Writers' competition and did a project on Hajj. We got a bit behind on our schedule because of Eid holiday and an unexpected change in the schedule on one of the Sundays, but that aside, I am happy with what we have achieved so far.

As for the special, the students are to work towards their favorite Masjid Project which they will present in the class on Dec 15. The students have the option of making it a poster-based or MS PowerPoint based presentation. Unlike last time, there are not size limits on the poster. The presentation should address the history of the Masjid, its importance, architecture, culture and some basic facts (e.g, how many people can pray at a time, etc). You also need to share what aspect of the Masjid makes it your favorite. As with the Hajj project, we will vote for the best presentation.

I have noticed that there is some confusion among the students around some key upcoming dates. I strongly suggest parents to keep checking the website and the lesson plans to see what has been taught and what's coming up in future. We will try our best to stick to the plan, inshallah. As a note, participation in Junior Jeopardy competition is NOT optional. The Junior Jeopardy qualification test on 11/24 will be graded for the class and the scores will reflect on the end of semester report regardless of the student getting selected for the actual competition. Therefore it is important that the parents and students take it seriously. Please refer to the "Fall semester Key dates" table above to keep a tab on important dates. You can expand the list by clicking "View more".

I am really proud of all my students who did a fantastic job of working on the project and presenting it to the entire class. I am sure they learnt a good deal about Hajj and its ritual. Let's go a step further and spend some time watching a few Hajj videos. You can watch them any time during this week and next week. It will help you in understanding what people go through when they prepare and go for Hajj.

I hope everybody is working hard to get their Hajj projects ready. Since you worked so hard, I will give each one of you the opportunity to talk about your project for 2 minutes. You can choose to express the details of how did you finish it or you can choose to explain the steps that Hujjaj go through during their journey of Hajj. Afterwards you all get to vote on the best and the second-best project (you are not allowed to vote for your own project). We also plan to cover Saum and Zakat towards the end and make a couple of more flash cards to learn more about Salah.

You need to keep reminding yourself about reviewing steps of Salah, the flash cards for Allahu Akbar, Al-Hamd and Lil-lahi and the Du'a of the quarter - basically the same homework as last week. You DO NOT have to complete the answers at the end of chapter 26.

Please submit your written homework assignments on a sheet of paper. Write your name, the date (when homework is turned in), the chapter and page number (if applicable). Only provide Answers for questions. If there are more than 1 page, please staple them before turning them in. Your homework will be graded and returned to you the next week.

The Hajj project is a poster based assignment. Please create a poster no larger than 24"x12" detailing various stages of performing Hajj from the arrival at Makkah up to and including Tawaf Al-Wida (also called Al-Wada). The posters should contain drawings of rituals and some text explaining the ritual and timings (the dates and times that particular act is performed). The drawings can be printed from any website, however more points will be given for handmade ones. The following website is one of many that provide detailed hajj information: http://www.hajinformation.com/main/f20.htm

The video below tells the story of Zam Zam ...

Please checkout the lesson plan for the first quarter starting today (bottom of this page). The plan details the topics that we plan to cover, the chapters, homework and any specials (projects, presentations). Besides this, we will also start an extensive coverage of Salah (prayers) in the classroom. I will post related content soon on this webpage. We will go through the meaning of common sayings during Salah using flash cards. Students will make their own flash cards in the classroom and will use it throughout the week at home to help them memorize the meanings. We also plan on memorizing one important Du'a (with its meaning) during this quarter. The Du'a for the first quarter has been uploaded (see bottom of this page). Please feel free to provide any feedback via email, phone or in person. My classroom door is always open to parents (just let me know beforehand if you plan on attending my class).

This message is mostly for the parents who were not able to attend the orientation, please download the "Introduction.pdf" at the bottom of this page. Read it carefully, sign and have it returned back to me in the next class. I will keep a signed copy for myself and return the original back to you.