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Love Quran: our first parenting workshop booklet
Around 2010 we printed a small yellow booklet for parents who were just starting to bring the Quran into family life. It was the beginning of our parenting workshops.
This spiral-bound booklet is one of the earliest things IqraSaurus made for parents. We think it is from around 2010. Its yellow cover says "Quranic Literacy Primer", "Love Quran" and "Support the creation of a Quranic family culture".
It was written for parents who were just starting out with the Quran at home. In a way it was written for us too. We were gathering up what we had learned so far so that we could share it with other families. Looking at it now, it is very simple, and that is part of why we are keeping it.
A booklet with room to write
Most pages ask a parent one question and then leave boxes for their own notes. The first section, Mission Vision, asks: "What is our role of educator / parent to play a more active role in nurturing the love for the Quran in little hearts?" The next asks what tools can introduce Quran reading to a child.
The Educator Tips page spells out SAFE: Safe, Appropriateness, Fun and Engaging. Each letter has an empty box, so parents could write their own examples during the session.
The home as a place to learn
Two pages are about the home itself: "How do I create a home environment that will support learning of the Quran for my young child?" The answers on the page are small and practical. Make a mini library (marked "Essential"). Create a wonder board. Start scrapbooking. Make it meaningful by relating it to maths, science, history and language, in Malay, English and Arabic.
The Learning Environment page asks parents to choose a theme, a surah or a story, write down their focus, and then think about furniture, display space, materials, a song chart and a surah chart. Under materials we wrote: recycle, self make, outsource, buy it new or from a second-hand shop.
A page called Conversations About God gives its purpose as "Make Allah their 'Best friend'". At the back are notes on two ideas from child development that shaped our thinking at the time: social learning theory, and Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, with its circles of family, school and community around the child.
The last page is a large empty box headed My Reflection, a short thank-you to the parents, and a list of websites for tajweed and parenting. The old short links on it are one clue to how long ago we made it.
What grew from it
Sharing with parents like this grew, over the years, into our workshops. The learning environment became a workshop of its own in 2017, and later a printable workbook for families to use at home.
If you are starting out, the booklet's first question is a useful place to begin: what is our role, as parents, in helping our children love the Quran?
