ProgrammeDari arkib
A term of Quran Investigators
Module 1 ran from August to October 2018: sessions with a surah each, then out to the Science Centre, a mosque, a garden and a craftsman's workshop.
Investigate is the second step of our 4-I approach: Inspire, Investigate, Integrate, Impart. Quran Investigators is the programme built on it. The first module ran from August to October 2018, and we ran it again in the middle of 2019.
In the classroom
Sessions were built around short surahs. Some were at home, with the children on floor mats, sorting picture cards for Surah Al-Qari'ah or trying a tray experiment. Others were in a classroom, where the children worked through the key words of Surah Al-Ma'un on the whiteboard, or posed with their books for Surah Quraisy. In the home sessions, Ummi taught on the mat with the children, and there were small trophies with the children's names on them.
Out and about
Investigating meant going out to look. For Surah Al-Kautsar, in September 2018, we took the group to the Science Centre. The children sat on the floor between the exhibits and drew on clipboards.
For Surah Al-Kafirun we visited Ar-Raudhah Mosque. The children found the mihrab, which shows the direction we face each time we pray, and gathered at the minbar for a photo with the book we were reading together.
Other outings fill the collages too: a mosque with a large beduk drum, a papaya tree the children pointed up at, a garden bed, chicks in a bucket, an ustaz with the children at a mosque, and the turtle tank at the Science Centre. At a library table the children drew comic strips. One of those pages, "Reflect – Benefits of the river", is Hilwaa's.
We also visited a craftsman's workshop, where the children watched him at his workbench and looked at stones and prayer beads.
The workshop visit was part of a learning journey about the many Islamic artefacts from the past kept at Ba'alwie Mosque. The children looked at the artefacts, then learned how some of them were made, through steel making.
The 2019 run
In July and August 2019 we ran Quran Investigators again, this time on Surah An-Nasr, Surah Al-Kafirun and Surah Al-Kautsar, over six sessions. Parents were invited too: on 26 August there was a free Quran Journaling session for a parent and child together.
The folder
All of it went into a blue folder labelled "IQRAsaurus Qi Module 2018-2019". We kept our workshop materials in folders like this, sorted by theme. Over time those themes grew into programmes of their own, such as StoryBuzz, EduDrama and Umrah for Kids. It all started on paper: printed out and run on the ground.
