In celebration of Ridvan

Our family attends our local Baha’i children classes on weekends, and I have to say I feel blessed to be a part of this great group of parents and kids. The class is co-op style, so the parents take turns teaching the classes and they come up with the most fantastic ideas. This weekend the class was taught by my nephew’s wife, Elizabeth (in case you are wondering - my nephew is not that much younger than me and our kids are the same age), and it was the most wonderful class, so I asked her permission to share it with you all.

We arrived for class in the morning to find that their entire living room had been turned into a tent (chairs, sheets, and a big, tall tube in the centre to prop it up and give it shape), complete with twinkle lights around the edge of the tent, comfy cushions to sit on inside, and the sounds of birds chirping (on CD).

The children were welcomed into the tent, and after prayers and a welcome song, Elizabeth brought out a handful of fabric roses and a styrofoam base, so each child could “plant” a rose in the garden that was used to decorate the interior of the tent.

She gave them a blue sheet and river stones to create the Tigris river alongside the tent, and then brought out a bowl of rose water so each child could rub some on their hands and soon the room smelt of roses, birds were chirping, and we were sitting in a tent alongside the Tigris river.

Elizabeth’s mom (Grandma Julie) then climbed in the tent and told the story of Ridvan, at the end of her story she asked the kids to close their eyes, smell the roses, listen to the birds and imagine how they would have felt at receiving that wonderful message. They all sat there quietly, and soaked in the atmosphere, and I could see their little faces shining (the parents too!), when they opened their eyes Rylan even commented about how wonderful it felt.

I think what I liked most about this class was how it appealed to all the senses, I try to do this a lot in our homeschool, I am trying to do this with our growing Holy Day book, because if you can draw on all the senses, children make more connections with what they are learning and it leaves a lasting impression, a lasting sensation.

It made me think about how to use such ideas for the other Holy Days – the stained glass windows of the home of the Bab, candles on the Ascension of Baha’u’llah, and my mind was racing…

Would love it if anyone posts about a such a themed Holy Day celebration, if you would come back here and link up in the comment section below, so we could build up a collection of ideas together.

Hope you all had a wonderful Ridvan period!

Preparing for Ridvan and other Baha’i Holy Days

I wanted to create a special book on the Baha’i Holy Days with the boys, one that we could look back on every year in preparing for the Holy Days as they approach. We have been working on this over the past week or so, finding the information, quotations, prayers, and putting it all together. Here are our pages for the Festival of Ridvan. You will notice the little velvet pocket on the top of the second page, in which I placed a paper scented with rose oil, I also plan on adding a few rose petals from the Shrine of Baha’u’llah, which we received during our last pilgrimage, to our pages for the Ascension of Baha’u’llah. I felt sensory touches like these would enhance their understanding of and connection to these special days of the year.

We also did a spring inspired set of pages for the Baha’i New Year.

I will continue to share more throughout the year.

Happy Ridvan to all! :)

Learning about the Baha’i calendar

The boys and I start most of our days with circle time (the reason I say “most” is because some days we have activities in the morning outside of the home, like Damian’s Music Together class, so those days we only have prayers together). Our circle time has always included calendar time, during which we learn about the days of the week and the months of the Gregorian calendar.

I have taught my boys about the Baha’i calendar before, but I wanted to make it a more regular part of this calendar learning time. I made this Baha’i calendar to add to the circle time area of our school room to illustrate the 19 months of the year (each made up of 19 days).

I decorated a clothes pin which we will use to mark the months as we go through the year. On the first day of each month the boys will take turns moving the clothes pin to mark the new month. We will learn about the name and meaning of the name of that new month (the months of the Baha’i calendar are all named after the attributes of God, such as Splendor, Glory, Grandeur, Knowledge, Love, Mercy). On a regular basis (maybe daily, because the boys love the singing part of our circle time) we will sing the Baha’i calendar song “Song of the Months” by Doug Cameron so we memorize the names and order of the months. I have other calendar activities planned for the year, which I will share with you as we go through them.

I printed the calendar from this site, glued it on to cardboard and laminated it for more durability (please note: you must glue the paper and cardboard together prior to laminating them, because if they are not glued, when you cut the calendar out, the paper and cardboard will separate, each being laminated on only one side).

For the clothes pin: I took a regular wooden clothes pin, colored it blue using a permanent marker, wrote “This month” on it using a black permanent marker, and then made and laminated a small 9 pointed star, which I stuck to the end of the clothes pin using a glue dot.

A beautiful, colorful addition to our circle time.

Preparing for Ridvan

In preparing for Ridvan we have been reading about the Holy Day, the beautiful garden, and Rylan pointed out how the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh always smells like roses...so we decided to decorate with a rose theme. Yesterday afternoon we sat down and made 12 red roses in little green paper vases (there are 12 days of Ridvan). I think I will put little quotes in each one, so we have one to read each of the 12 days. We also made a little sign for on top (please overlook the ugly blinds...had to close them to get rid of the glare for the picture).

Getting ready for the Bahá’í New Year

Sunday (21 March) marks the Bahá’í New Year. We are having a bunch of people over for a big breakfast on Sunday to celebrate, so the kids and I decided to put together a few fun decorations for the occasion. First we made a banner. This time I did not make a fabric banner, just a simple paper one. It took us about 20 minutes from start to hanging it up. I simply cut triangles out of some heavy paper then we coloured the letters in.
To put it together, I used a one hole punch to make two holes, and strung the triangles together with some yarn.

Then we made paper flowers for a table bouquet. These are so easy, Rylan made several by himself, and Damian managed with a little help from Mom.

My Mom taught me how to make these when I was little...we took them to a retirement home in our area during Ayyám-i-há. We would spend time with the people there, handing out the flowers, offering cake or cookies, chatting, just to brighten up their day. Making them with the boys today brought back those fond memories.

To make them you cut squares of tissue paper (this one in the picture is about 7x7 inches), lay them on top of each other (about 5-7 pieces) and then fold them accordion style.

Once completely folded, you wrap a pipe cleaner tightly around the centre of the paper to hold it in place, leaving enough of the pipe cleaner to work as a stem as well. Then you carefully open up each layer of paper until it forms a nice carnation style flower. If you want, you can even dip the edges in a little glue and then glitter, to add sparkle to the petals.

To all my Bahá’í readers, wishing you a very festive New Year!!! And a wonderful weekend to you all! See you Monday! :)