Co-op Lesson 2

I struggled with coming up with how I was goig to teach the concept of leadership and trustworthiness through the Sirah. I knew I wanted to tell the story of The Dispute of Hajar Aswad and the Prophet's honesty but how do I angle it to 5 year olds?

It was only before Subh on the morning before the co-op that an idea came to mind and things pieced together.

So, as the children settled in, they were asked to work on a puzzle of the Hajar Aswad. I had contemplated showing them the completed puzzle but wanted to see if they could figure it out themselves.

Five minutes into it, a few were whining that they didn't know how to solve it. As a compromise I showed them the completed puzzle for one minute. I was interested to see how much that would help. In the end half the class did it independently and the other half needed help. (I only have five students).

They then proceeded to paste their pieces onto a black piece of thick paper. I then asked what they thought the puzzle showed and got these:

Well, the last one was close and I later find out she knows the story of the dispute. The student who gave options 4 and 5 just had an astronomy/geography lesson yesterday. Option three reminds me of Swatch's wall clocks. Options 1, 2 and 6 is a possible generalisation of the shape of the object.

After telling the story of the dispute and stressing the wisdom and fairness of the Prophet, we discussed disagreements the children might have faced before. 

We analysed how they handled the situation and whether they could have handled it differently for a more positive outcome. 

The second part of the lesson made me reflect on Syria. I just realised that the Prophet's father, uncle and the Prophet himself traded there. I'm no history buff but that must have been some important trading hub. It will be great again insyaAllah. 

We situated Syria relative to Mecca and Madinah on the map we used last week. I then talked about the story of Bahira and the Prophet's honesty that he was trusted to trade for others in Syria many years after his first visit with his uncle. 

I talked about how people trusted the Prophet with their most precious belongings because he was al Amin and how we should all emulate him. We talked about doing the right thing even when there was no one else around, like not playing with your mother's handphone when she is busy with something and can't check on you. 

I had wanted to ask the children to write about an honest deed like not taking money they found because it's not theirs but when asked the children gave me examples like "I help clean the house" or "I help wash the dishes." 

I decided maybe it was a situation they might not have been faced with or I have not provided them with enough basis to analyse a situation within the concept of trustworthiness. 

So, instead I let them write about any good deeds into their lapbook card on top of which I have printed this ayat.