Kids Halaqa session (5): Pumpkin Party!

Bismillah,

I decided to host a Pumpkin Party on Saturday evening which conveniently coincided with the night of Halloween. I took this opportunity to host a discussion session on the origins and history of Halloween. I then shared with them the real reason why we were there: to celebrate the Pumpkin as a vegetable loved by the Prophet and one mentioned in the Qur’an in the context of the story of Yunus (as) and the whale  🙂

MashaAllah, once I had the mums on board and they understood how this would party would benefit the girls, the rest was easy peasy! The mums contributed with some yummy food and pumpkins!

Here are the worksheets I used to kick off the discussion.

The Halloween discussion sheet highlights the pagan/celtic/Chrisitian origins of each activity usually done at Halloween. At the end, it summarises the key reasons why Muslims should not participate in this celebration. I did a quick vote over who believes we should not celebrate Halloween, MashaAllah, all agreed it was the right decision.

Download this worksheet from HERE

We then learnt about the the Prophet’s special love for Pumpkins as mentioned by numerous Ahadith! Many of us don’t know this, forever associating the Pumpkin to Halloween but never knowing this amazing fact. I mentioned this at this time to help the kids feel more love for the Prophet, to connect them with the beloved with something they will be seeing at every supermarket. To help them disassociate this vegetable with carved spooky faces. I will never forget the smiles and surprise look on their faces when they learnt of this!

Here is the worksheet I used to kickstart this discussion:

Download the worksheet HERE

After that, I handed out a worksheet that has other foods mentioned in the Qur’an. By the way “Yaqteen” is Pumpkin in Arabic 🙂

Instructions to create this mini booklet can be found HERE.

Download the following worksheet HERE.

So the girls now have a mini dictionary of foods mentioned in the Qur’an. They have been asked to colour in the foods and add their names to the front.

We then had a 20 minute timed pumpkin decoration competition! The girls were busy sticking, gluing and cutting and inshallah I will announce the winners in the next session. It was a lot of fun!

Here are some pics:

We then played Poke-A-Pumpkin game. Each cup had an Islamic quiz question and some of them had a gold coin. It was a lovely and subtle way of informally testing and finding out the strengths and weaknesses in Islamic knowledge.

The day ended with gobbling down yummy party food and chit chat. Oh! and I gave out handmade Pumpkin treat bags 🙂

I am coming to love these girls as my own little sisters. It’s lovely to witness positive changes in them and to offer them the chance to have some halal fun and form good friendships that will benefit them in this life and the next. May Allah accept. Ameen.

Did you like this idea? Any comments, suggestions or queries will be most welcome.

HM