Ramadaan plans and goals

Mashaa Allah, I woke up a bit earlier than the rest of the family yesterday, so I decided to get my Ramadaan program written down (had not prepared anything before then!), whilst stirring the rice porridge I was making for our breakfast.

So far it's just a quick outline of what I want to cover, but alhamdu lillah, I did get a lot ready.

I/we will be focusing on four areas:

1. Conduct/Manners: we'll make a list of good character traits, deeds or manners and make a goal list for what we will concentrate on this Ramadaan. Maybe concentrate on implementing one per day.
2. Reading: Qur'an, Tafseer, the Prophets (I've omitted this because the Stories of the Prophets - قصص الأنبياء is 647 pages long!), Sahaabah, Heart Softeners (will have to take a look at this category in islam-qa.com to find inspiration, in shaa Allah)
3. Watching: lectures on Ramadaan, lectures on historical events or personalities, documentaries on Islamic history (including comparisons/influences with the West), may look for stuff on manners and stories to soften our hearts as well. Because the book on the Prophets is so long, I decided we'll watch the videos of Nabil al-'AwDiy instead, I really like his voice and the way he narrates, mashaa Allah.
4. Craft projects: Ramadaan lapbooks & diaries/journals, we'll finish the girls' Princess lapbooks (with stories about Maryam, Aasiyah, Khadijah, Faatimah, and other notable women role-models and also a few bad examples I think, like Shajar al-Durr), we might try to finish the butterflies and bees ones as well (R & S) since we have all our resources already. Time-line/History lapbooks.

Schedule (approximate):

• Suhur: eat and read Qur'an
• Fajr: pray and sleep
• Morning: Chores, prepare food (lunch for girls and iftar), crafts
• Thuhr: pray, watch documentaries/lectures etc, nap
• 'Asr: pray, read Qur'an, tafseer and books on Sahaabah.
• Maghreb: iftar, pray, eat dinner, clear the table and clean up as much as possible, get dressed, head out for taraweeh
• Back home: sleep, pray, read Qur'an

Resources: We have ten booklets on male Shaabahs and ten on female Sahaabahs (20 days covered in shaa Allah). I've tried to solve how to cover tafseer in 30 days...! There are 30 parts of the Qur'an, so we might choose something from each for each day (I haven't figured out how yet...). For the Prophets stories, I've chosen this video series (29 episodes, each with three parts):

The playlist can be accessed here. It's the one at the top. Another series by Tareq as-Suwaydaan is available there as well, but it's not in order (29 videos). We'll need to finish the stories of the Prophets before the 20th Ramadaan if the boys go into I'tikaaf, in shaa Allah (plus it makes room for other topics to be covered by way of watching videos).
I'm thinking of printing/making notebook pages with the phases of the moon for the Ramadaan lapbook (for the diary), in shaa Allah.
For the days of 'Itikaaf I'd like the boys to continue their study of the Sahaabah, in shaa Allah, just haven't figured out what books to use, we may use another of our Sahaabah books, or I have a look for a biography on Anas ibn Malek (rAa) - should be long enough considering he lived for so long, or the books on the Khulafaa ar-Raashidun. During the last ten days they will probably not watch video lectures, but it should be substituted with live lectures in the mosque, in shaa Allah.

The Sahaabahs we'll be covering during the first twenty days:
Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet (asws)
'Aisha, the wife of the Prophet (asws)
Ja'far ibn abi Taleb,
Faatimah , the daughter of the Prophet (asws)
Mus'ab
Zainab
Zaid ibn al-Haarithah
Ruqayyah
Sa'd ibn Muadh
Umm Kulthum
'Abdullah ibn Rawaahah
Asmaa bint Abi Bakr
'Amr ibn Jamoo'
Nusaybah bint ka'b
Khubayb ibn 'Adiy
Asmaa bint 'Umays
Hanthalah ibn Abi 'Aamer
Umm Haani
Albaraa ibn Malek
Zainab bint 'Ali
(RadiyAllahu 'anhum ajma'een)

In shaa Allah ta'aala.