Ramadan Tuff Tray

Today I am here with the lovely Sue Baxter sharing a most wonderful Ramadan Tuff Tray that the children have been exploring and learning about during the month long fast.




I did some searching online to find a suitable back drop for this tray. After a while I did come across a fabulous website which offered me the chance to get a template together. It was free to download and as you see came together so well! You can also download the template for free here.

I purchased themed tinsel from Amazon and found it sat well around the template. The children really liked this feature and enjoyed stroking the tinsel with their hands and it prompted questions about the moon and stars.




The peg dolls I painted and decorated myself. I am quite enjoying using peg dolls in my learning trays. You may have seen the ones I created for Handa's Suprize recently.
Very simple to create using acrylic paints and fabric/felt. I buy them online for a few pounds for a set.

I was lucky enough to also source the prayer mats from a Google Search. I purchased the Tuff Tray mat from Amazon. The glittered grey laminate really worked well with this set up!




I added money to the tray to talk about giving to charity. There was lots of counting that went on and some children were even able to identify some of the coins. We spoke about the word charity and what it meant. I had children saying they put coins in the buckets when they went shopping with their families and we talked about how that money would go on to help people.

Some children worked together and began shop role play where they purchased items from the tray and paid the shop keeper with the money.
Although being a shop keeper isn't related to this trays theme a child's interpretation of activities in front of them will often veer off from what is planned. This is where the learning takes place and it is so important to work with the children, allow them to lead their play and encourage their imagination as much as possible.

While they were busy playing shops I observed them talking about prayer mats (which they didn't know about before this activity), I also heard a child mention they were 'off to the mosque'.
It really is important to find that balance of child and adult led activities. As there is so much to gain from both.




The glow in the dark stars and moon set accompanied this learning set up beautifully! I had children cupping them up and watching them glow inside their clutched hands. I think we will be getting round to making a den at some point and using them inside there.

Rashad's Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr written by Lisa Bullard is the perfect story to show younger children what this fasting and celebration is all about. The simple text in this story is accompanied by call out boxes offering further information and facts. Another great feature to this book is the illustrations. They depict different races which show that Ramadan is not inclusive to just one race.




The cards I printed from Twinkl. They always have such a fabulous range of resources on their website and I am yet to do a topic that they haven't got resources for. They are always my go to site to add Literacy to our play.




The moon cards were also from Twinkl. The wooden craft numbers I was lucky enough to find in a charity shop. I just used some gold acrylic paint finish them off.

The moon and star confetti I carefully cut out from the tinsel. I have tried for years to find star and moon confetti but sadly to no avail.




Another lovely activity we have enjoyed as part of this topic is creating our own mosque sun catchers. I found a mosque template online and drew around it with a pencil onto some black card. I then carefully cut out the shapes and lay them on the table to decorate. We used a mixture of coloured tissue papers and the children expressed which colours were their favourite. This was a great way for me to see which children were able to correctly identify their colours.

We used blue tac and added them to the windows and even used our homemade light box to enhance the colours. The children really loved the vibrancy of colours that appeared as the light shone through their pictures.

Be sure to check out the videos on Cbeebies on Eid as a follow up. There are a handful of videos to share with the children.

I really do love sharing with children different religions, festivals and celebrations. They really find them fascinating. So far this year some of the cultural trays we have enjoyed are Shrove Tuesday, St Davids Day, Handas Suprize and Easter.


A huge thank you to Sue Baxter for inspiring us as always. I would also like to say a very special thank you to Fozia Malik Rashid, Riz Ahmed, Ayesha Khan and Giovanna Giovanna for supporting both myself and Sue and sharing their knowledge of their religion with us. It has been lovely talking to you all.