Why I laminated and delivered the Salat diaries to Atfal
I created an Atfal Pack for each Tifl in my Qiadat. The pack consisted of a variety things such as a notebook, pen, pencil etc…
In this pack I also included a copy of the Salaat Diary. Before giving it to them I edited the Salaat Diary by adding their name and writing the Qiadat name for them, then I got the diary laminated. I did this because, I think it is a good way to allow for consistency. In the pack I also included two whiteboard pens and a wipe. I then delivered the pack to each Tifl and during our next class I told them how to use the variety of things in the pack. I told them that they need to tick each box in the Salaat diary with a whiteboard pen and if they missed a namaz, they should leave it blank. I told them that after every two weeks they need to take a photo of the diary and send it to me. They can then rub it out and then reuse the diary over and over. Getting Atfal to participate in the Salaat Diary would be difficult if they are not given the means to undertake it. If you were tell a Tifl to draw their own, and you get them to do this twice a week, it could be challenging and slowly the participation may decrease.
A few tweaks that I would make if I were to do something like this again.
Instead of printing out 2 tables to represent two weeks in a month, I could have printed out 4 tables by utilizing the space on the back of the Salaat Diary. This way the Atfal would have to submit their diary each month. I think that having to submit something every two weeks is a little excessive.
On the other hand, I could get the Atfal to use the back of the Salaat Diary as a regular whiteboard during the classes. For example if I ask the Atfal a simple question, such as which year was the Holy Prophet (saw) born, I could get them to write the answer on the back of the Salaat Diary and show it to the camera. It can be similar to what they do in a normal school lesson when they hold up their whiteboard.
– Labeed Ahmed Khan Sherwani (Nazim Atfal Scunthorpe)