D.I.Y ideas to decorate a kindergarten classroom

We had a very long weekend my sister and I, since she started working as a kindergarten teacher, we had to decorate this little empty room for her cute little students.

We had no idea how, we did not want to copy from the other teachers and we didn't have much material to work with, we searched for some ideas on the internet and this is how things turned out.

First we thought of making letters:

We had to make a list of names of the kids and their photos, so we made those butterflies for it (it was my idea, I'm so proud of it, well not all my ideas turn this good).

   

We made some paper poms, they were not that good but we hung them on the wall anyway, we also made a chain of numbers:

We made a tree of Arabic letters:

We also decorated the door:

We drew pictures of seasons, we took the ideas from youtube:

 Making all those DIY wasn't easy at all, I didn't know writing letters was this hard. we also had a lot of fun doing this work but I think I did enough DIY for this year, what do you think did it turn well? the class still looked empty but we had only two days, and I think the kids will make it full with their drawings and love and noise GOD may help my sister.

Sorry for the quality of the pics.

book review: KALILA WA DIMNA كليلة و دمنة

We all have one of those old books on our bookshelves that we saw there since we were kids but never picked it up to read it, kalila wa dimna is one of those books, everytime I organize my bookshelf I see it and I promise myself that one day I'm going to read it and that day did come. My motive to read it was my love to tales, I like knowing them, telling them to children mostly to my younger cousins.

Kalila wa Dimna is one of the most famous book tales in the world, a lot of the animal stories that we had read or saw on TV when we were kids were inspired by this book. That's why I was so excited to read it and to review it for you.

While reading the book I discovered that the few informations I knew about it where all false, So this is a list of facts I didn't know about Kalila wa Dimna :  

• Kalila wa Dimna is not an arabic book, it's an indian book that had been translated to so many languages but the most ancient written copy of it that we can find is in Arabic, that's what made the arabic version so famous.
• The writer of this version is the author Ibn al-Muqaffa'.
• The book contains tales that takes place in the animal world but not all of them there are some tales about humans.
• In the introduction of the book the writer tells the readers that this book is not a children book, he has the right to say so because he sent through it political messages to the king of that time P.S Ibn al-Muqaffa' was killed cruelly because of his political opinions.
• Kalila and Dimna are not two nice girls, I don't know what made me think so maybe their names, actually Kalila and Dimna are two Jackals ابن آوى , they are really smart animals, Dimna can do any thing to reach its goal, which make him the evil one.
• Kalila and Dimna use tales to explain and convince the others of their thoughts.
• The edition I did read, which was arranged by Fouad SHAKER, contains eight chapters called bab باب in arabic, Kalila and Dimna are only present in the first two chapters of the book, which are the longest chapters in the book they represent half of it. The other half is about other characters.
     

Now my opinion about KALILA WA DIMNA :

1.     The book is full of very beautiful and meaningful tales, but not all the tales in it can be told to a kid, some of it contains violence and sexual themes. ( one story I would say in particular).

2.    It was really hard for me to stay focus while reading the book, firstly because I didn't read in arabic for a while, I didn't even understand some words which is shame because I studied this language for 12 year. Secondly because of the style of writing sometimes I got really confused when someone start telling a tale about an other person telling a tale I even get lost and forget the original story.

3.     If you want to finish this book you need to be so patient and I think this book is worth the patience and the time.

I was so glad to read this book, it made me remember that time when mom and my auntes used to tell me tales especial the tales of Boumhand and Ouchen. Boumhand is a Hedgehog and Ouchen is a Fox they are in tachlhit and their adventures are so funny. I think that in every culture there are stories like this. Does poeple still tell their kids those stories or do they just let them in front of the TV screen?

My top 5 moroccan songs for 2014

 Music is an important part of my everyday life, sad or happy, while cooking, while reading ,to my way to school. music just makes life better. who disagree?

 Today I'm going to tell you about my favorite Moroccan songs, the songs that I really like those days. so let’s start :

Number 5: bard o skhoun by Mohamed El Hayani

 So Bard o skhoun is one of those songs that never gets old or boring I love this version by jannat I also like the original one my favorite part is :

 هزيت عيني سرقت اشويفة    

اشويفة هادءة و لطيفة      

ولقيت ضحكة كتهبل

فيها شمس و فيها ظل

و يلا هز عيونو فيا

الحفيظ الله مشاو بيا

my sister and I have our own parody of this part that's how much we love this song.

Number 4 : kouyi by Latifa Raafat

سال عني من حين لحين

ديرني فبالك و ذكرني

و شكون من غيرك يا الحنين

يعرف حالي و يعذرني

عاشقك من مدة و سنين

وخا تقسى و تهجرني و يا خييي

سال عليا عفاك

عفاك يا خيي خيي فكر فيا عفاك

عفاك يا خيي خيي

Khouyi 3malni men hbabek, this song is so beautiful, I love the sound of the word khouyi, we can’t translate it to brother it has a much deeper meaning than brother, too bad we don’t use this word much those days.

Number 3: Fathallah lamghari - faynak a lahbib

I love so much this song, the weird thing is that the lyrics are sad, they are about a man searching for his lover who left him, but listening to it makes me so happy,  and the cause is the singer; fathallah lamghari. he's one of those singers that  just looking at them makes you happy, he has a contagious smile. I heard other singers cover this song, but no one can sing it as good and as simple as he does.  

Number 2: Bahija Idriss - Atchana

This song is so sweet, talks about a woman that suffers from a one sided love. the lyrics are so beautifully written and have such a deep meaning.

عطشانة

الماء يجري قدامي

صافي مثل البلار

وأنا قضيت أيامي

عطشان مكوي بالنار

بالله عليك يا الهانئ

ما ترجع حتى تجاوب

قلبي في حبك ذايب

فيها عجايب فيها مصايب

 Number 1 is: Bachir Abdou-Wanta dayz

 I love bachir ABDO's voice so much, and in this song in particular. I can't get enough of it. the lyrics and the melody are so nice. I'm addicted to this song.

وانت دايز طلل علينا ،وانت دايز طلل علينا

وانت دايز طل علينا شوفنا واش احنا لاباس طلل علينا
والمركب لين وصل لين وصل بينا

والمركب لين وصل لين وصل بينا

والمركب لين وصل بينا بحور الدنيا وسط الناس طلل علينا

طالبين سويعه لينا ،طالبين
وايلي فوتي القياس
شوف اوكان وفكر وا فكر فينا
حن خلي قلبك يرطاب

خلي الهنا يرجع يرجع يرجع لينا
بعار الله مالك الابواب

 Those are my best 5 moroccan songs for now, I think as moroccans we are so blessed to have such a beautiful and rich repertoire. so what are your favorite moroccan songs?