One of the grandest festival celebrations for Muslim communities around the world is Eid Mubarak. The most memorable way for you of making Eidul-Ftri celebration memorable for your children is by spending time with your beloved family members. It is the time of the year to indulge in the festive season and have a blast with cousins and relatives.
Although the spread of COVID-19 has stopped us from continuing the tradition of visiting our family members, relatives, and friends, that does not stop us from making the 2020 Eid celebration to be meaningful, especially for your beloved little ones.
To make Eid celebration more interesting, here are the top ten games and activities for children during the Eid celebrations.
1- Magic Corn Kit
During Eid celebrations, children will be very hyper because they are excited and share the joy of celebrating Eidul-Fitri. Let
your children sketch their ideas on what should they build with the magic corn. Allow the children to have some freedom and autonomy to be creative.
Children will have fun doing STEM activities in their best Eid clothes without a mess. This activity does not need children to do cutting or playing with water. All you need to prepare for the children is a damp sponge and they are good to go. Remember to remind the children magic corn will dissolve if they put it in water within seconds. To make it more interesting, set time for them to finish their design and give extra “duit raya” to the winner.
2- Sing Along
Create a fun atmosphere by inviting the children to sing-along with some of the favourite Eid songs. This activity will not need you to take up too much time but certainly will live up the mood in your house. Ask the children and their siblings to join and sing different songs.
There are a lot of Eid songs collection for children by Upin & Ipin. If your children want to sing their favourite Disney songs, let them be! If you want to go all-out for this activity, make a competition between children and prepare irresistible rewards that will encourage children to join and sing in front of their family members.
Make sure the singing competition is not too loud so your neighbours will be celebrating their Eid in peace.
3- Magnetic Car Race
Get your children excited on Eid afternoon with a car race competition with their siblings. This is one of the kits for STEM subscription kits to teach children about magnets. Can they make the cars move forward and reverse without being untouched? Let children find out how by reading the comic magazine provided!
Want to add more excitement? Let them create the racetracks on a paper or using all the items that you have around your house. This could be tricky in normal Eid celebrations because you will have guests coming, but since you are not encouraged to accept guests this Eid, a little mess here and there around your house for the sake of your children’s learning and excitement is harmless.
Since you have magnets provided, you can let the children explore and identify magnetic and non-magnetic materials around your house.
4- Making Eid Decorations
Do you know how we used to have Eid cards pasted on our wall as decorations before e-cards become the trends? Bring back those memories into reality by sitting together with your children and create some Eid cards.
Provide children with stationery, glitter papers, magic pens and coloured papers to get started. When the children are done,
paste the Eid cards on the wall to get the festive Eid look.
Allow the children to do so if they want to dedicate the cards to other family members or their friends. Do not forget to remind the children to write something in the cards that they will make!
5- Flubber Soap Kit
You are advised to stay at home during this Eid season. Grab this opportunity to teach your children how to practice good hygiene and what they need to do it.
There will be a lot of food and cookies prepared during the Eid celebration (even if you need to stay at home!). Washing your hands is very important and children need to know the proper handwashing technique. Before that, indulge the children in the Flubber Soap experiment
with one of the STEM subscription kits. Make the flubber soap and because of its characteristic as a semi-fluid, the soap can be reshaped again and again before you off to the sink to teach the children how to wash their hands properly before and after eating.
Children will always be excited about washing their hands with their DIY soap and make this a habit for children to keep washing their hands.
6- Children’s Show
Instead of lying around watching television in the afternoon during the first day of Eid, separate the family into two groups and start planning for children’s show. The roles of the adults here are to assist children in their costumes, makeups, and ideas on what show should
they perform. Spend the first Eid planning and let the performance begins on the morning of the second day of Eid.
Let the children be creative if they want to retell a story, sing songs, or perform a magic show for everyone! This activity does not have to be a competition and encourage children to support each other’s performances even though they are in the same group.
When the adults have some free time, maybe it is time for them to work together to create a mini stage for the children!
7- Colour Mixing Kit
Avoid letting your children drink too many sodas and juices during Eid. Distract them with something that has similar colours with these drinks with the awesome colour mixing activity! With this kit, you do not have to use the soda and attract the ants to gather where the spills are.
Drop the colour tablets (red, blue, and yellow) in a plastic bottle filled with water and pour some in cups. Let your children explore what will happen if they start mixing two colours. This is the best activity for you to teach your children about primary and secondary colours. Can the children differentiate the gradient of the colours? Find out by doing this activity with them!
8- Share the Joy
In the true spirit of celebrating Eid, be the role model of your children and share the joy to the less fortunate. Involve your children in preparing foods, clothes, and other Eid essentials to homeless shelters, charity shops, or orphanages. In some other times, it is a good idea to bring children out together with you for them to experience sharing on their own. This will make them be more grateful for what they have.
However, due to COVID-19 spread, it is recommended for you to send it contactless to any orphanages nearby. In fact, you do not have to wait until Eid to do this activity. You can start anytime especially during Ramadan month.
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9- Traditional Games
Remember the old days? When you were small, the adults will do all the preparations while children enjoyed themselves playing all those traditional games such as congkak, batu seremban, top, guli and tarik nipah! Some will play hopscotch too!
Bring back those old days with your children. Today children are into gadgets and media devices such as television, mobile phones. Take those away and let your children interact. Play some games that you can play indoors. If not, twist the game so it can be played indoors. These traditional games could improve your children's mathematical skills, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. Make sure you have all the tools to do these traditional games.
To make it more interesting, tell your family members to set up game stations where the children need to visit all the stations to play the game. When they are done, allow them to explore and play with their favourite games. For a while, children will forget the existence of television and gadgets.
10- Moon Sighting
Children believe that the moon chases them wherever they go. For Eid celebration, looking at the moon a day before is very important and exciting for Muslims because it marks the end of the Ramadan month.
You will not be needing a real telescope but if you have one, you can use it too! Let children do their own telescope with cans, tissue rolls, or anything that they can use to create and design a telescope with. Do this hands-on activity in the morning so that your children can use it to look at the moon during the night. Ask your children to look at the moon from different areas of your house. Will the moon look different from different places? Find this out with the DIY telescope.
Eid is the day of celebration, enjoyment, and reunion (not this year). It is a day where all family members will spend more time together and create memorable memories together. Do try these activities and games with your children to make them feel more involved in the Eid
celebration.
No matter how you choose to celebrate your Eid, celebrate it as a family. Pray together, enjoy good food together, and play together.
