How to Create a Hajj Unit Study (without Spending Money!)

BySalaam Mummy

With Hajj season swiftly on its way, I realised I had a fantastic opportunity to introduce this important pillar of Islam to my daughter through a Hajj unit study.

My 4.5-year-old is very interested in anything to do with Islam (may Allah continue to gift her with this love!) so I knew it was time to capitalise on that and continue to build on her interest.

The following ideas for a Hajj themed unit study is what I will be doing with my daughter, though of course, the options for a themed unit on Hajj are endless.

Books, books, books

The first thing I considered including in my Hajj unit study was books. So much learning happens through reading, especially for young children who absorb everything and can powerfully internalise ideas through the stories they hear. 

I had a problem though – I didn’t have ANY books on Hajj at home at all! 

What did I do? I went onto my local library app and placed all my book reservations on my phone. Thankfully, I did this well in advance (a good few months prior) to ensure we would receive them in time.

Here are the books we are reading:

The Brave Boy by Saniyasnain Khan

  • Tell Me about Hajj by Saniyasnain Khan
  • Going to Mecca by Na’ima B. Robert
  • The Story of Ibrahim (as) by Learning Roots

Ideally, we would have had a slightly larger selection of books, but these are the ones that were available to reserve at the library so at a pinch, it’ll do!

For other ideas about books relating to Hajj, Jeddah Mom has put together a great list to spark some inspiration.

Basing ideas on my child’s skills and interests

My next consideration for our Hajj unit study was to include activities that were hands-on and enjoyable. 

I thought about what types of skills my daughter enjoyed working on and general interests, and used these to generate some ideas. 

The skills she is working on include:

  • Cutting (with scissors)
  • Completing mazes
  • Tracing
  • Colour-matching
  • Counting 
  • Spotting differences 
  • Jumping
  • Playing hide & seek

Searching for free Hajj related resources online

Using these to guide me, I searched for free activities online which would satisfy her need to work on those skills and interests.

I found Iman’s Homeschool Blog to have a fantastic range of resources, all for free! Not just on Hajj either, it covered many Islamic-related subjects.

From there, I downloaded some Hajj colouring pages and a cute maze.

I found wonderful activities for toddlers and preschoolers at Umm Abdul Basir’s Homeschooling Blog, but these weren’t quite suitable for my daughter as they were geared more towards 2-3 year olds.

Then I hit the jackpot.

A little bit more searching led me to A Muslim Child is Born. Umm An-Nu’man, the author, created a beautiful 39-page pack of Hajj activities and made it available completely free! 

What’s inside the pack:

  • Ayat of the Qur’an relating to Hajj
  • Tracing Hajj related keywords
  • Matching Hajj keywords to pictures
  • Mini-book teaching about the journey of Hajj
  • Map skills and comprehension
  • Cutting and sticking activities
  • Colouring pages
  • Arabic Haa and English H letter dot stamping pages
  • Hajj 3-part cards
  • Graphing activities
  • Counting cards
  • Spot the odd one out activity
  • Hajj sequencing cards
  • Maths addition tables
  • Picture puzzles

There is such a wealth of resources made by talented Muslim mums for the benefit of other Muslims and for the pleasure of Allah – masha’Allah! May Allah accept their efforts.

Next up… Islamic crafts!

Can any unit study be complete without at least one craft? 

Now this is not my strong point at all and I’m definitely not the most creative minded or handy person. But even I could put together a ‘build a Kaaba replica’ craft!

This craft required a cardboard box, some black and yellow paint and a few pretend people to act as the hujjaj (the people performing Hajj pilgrimage). 

To make the little people, I decided to use some spare wooden clothes pegs/clothespins we had at home with some cotton wool glued on to act as the ihram.

We could then enact the tawaf (circling of the Kaaba) and talk about everything we learned about Hajj so far in a more concrete and visual way.

Finally, Hajj videos!

I am not against screen time and I think that high-quality, educational videos can be so great for children, when used in moderation. 

Videos can show true-life images of places far away and out of reach and make those places more real and concrete, so I searched for documentaries and educational videos that would show real footage of Hajj and Mecca. 

I found this video from BBC Teach to be a good one, as it had loads of footage from Mecca of people performing Hajj. It states it is suitable for ages 7+ but since the videos I searched for aimed at younger children were all cartoons, I preferred this one. I decided I would pause and discuss to check for understanding as we went along.

So there we have it – a Hajj unit of study, with no additional money spent at all.

It includes:

  • Books
  • Skills-based and hands-on activities
  • Crafts
  • Educational videos

This is more than enough to create and stir up interest for a young child – and hopefully, keep that interest burning bright.

I hope this post may inspire you to introduce and celebrate Hajj with your children and if you do, please let me know how it all goes! Feel free to tag or DM me @salaammummy on Instagram.

Salaam x

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