First Day of School 2013-2014!

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!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

Welcome back to school and a very late ‘Eid Mubarak! I hope you all broke in your new black shoes, tried out your backpack, debuted your haircut, ironed your uniform, gloated over the pencils you will lose over the course of the next week, labeled the first page of your notebooks and sniffed the pages of your new textbooks.

Yay! New shoes for school!

My baby sister was all dressed up down to the shoes an hour before she had to leave for school. Talk about enthusiasm. She must’ve rubbed that off from me – I was totally jealous of my sisters going to school this morning. ASU is not open for another three days so I have a little time to write this post!

She came home thrilled. “I LOVE my teacher! We went into the gym today! We get to eat in the cafeteria! Juice tastes so much better when you drink it at school!”

I know, I said. I wish I were with you, I said. I was feeling so nostalgic that when it was 8:05AM this morning, I looked at the clock and I pretended I was hearing the morning dua’as and announcements.

Two years ago, we had this vibrant poster greet us back on the first day of school! I know there’s another current poster up in the hallway but as I didn’t have my camera I couldn’t take a photo :( just pretend it says ‘Eid mubarak :)

 

May Allah put barakah into this year at Arizona Cultural Academy!

Skate to Support! – Photos

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

Today’s ice-skating event was a success! As a senior, I particularly want to thank all of our awesome attendees for coming out – you all know who you are!, then our really kind volunteers manning the popcorn and cotton candy machines, and of course Ms. Christine for helping coordinate this!

We made about $450! may Allah put barakah in it :) jazakAllahukhairan to all of you!

Here is our colorful entrance table!

Skating hijabis were galore at our event :)

Probably my favorite entertainment at the ice-skating rink is watching formations go round and round and rouundd until they all skit apart like electrons or something science-y lol. See this awesome “train” of guys!

Relatively few people stayed still enough for me to photograph. But this young lady obliged me :)

Speaking of young people, masha’Allah a lot of the older kids helped the younger ones out and really allowed the kids to have a good time!

Halfway through the event they redid the ice and we were all back out on safe, solid ground. Here are some of our lovely ladies masha’Allah.

And here are some of the guys having a great time as well!

Their cheeks are almost as pink as their hijabs!

Here are two of the seniors, a junior and an elementary volunteer at the snacks table.

And here’s a young lady eating a lovely pink fluffy cotton candy!

Go faster!

I hope everyone will go to bed happy, sore and tired today insha’Allah :)

Dr. Tomeh’s Guest Presentation on the Vascular System

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

Ms. Shazia, the vice principal and high school biology teacher invited Dr. Tomeh to give a presentation to the senior students on the vascular system, circulation, cardiology and everything in between on February 6th, 2012. Although I’m posting them late, please still enjoy viewing photos of the presentation that the sophomores also got to benefit from!

Dr. Tomeh gave a fascinating presentation that we all enjoyed thoroughly.

We got to ask questions about heart diseases and were questioned about our future goals in college!

He brought lots of interesting tools he uses on the job. Today’s students find it incredibly fun to have something tangible to see that relates to the theoretical studies.

The sophomores came in too!

We passed around different poky instruments to see..

I’m not quite sure what exactly he was measuring – but they do!

All the students had a great time alhamdulillah.

JazakAllahukhairan to Dr. Tomeh for taking some time out of his busy schedule to give us high schoolers a presentation and to Ms. Shazia for inviting him!

Taekwondo Graduation

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

Last week on Thursday, March 22nd from 4 to about 5:30 PM, the Taekwondo class received its graduating certificates and more importantly, new belts! Who else has fond memories of Taekwondo classes when you were younger? Comment if you remember anything! ACA has a tradition of Taekwondo and I’m certain mastery of this talent shows a mastery of discipline.

Standing in neat rows, the club members pay attention to their master!

They dropped down in seconds to perform a set of push-ups!

All the students were then paired off with partners to do a demonstration of the exercises.

Wow, see her kicking??

Do you see the look of concentration masha’Allah?

The pieces of plywood placed in front of each student were the real excitement.

I have to admit I was impressed enough with their organized rows and the way they gracefully seated themselves barefoot on the floor.

But then how cool is this?!

lol they were brave to hit that 1/2 inch plywood with their bare feet.

“Wow… I broke it…”

Then they began to receive certificates and belts with words of praise and encouragement from their master and Ms. Jane Smuts!

They’re so cute guys. So cute.

Finally, the kids and their parents had refreshments in the cafeteria!

They should all be tremendously proud of themselves masha’Allah!

Literacy Day 2012

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

March 9th, 2012 marked our school’s celebration of literacy. The national date for Dr. Seuss’s birthday and annual Read Across America Day is March 2nd, but we’re quite original folks and celebrating reading the last day before spring break seemed quite appropriate to me! You can see more about Read Across America Day here: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr059.shtml

Students were encouraged to dress up Dr. Seuss-style.. I introduce our own freshman student Thing 1.

We’ve got two Dr. Seuss-story characters here in senior year.. I can’t remember which two they represent, do you? All I can think of is the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

This magnificent hat was perched on a desk in Second Grade, and I just stole in to get a picture of it… little did I know it would appear on a head later on.

Two cat-in-the-hat-stripey ladies! I accidentally snapped them while one was blinking so I just cropped their outfits lol.

I then headed over to the Montessori and noticed there were a crowd of miniature elephants escaping!

These adorable hats were tributes to the character elephant Horton! I think Sr. Julia from the Montessori had the idea of making these masha’Allah :)

A well-dressed Cat in the Hat and his companion from second grade read their very own story to the Montessori students!

What a lot of Hortons listening!

Aren’t they just adorable masha’Allah?

Those ears are just so.. so.. flappable looking. All the lovely teachers in Montessori worked away during lunch creating them!

Just before the day was over, I caught a real authentic looking Cat in the Hat prowling around!

First Ever Cooking Club Meeting!

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

ACA held its first ever cooking class on February 16th, 2012 afterschool with Ms. Eman Khalife in the cafeteria kitchen… to the enthusiasm and excitement of its participants!

Ms. Eman asked all of us to bring bell peppers, onions and tomatoes, and the first lesson involved learning how to chop, slice and julienne them.

She explained the difference between the three concepts by demonstrating.

… As you can see here.

Then we were supposed to try.

Okay so all of us girls kinda got a laugh watching the boys hold the knives the way they did… (Ms. Eman was nicer)

green peppers!

The cutting boards are cute :) thank you for bringing them Fitri!

We accomplished cutting a bell pepper each and graduated to onions. And let me tell you it’s harder than it looks. Chopping a slippery onion that slips into individual layers in the palm of your hand that usually only grips pencils and a keyboard.. yeah :/

We started wrapping up after properly dicing and chopping and whatnot.

Let it be known that we left the kitchen spotless.

Here are the fruits – or actually, vegetables – of our labor!

ACA Qur’an Competition 2012 – Part 2

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

LIST OF WINNERS for 2012 ACA QUR’AN COMPETITION

Winners’ List:

Group 1

Boys:

Alaa Albaalbaki

Baha Abuhanieh

Omar Ali

Girls:

Yumna Ahmed, Montessori

Jana Shalakhti

Janna Mohammed

Group 2

Boys:

Abdullahi Bade

Farhan Alam

Abdullah Arojojoye

Girls:

Sumaya Bade

Mahnoor Ashraf

Noor Abdallah

Group 3:

Boys:

Umer Syed

Mohammed Hassan

Mazen Sarsour

Girls:

Mona Alhadheri

Haleema Ghannam

Tarteel Alimam

“…Strive, then, to excel each other in good deeds. To Allah is the return for all of you…” (Surah Ma’idah, Verse 48) 

……………………………………………………………………………

COMPETITION PART II PHOTOS

By the way, thank you Tarteel for the beautiful welcome signs in the masjid – that was the one you just saw above this :)

Parents and teachers intently listening to the recitation…

Some high school girls sitting in encouragement of their peers who were waiting to recite..

here are some of those who recited in the third group!

And here’s our after-prayer crowd waiting for the winners to be announced! It looks like ‘Eid salah lol :P

All the competitors received a certificate, and the winners received cash, a trophy and a prize!

Everyone’s smiling masha’Allah!!

Here are the boys’ third group winners (Ages 12-18, I think) with their Qur’an teacher Shaykh Omar!

 

Here are our three winning girls from the third group (this IS, after all, a high school blog, right?) :P

All the winners and Shaykh Omar, Ms. Maesa and Ms. Hazar took a photo at the end! Masha’Allah :)

Do you remember your first-ever Qur’an competition? I remember I thought 3rd place was better than 1st place… it was really embarrassing.

Comment with ideas, suggestions, compliments, dua’as for the organizers or winners!

Annual ACA Qur’an Competition 2012 – Part 1

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

On February 16th 2012, ACA held its Annual Qur’an Competition. It was a really exciting and well-organized event, masha’Allah! May Allah reward Ms. Maesa, Shaykh Omar, Ms. Hazar, Ms. Marwa and Sr. Hanann Tomeh.

I have around four hundred photos and so this post will be in parts insha’Allah.

Girls excitedly walked in to the masjid in the morning from class!

The judges’ table where Ms. Maesa is working with a laptop!

Getting all of us into some semblance of order :P

Ms. Hazar, our emcee, hosted the entire competition!

The youngest Arojojoye boy began the entire competition with a recitation :)

Shaykh Omar told us about a few cool miracles in the Qur’an!

We had one packed masjid! I love it when all of us sit on the floor squished next to each other. It’s both humbling and yet something to feel proud of! We’re so many and we all love each other :)

The Montessori, who were not part of the competition because of their age, were still encouraged to recite in the beginning! lol see his cute red socks and thobe masha’Allah?

A focused young Montessori lady also recited quickly and proudly.

To keep the audience entertained during the few seconds the judges needed to fill out their judging rubric, Sr. Hazar asked random Islamic Studies questions and a basket of candy was offered for the correct answer! (This was truly a genius idea, in my opinion!)

Hands flew in the air and that way the audience participated throughout the competition!

The yellow, beribboned and lacy sweets basket… it’s so Muslim you guys :P

Finally the competition began with the first and youngest group reading Suratul Bayyinah. Here is one truly excited, smiley first grader!

Competitors were allowed to dress up – here are three beautiful girls!

Young Mr. Kareem giving his mother a hug after reciting!

Waiting competitors practiced!

Here are a few more competitors! At this point in the competition, we took a break, and I think you should too. Stay tuned for the second half and the winners’ list!

Congrats Ahmad!- Photos

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

On February 10th, 2012 Ms. Fozia, the homeroom teacher for seniors – and I think juniors – but don’t quote me on that – threw a surprise party in celebration of Ahmad’s winning of the story competition. See the photos below! Alhamdulillah :)

While the guys somehow kept Ahmad entertained outside, we set up the food!

Thanks everyone for bringing something! Fitri made the delightful cupcakes & brownies :)

Then we allowed the guys in!

Someone totally needs to caption these expressions. I included speech bubbles for your convenience. Comment with your caption.

Congrats from the guys..

Present time! We had hoped that that was a real surprise.

Card-reading!

Cake!

“You need to cut it into EIGHTEEN EQUAL PARTS, Ahmad!”

lol, Ms. Fozia took over.

Then we all got food. :)

I’m telling you we have a major chocolate problem here :)

Here are the three absolutely lovely ladies who helped this event take place! Ms. Fozia, who hosted the party, Ms. Jane, who created the competition, and Sr. Areej, who is Ahmad’s mom.

Hah, I really wanted to post a photo of all them talking nonstop really hard at each other and then snarkily comment on how it’s a myth that girls talk all at the same time.. but the photo quality wasn’t so good. Ah well! :P masha’Allah!

Earth Science Outreach Program

!اَلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَا تُهُ

Sr. Veneranda from First Grade sent us some stunning photos from the recent visit-in event on Earth Science. In her own words:

“Lynee Dyer from the Earth Science Outreach program gave a presentation to our 1st, 3rd & 6th graders… We had the opportunity to view dinosaur fossils, different rocks, minerals and many, many other interesting things!”

Please check them out below! I apologize to her and everyone else involved for posting these much later than they were sent… sorry about that :/

Asking questions!

Checking out the display!

Wow, look at all the detailed information on the display!

Ms. Dyer seems as if she was explaining something really interesting!

…See?

The first graders observing!

It looks like “Fool’s Gold”, pyrite, to me!

The way she’s holding it in one hand, you’d think it was as light as an egg.

It looks as if the first, third and sixth grades had an amazing time in Sr. Veneranda’s room during the display! I wonder who will grow up to be a geologist, jeweler, or anthropologist after this…