Ramadan Countdown Calendar – Teaching Children About Islam, Fasting and Good Deeds

Ramadan countdown calendar, often referred as Ramadan advent calendar or Ramadan Good deed calendar, have been very popular daily Ramadan activity for children among Muslim parents living in the West in the past couple of years. The Ramadan countdown calendar, often aimed at children and youth aged 4+ is used to help children learn about Ramadan and Islam. The idea is to earn a treat or a small gift by fasting for a short period of time or by performing a good deed.

In Islam, we believe that when we do good deeds, we are rewarded by Allah. The same concept is applied when using the Ramadan advent calendar a.k.a Ramadan good deed calendar. For small children, a good deed can be to smile and not be grumpy, tell mom that she loves her, help parents in the kitchen, tidy their room, and so on. At sunset, when everyone else breaks their fast, the child gets the treat as a little reward from parents and hopefully from Allah swt too.

For older kids, parents may chose to opt out the treat and just add good deed notes or Islamic lesson plans, in the Ramadan countdown calendar, that they need to perform each day and teach the child that he/she earned rewards from Allah.

To be honest, the Ramadan countdown calendars are simply an improvised version of the idea of Christmas advent calendar applied to the Islamic month of Ramadan. There are usually 30 slots in the calendar, each to be opened at sunset on each day of the holy month of Ramadan. There are also Eid ul Adha countdown calendars which have 10 slots to countdown the days leading to Hajj and Eid ul Adha. We have been using one for the last two Ramadans and my daughter is super excited to use hers again this year.

In my humble opinion, the Ramadan/Eid countdown calendars are a good motivational and educational tool for parents to teach their kids about Islam, Ramadan and fasting. The treats in the calendar are often used as an incentive to give out to kids who fasts or does a good deed. I think it is a great way to pass spirituality to children and instill the love of Ramadan. It is a great tool to create fond Ramadan memories and traditions for your children.

Is it possible to go overboard with the concept of the Ramadan countdown calendar, allowing it to even distract from the reason for using one: to instill a love of Allah swt, Islam and Ramadan? Absolutely, but anything has the potential to distract instead of focusing our hearts on Islamic teaching, values and manners. So making the right intention is the key.

When kids are small, we need to create a buzz for them to understand how special the month of Ramadan is. How else would we share and pass on the wonder of Ramadan that we so fiercely cling to?

What’s your opinion about Ramadan countdown calendars?

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