Friday 15 May 2020

My Balancing Scale "Al-Mizaan" - 30 Day Craft Challenge

My Balancing Scale "Al-Mizaan" - 30 Day Craft Challenge



Salam! We have now reached Day 21 of our Craft Challenge. Today I wanted to bring up the concept of the "Mizaan" or balancing scale. I found this to be a tough topic for my children to grasp without a visual. Before we did the craft, I spoke to them about the fact that the balancing scale, ميزان, has been mentioned in the Quran with regards to Judgement Day. Allah would like to see us with our scales tipped towards the side of "Good Deeds". We should always strive to attain as many good deeds as we can so that on the Day of Judgement we do not displease our Lord. I got a few nods, but, it wasn't until we constructed this Balancing Scale together that we had our "Aha" moments. 

I have always wanted to make a scale with my children but I always backed away thinking it would be too difficult and would require too much precision for it to be fun. However, I was completely wrong! This craft is so easy and very forgiving in terms of precision. The idea is just to give the kids a hands on opportunity with the scale to really understand how balancing works. Take a look below and you'll see!

Materials:
  • Several pieces of cardboard - I took apart a box. Largest piece was for the base, two small squares for each platform, and two long pieces for the top of the scale
  • One empty paper towel roll
  • Two brass paper fasteners
  • Scissors
  • Pencil
  • String (4 pieces about 60-80cm long each)
  • Ruler
  • Single hole punch (or scissors)
  • Two beads to help balance the scale (seen in images below)
  • Optional: Xacto knife could be helpful but sharp scissors will do just fine as well
    Pretty much all you'll need! Forgot to add a pencil and two beads here
    Check our this YouTube video to see how we made the scale: Here

    Steps:
  1. On your base piece of cardboard, right at the centre, use the paper towel roll to trace a circle with your pencil.
  2. Use your Xacto knife or a pair of scissors to cut out this circle
    Here's the circle
  3. Fit your paper towel roll right into that circle
    The roll should fit nice and snug in there
  4. Tape it very well all around
    About 4 or five pieces of tape 
  5. We even put a couple pieces of tape on the bottom 
    Two pieces of tape at the bottom
  6. Use your single hole punch (or scissors) to make a hole right at the centre of each of the long pieces of cardboard for the top of the scale
    Try to measure the centre as best as possible
  7. Then make two holes adjacent to each other on the top of the paper towel roll
    There should be two holes one that visible here and one right behind it
  8. Use your paper fasteners to secure these long pieces of cardboard to the paper towel roll
    They should fasten nicely with enough space to move freely
  9. Make four holes on each corner of your platforms
    The single hole punch came in handy for this craft!
  10. Then make holes on the edges of the top of the scale
    Pictured here are the holes we made at the ends of the long pieces
  11. Get two pieces of string for each platform 
  12. Insert them from the bottom into the holes in the platforms, forming an "X" at the bottom
    This is the X shape at the bottom of each platform
  13. Now pull them up and make sure the length of the string is equal on all sides
  14. String through a bead so that all the string goes through the bead first
  15. Then insert two strings on one side of the top of the scale and two on the other side
  16. Tie them together with a knot
  17. Do the same thing on the other platform
  18. The scale is complete!
  19. Allow your children to place different items in the bases and see which one weighs more
    They measured rocks, toys and fruits!
  20. Make sure to talk to them about always striving to have their good deeds outweigh the bad deeds!
Thanks again for taking a look at this and all the other crafts as part of the Craft Challenge! I appreciate all my visitors. Feel free to leave feedback below in the comments about how I can make this blog better. See you tomorrow!

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