Caboodle's Ramadan Workshop

In my last blog I mentioned about how difficult it is to keep Miss. M occupied during Ramadan. I was in the middle of looking for new ways when I heard about the Ramadan Workshop at Caboodle and I knew I had to go.

So on Thursday, after Iftar we made our way to Dubai Mall which was extraordinarily empty for a weekend. The kids waited as we paid.

 

Mehreen was issued her name tag and off she went.

 

First stop was the Eidiya pouch decorating corner. Gretchen was the staff member who would assist her. She was given a small jute and upon her request Gretchen drew a flower for her.

 

Mehreen was overjoyed at the prospect of having so many color markers in front of her and insisted on using every single color in the box!

When she had colored it to her satisfactions, Arfaz volunteered to write her name on it for her. She picked green for it. And then, she insisted that he also write kid bro's name on it.

Meanwhile Mr. Z was busy with his own drawing that Gretchen had given him. He thought he had to put the crayon on the picture and it would paint on its own!

 

M then moved on to the mosaic corner where she made a mosaic of different shapes. She was overjoyed when Gretchen handed her the glue stick- something I dont generally let her have at home (and for a good reason too or else she might start pretending its lipstick).

 When she finished with the mosaic, we decided to give arts and crafts a break and headed to the indoor play area.

Inside, we first made a headband for her by sticking together some colored papers. It was a great idea and she really enjoyed it

Then we played the piano for a little while.

Before settling at the book corner to read

 

After that she discovered the doll house. I could have never imagined how much entertainment she finds in role play and imagination. Even at home, she makes all sorts of stories with her imaginary friends. Now that Arfaz has hung up a huge map in our hall and daddy and daughter spend hours learning country names, all Mehreen's imaginary stories go along the lines of "South Africa was walking down the street when along came Russia with a huge Antarctica in its tummy"!

Here she made the doll have a bath and brush its teeth

 

We then headed back outside to make some Ramadan lanterns.
First she made the flat lantern

And then the hanging lantern

 

before doing some hand painting. So this was the sum total of all the crafts we did.

I was quite impressed by how prepared the whole event was. There were samples for everything which meant the kids had some sort of idea what to do. And the staff were so supportive, nudging them just enough to do the right thing without spoiling the kids' creativity. Definitely worth a try for your kids if they are home for the summer vacation.

Info:

Cost: AED 90 for 2 hours, including the craft materials.

Duration: Thursday 18 July to Saturday 20 July, 10am-12pm

Contact: 04-3253367

Location: Dubai Mall, 2nd floor, Galleries Lafayette parking (Grand Parking)