Ramadan Decorations: Ramadan Banner

Making a Ramadan banner can be a great family activity. We made a Ramadan banner last year and decided to do it again this year. I thought I would share how we made it as well as some other tips for others who might want to make one as well.

1. The Template

To start, I found the template for this swallowtail banner at Printable Party.com. (PDF)

Printing the Templates:

This year, I decided to count up how many of each page I would need (to spell out "Ramadan Mubarak) to save time when printing out for future Ramadan, in shaa Allah.

Page 3 (AB) - 5 copies of this page
Page 4 (D) - 1 copy
Page 8 (K) - 1 copy
Page 9 (MN) - 2 copies
Page 11 (R) - 2 copies
Page 14 (U) - 1 copy

I used regular copy paper, but if we do this again, I would try to get some cardstock for durability.

Cutting out the Templates:

You can have younger children begin to cut out the letters. There are two letters per page and the kids with more primary cutting experience can cut the two letters apart. Older children can cut around the outline of the swallowtail pattern. I like to enlist my teens for this as well, since it goes faster.

Once you cut our the letters, you will have extra, unneeded letters left over. You can save these for activitiess for preschoolers who are learning the alphabet!

Decorating the Templates

Assign each family member a letter (or letters) to decorate. 

Here are some ideas:

• Paint the letters
• Color the letters
• Draw doodles/designs on them
• Add stickers
• Put glitter and/or colored sand on them

You can make all the letters/decoration uniform or just let each family member design and decorate their letter the way they want to!

You might also want to decorate the templates before cutting out so the tails don't get "scrumpled" up (as my kids would say).

If you think that you might want to reuse your letters next year, try laminating them (or covering them in clear contact paper for durability!)

Assembling and Hanging the Banner

Last year, I just hung up each letter separately.

 This year, we decided to try to make it an actual banner by stringing yarn through it.

So now we have our banner and lanterns up. Our Ramadan bulletin board items will go up under our banner, in shaa Allah.