The boys’ dad has just come back from Kuwait. I asked him to bring us plenty of Arabic children’s books, games and learning resources as the selection of Arabic books for kids available here in the UK can be a bit limited. As I mentioned before I’m focusing a lot on Arabic with Mr Z at the moment. Now that he can read well in English he is at the perfect stage to pick up Arabic quickly as he knows how to blend in English it’s not that different to blend in Arabic! I was pleased he came back with plenty of great resources. Have a look what we got:
These are from Jarir Bookstore, which is found all over the Gulf. These particular books are actually published by Jarir Book store as well as being bought from there. They are lift the flap books, and are great for children learning vocabulary as all the pictures inside are labelled up with the words, as well as having the main story text.
This page says “What did the hippo take with him to the beach?” – and behind the boat is the answer “his sun cream”
Another asks about what does the penguin make in the sand? The answer is…
A sand castle!
All quite simple sentences good for children learning, and with colourful pictures to help them out.
We also got a touch and feel book on horses
This is a little bit more challenging to read but even Mr R likes to touch and feel the texture of the horses and it will help him to get familiar with the look of Arabic words and sentences
We also got three sets of flashcards. This is one of them (above) with the alphabet, which will be perfect for Mr Z to practise and reinforce the letters, along with revising a simple word for each letter.
We also got fruit and vegetables in English and Arabic, and animals in English and Arabic.
We got a few workbooks too, I haven’t taken pictures of them all as they are quite similar to each other and similar to what we already have from Morocco. But I would definitely say, if you want to get lots of workbooks to practise Arabic handwriting, it seems much better to get someone to bring them if they are travelling as I don’t see so much available over here.
We got some telling the time books for daily routine in the school and in the farm. As Mr Z like’s numbers and time these should be good for him, and the interactive clock element will help to keep his attention.
These are just in Arabic but we also got a set with English and Arabic on all the pages:
The illustrations really remind me of Usbourne books but it’s marked as ABC publishers (their website does not seem to work unfortunately!) 
The boys’ dad was happy to spot some Arabic Disney Cars books in the shop. He knew the boys love Lightening McQueen!
The level of the books is actually quite tricky for them. but seeing one of their favourite characters will help to motivate them hopefully!
The last things we got are a couple of games:
I was really happy to see this, it looks great! I haven’t seen any like this in the UK. The cards have pictures for you to spell each word, and I like that they actually have the correct form of each letter required rather than just stand alone letters. When we had Arabic scrabble in the past, it’s all just the seperate letters so it won’t join properly to form the words like this! This is much less confusing for children.
The other game is a simple word and picture puzzle matching game to help practise reading words and building vocabulary.
Price-wise, it is not that cheap in Kuwait. 1KD is currently about 2.20GBP so you won’t necessarily find things extremely cheap, but there is definitely more variety. All the above came to 30KD which is about £70 – so not too bad. I do find the imported Arabic board books in some of the London bookshops can be ridiculous prices – I think I have paid about £18 per board book before!
So those are all the resources for now. I really hope they work well with Mr Z. If any of you have Arabic books and games from different countries I would love to see, so do let me know any recommendations or link me any blog posts in the comments if you have posted about Arabic children’s books and learning resources.
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Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
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That is fab! He is good at buying!
I had no idea Arabic children’s books were so expensive. How lovely for your boys to have these though.
this looks like a great selection, and such a good idea to learn languages while you are young.
It’s great that they are learning Arabic so young, they are like sponges and find it so much easier than adults. The price of board books made me look twice!
What great resources. Wish I was able to teach my children to be bilingual.
Good luck to Mr Z! Is it a hard language to learn? It certainly looks difficult!
it’s not too bad actually, in some ways easier than english and in some ways harder so it all evens out!
What a great selection. I am not sure my husband would have done so well!
Hubby did well there. Mine would have bought sweets and a comic
Wow you have some lovely resources there. They do look like the Usborne ones, that particular set. I had really wanted my son to learn another language, I remember looking into it whilst I was pregnant but the irony is that he has autism and I’m trying to help him learn english. Have to chuckle to myself a bit. (he’s doing well!)
my 2nd boy has Autism too, so can’t start him on the Arabic yet either as he still needs to master his English. I do like to think that eventually he will get there and he can learn these things too 😀
Wow – these are great! I’m pretty good with languages in English script – but languages in other formats just throw me – though I would love to learn the basics at least. I think I’d have to start with an ABC’s book – though I love the books with both Arabic and English – so you can make letter and word associations. Great stuff 🙂
Those books ARE by Stephen Cartwright – which is why they remind you of Usborne Books – he had his work translated all over the world. Great that the boys can learn using books that are so incredibly familiar 🙂
My son loves languages and is learning Arabic with his friend who is Egyptian and those flash cards would be brilliant. What a great selection of different resources you have there….hmmm, going to have to plan a trip to an Arabic speaking country I think!! 🙂
I did study Arabic for a while when I was at Uni, but I wasn’t any good at it 🙁
A great resource – will pin now x
It must be really challenging to teach such totally different languages, am I right in thinking you read Arabic back to front as well? How are your children getting on?
It is a shame they are so expensive but such an important thing to have in the home when learning another language as the stories are familiar!
What a great resource Anna – hubby did very well with his selection too. Sounds like they’re invaluable already 🙂
They look great, that suitcase must have been rammed full!
This was so interesting and I too was unaware that the books were so expensive. Some of the games look like good fun! 🙂
What cool books! I love the colors and how accessible they are. Thanks for sharing!
I’d say judging from the great selection your husband actually enjoyed his trip to Jarir Books 🙂
They look great, I see what you mean about the Usbourne look-a-like – definite. I’m quite fascinated by Arabic text, I used to be able to read numbers in Arabic, but have forgotten them now
What a great resource
What a great selection. Thanks for linking up with #ReaWithMe have tweeted and pinned x
Gosh what a lot to have to spend but they look great so a worthwhile set of purchases 🙂
Fantastic! I am loving this post! Thank you so much for linking up with us at the Mommy Monday Blog hop. I’m going to pin this to the #MCKlitday post. Have you heard of Multicultural Kid Lit Day? This would be wonderful for that.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Lovely selection Anna! I bet Mr Z loved the cars series in Arabic! 😀
I love these multicultural picture books for the kids – great idea! Just bought them one with Chinese writing to celebrate the Chine New Year!
What a great collection 🙂
I was just a part of Multicultural Children’s Book Day this would be a great post to linkup there if you haven’t already.
Thanks for sharing via Mommy Monday!
XOXO
Your husband did well, that’s a great haul. I’m sure the boys will have fun with everything.
What a lovely collection! It is great they are learning Arabic at a young age 🙂 Thanks for linking up to #pastandpresent x
i am Arabic teacher . jeddah . ksa