25 Ramadan Activities for Muslim Teens and Tweens For Families in the Gulf and Beyond
Inside: What kinds of Ramadan activities teens and tweens can do. Ideas that should be encouraged for the youth to be productive and better Muslims.
Let me be honest with you.
Raising teenagers in Ramadan is hard work. You may not find yourself losing your child as much as you do in Ramadan.
Tell me if you relate with this version of Ramadan that had crept into your home: the sleeping until Asr, the staying up scrolling until Fajr, the half-hearted Taraweeh and the long sighs when you suggest they do something meaningful together with you.
As someone raising my children in Jeddah with Makkah fifty minutes away, I used to wonder what I was doing wrong that my kids were behaving this way…
The answer, I eventually realised, was not that my teenagers did not care about Ramadan. It was that I was offering them activities designed for younger children and expecting them to feel something. A Ramadan craft. A colouring sheet. A sticker chart.
At 13, of course they were not feeling it.
What changed everything was when I stopped trying to manufacture Ramadan magic for them — and started inviting them into the real thing.
I have an 18 year old son now and two 13 and 14 year old daughters… here’s my experience and advice.
This post is what I learned. Twenty-five Ramadan activities for Muslim tweens and teens aged 10 to 17 that have actually worked in my home, with my children, in Jeddah. Some are spiritual. Some are practical. Some are just clever ways to make the most of a month that passes faster every year.
Your teen or tween is not a little child anymore.
They won’t be interested in arts and crafts or all the fancy-shmancy cute ideas. Once my eldest turned 9 years old, he started rolling his eyes at me whenever I offered printable activities. He wouldn’t help me decorate or create any fuss about Ramadan either.
He didn’t want to do any activity with the girls… but when it came to distributing Iftaar, helping in the kitchen or setting the table, I could definitely rely on him. In fact, in the past – quite a few times, he got our ‘minions’ together to make the iftaar himself because mom and dad didn’t seem too excited for an elaborate spread.
He would be the first to get out of the house to go to the mosque. SubhanAllah! What craze to pray in the first suf. He was competing against his grandpa next door. We live close to a Masjid so for Maghreb, Isha’a and even late night Qiyam al Layl, he’d be the first one out of the house.
Tweens and teens are not difficult. They are different.
They can tell the difference between something that matters and something you pulled off Pinterest to keep them busy. They want depth, not decoration. They want to feel responsible, not managed. And more than anything, they want Ramadan to feel like it belongs to them — not something being done at them.
The activities below work because they treat your 10-17 year old as the almost-adult they are becoming. They involve real worship, real responsibility, real conversations and real stakes. No sticker charts. No paper craft lanterns.
If you are living in the Gulf, you also have something extraordinary on your side. You are close to the holiest places on earth. Ramadan here sounds different, smells different, feels different. Even your teenagers can feel that — if you show them how to pay attention that is…
Teenage girls behave very different from boys
Totally opposite to my son were my daughters. They would start getting excited about Ramadan by putting up a countdown frame in the living room. They’d want to do crafts before Ramadan and pull out all the Ramadan books just the way I had been doing all those years when they were small.
And then in Ramadan, they’d be up before Suhoor helping me in the kitchen and couldn’t wait to get started with cutting, chopping or setting the table at Iftaar time.
We don’t generally go to the mosques here in Saudi for the Taraweeh. The families stay at home. It is only the boys who go so the girls pray at home and complete the Quran ourselves.
Ramadan is all about prayer and Quran
I remember myself at my children’s age. My parents always focussed on Ramadan being more about our religious duties and family ties.
It was the same with me and my siblings… we were all in the kitchen at Iftaar and Suhoor time. The competition was all about Quran and Salah.
Who was leading in reading the Quran, what juz were the others on… when we moved to India, it was competition with the cousins too. Sending the neighbors our Iftaari or even driving around distributing it.
Coming back to the question of what activities teens and tweens can do in Ramadan, I believe this is what we should emphasize.
Your teenager is an adult
In Islam there is no teenage phase. For years, my husband and I had been discussing this topic until I read the book Child Companions of the Prophet by Darrussalam Publications. (It is an excellent book if you haven’t read it. You can give it to your 12 year old too.)
You are a child until a certain age and then… you are directly considered as an adult. That’s when you start fasting and praying regularly. It is recommended for children to start training to pray Salah from the age of 7 years. They can fast from when ‘they are of age’ – generally that means when they cross puberty.
Little children, like babies, toddlers and preschoolers up to the age of 7/8 years need to be taught about Ramadan. I understand that as expats and immigrants, with not much interaction with family or even our own community, the responsibility falls on us to pass on our culture and traditions. We are forced to create the ‘joy’ of Ramadan for our little children.
This is the time when all those fun activities and craft ideas for Ramadan come in handy. But as your child grows up, he/she will not be interested in such activities. If we pursue on, it just frustrates them to be treated as babies … and we end up looking bad.
As children grow up, it’s our job to start training them to be righteous Muslims. And the only way we can encourage this is by following the Quran and Sunnah ourselves.
Ramadan isn’t about decorations and parties… the décor came about in later times… don’t we see a lot of emphasis on this these days?
“There is no Eid Baba in Islam” and Angels don’t bring gifts…
25 Ramadan Activities for Teens and Tweens
So… what activities can teenagers and older children do in Ramadan? Here’s a list that has actually worked in my home.
The Quran Activities
1. Watch Taraweeh from Makkah and Read Along
This is the single most transformative Ramadan activity we have discovered in our home and I want to tell you exactly how it happened.
During the pandemic, when the mosques were closed and Taraweeh was broadcast live from Makkah, I sat with my daughters and we watched together. I suggested we follow along in our own Quran while the Imam recited.
I had no idea what I was starting.
Within a few nights, my daughters had realised something that years of gentle encouragement had not managed to teach them: reading a full Juz is not as impossible as it feels. When you read alongside an Imam, matching his pace, the hour passes and you have covered more Quran than you thought possible. The mountain becomes a hill.
We continued after the pandemic ended. Every night of Ramadan, we watch the Taraweeh broadcast (from Makkah in English translation, from Madinah in French) and we read along. By the end of Ramadan, my daughters had completed the entire Quran. Every year. They finish thirty Juz in thirty days, something they once thought only the most dedicated huffadh could do.
But the Quran completion is not all this gave us.
It gave us the Imams.
My daughters learnt about every Imam of Makkah and Madinah — their names, their voices, their stories. They started to have a relationship with these scholars the way other teenagers have a relationship with musicians. They watch for them, they notice which new Imam is leading, they talk about their recitation styles. These men became role models in the most organic, unforced way imaginable.
The translation broadcasts opened something else entirely. Reading the meaning of what is being recited in real time, in a language your children understand and it turns Quran from sounds into conversation. We have had more meaningful discussions about Islam sitting in front of the Taraweeh broadcast than in years of formal Islamic studies.
How to do this: Find the live Taraweeh broadcast from Makkah (Saudi Quran channel or the Haramain app). Have each child bring their own Mushaf. Read along as the Imam recites, or read the same Juz after Taraweeh ends (if you are reading the translation live). Use the English translation broadcast from Makkah or French from Madinah. Make it a family habit, not a compulsory activity.
2. Set a Personal Quran Completion Goal
Once your teenager has discovered that a Juz a day is possible, give them ownership of the goal.
Sit with them before Ramadan begins and ask: how many times do you want to complete the Quran this month? Once? Twice? Let them set the number. Write it down somewhere visible. Check in weekly but remember this is not to police, but to celebrate.
Teenagers respond to goals they have chosen. The moment the Quran becomes their target rather than yours, everything changes.
When Ramadan was in the summer months, we enrolled our son to the Madrasa for memorization and tajweed. It has definitely made a world of difference to how he reads and interacts with the Quran.
3. Start a Quran Reflection Journal
Ask your teenager to choose one ayah per day that strikes them from their reading, from Taraweeh, from anything they encounter. Write it down. Write what it means to them. Write one question it raises.
By the end of Ramadan they have thirty ayat that meant something, thirty moments of genuine reflection, and a journal they will keep long after Eid.
This works especially well for teenagers who are more introverted or who process through writing rather than conversation. This year, we are Quran Journalling.
4. Fix Tajweed Together
The Taraweeh broadcast is also a Tajweed lesson in disguise. When your teenager listens to the Imams of Makkah recite night after night, they absorb correct pronunciation the way a child absorbs language through immersion, not instruction.
Make it intentional. Pick one Tajweed rule each week of Ramadan. Point it out when you hear it in the broadcast. Ask your teenager to listen for it. By the end of Ramadan they will have noticed, absorbed and internalised four rules without a single formal lesson. He is also in charge of helping his sisters with practicing their tajweed.
5. Learn the History Behind the Surahs
This is the activity that turned Quran from recitation into story for my children.
Each week of Ramadan, choose one Surah from that week’s reading and explore it together. Why was it revealed? What was happening in the life of the Prophet ﷺ at that time? Who were the companions involved? What question was being answered?
The Quran becomes three-dimensional. Your teenager stops reading words and starts reading history — and history, for this age group, is magnetic.
Use Tafsir Ibn Kathir simplified, or Nouman Ali Khan’s Quran Weekly videos as starting points. Then discuss at iftar.
You can also introduce them to books like:
- In the Shade of the Quran by Syed Qutub (It’s a translation and meaning of the 30th Juz)
- When the Moon Split by Shafee Ur Rahman Mubarakpuri (It’s the biography of the prophet)
- 40 Hadith Nawawee
- The Encyclopedia of Everyday Prayer (So they know everything about Salah!)
- Fiqh us Sunnah by Sayyid Sabiq (so they know a little more about Fiqh – Islamic Jurisprudence)
What I am saying is to offer AUTHENTIC and CLASSIC Islamic books that will help them learn about their religion.
Do you like to set goals and plan?
This is for the moms!
Owe recommend this Ramadan Planner that can help you set realistic goals and an action plan to beat stress! Click here to learn more.
The Worship Activities
6. Build a Last Ten Nights Worship Plan
This changed our Ramadan more than anything else I have done as a mother.
Before the last ten nights begin, I used to sit with each of my children individually and we build their personal worship plan together. Not mine. Theirs.
This has now become a natural habit for them as they grew older. I started when they were 9.
We talked about the different forms of worship — salah, dua, dhikr, Quran, sadaqah, istighfar. We talked about Laylatul Qadr, what it means, why a single night is worth more than a lifetime. We ask: if tonight is the night, how do you want to spend it?
Then we wrote it down. A simple plan. What they will do after Taraweeh. What they will do in the last hour before Fajr. What dhikr they will use to fill the quiet moments. When they will make their long duas.
Teenagers who have helped design their own worship plan keep it. Teenagers who have been handed someone else’s plan endure it.
I should put this near the top of the list actually. Ramadan time is best spent in prayers and ibadah. Help your child keep on track of their daily prayers and then include the sunnah and extra prayers too. You can give them a prayer chart to track their progress.
7. Write a Serious Dua List
This is connected to the last ten nights but deserves its own space.
For years, my children made dua lists that looked like Christmas lists. New phone. Good grades. Travel. All perfectly fine but shallow.
What transformed their dua lists was one question I asked: what do you want for your soul?
Sit with your teenager and help them build a dua list in layers. First, dua for themselves — their character, their faith, their future. Then dua for their family. Then dua for the ummah. Then dua for specific people they know who are struggling.
When your teenager spends an hour in the last ten nights reading from a dua list they wrote themselves, with every name and every intention chosen deliberately, that is worship that goes somewhere.
8. Learn the Names of Allah and Their Meanings
Choose ten Names of Allah together before Ramadan. One every three days. Learn the Arabic, the meaning, the implication for how you live. How does Al-Razzaq (The Provider) change how you feel about rizq? How does Al-Wadud (The Loving) change how you understand your relationship with Allah?
Make a simple card for each Name. Display them somewhere visible. Refer to them in dua. By Eid your teenager has ten Names they know deeply, not ninety-nine they have memorised and forgotten.
9. Pray Taraweeh/Tahajjud at the Haram (If You Are in Jeddah)
If you are reading this from Jeddah or anywhere around Makkah, this is the activity that belongs only to you.
Almost everyone who lives here consider it a privilege Alhamdulillah that we can go for Umrah in Ramadan. And I am sure your teenager sees it the highlight of their Ramadan too. But let’s talk about taking it further.
Take your teenagers to pray Taraweeh and / or Qiyam Ul Layl at Masjid al-Haram at least once during Ramadan. Not as a tourist. As a worshipper.
Let them stand in the rows, shoulder to shoulder with Muslims from every country on earth, and hear the Imam whose voice they have been listening to at home recite in person. Let them feel the blessing of being fifty minutes from the Kaabah in the holiest month of the year.
This is the Ramadan experience your teenagers will describe to their own children one day. Do not let them sleep through it.
Staying up late standing in prayer takes lots of energy — and Taraweeh and Qiyam ul Layl are activities in themselves. Your child may be a little tired and slow the next day but don’t take lightly the effort they are putting in.
10. Memorise a New Surah or Dua
Choose something achievable. A short Surah they do not yet know. A powerful dua for Laylatul Qadr. The last ten ayat of Surah Al-Baqarah.
The act of memorisation in Ramadan has a different quality to it — the brain is quieter, the spirit is more open, the motivation is higher. Use this window.
Frame it as a Ramadan gift to themselves that they carry for life. Memorisation is the one thing Ramadan can give your teenager that no other month quite can.
The Giving Activities
11. Let Them Run the Family Sadaqah
Hand your teenager a budget (whatever your family gives in Ramadan) and give them full responsibility for researching where it goes.
They choose the causes. They research the organisations. They present their choices to the family. They make the donations and report back.
This teaches more about Islamic giving, financial responsibility and global awareness than any lesson you could design. It also gives them genuine pride and ownership — they are not watching Ramadan happen, they are making it happen.
I feel like Ramadan is the best time to talk about money. You can encourage your child to help with charity organisations and even start their own something to help others in the society.
This is also the best time to explain to your child about the different forms of charity Islam – Sadqah, Zakat and Fitra.
12. Cook Iftar for the Family Alone
Not helping. Not assisting. Running the whole iftar from planning to serving.
This works from age twelve upward. Give them a budget, a kitchen and the expectation. They plan the menu, shop if possible, cook, and serve. You sit down and eat what they made.
The sense of accomplishment from feeding their family iftar in Ramadan is something your teenager will not forget. And you get a night (or more) off cooking.
Children enjoy cooking at this age and it should be encouraged, don’t you think? If they can’t cook you can invite them to cutting and chopping fruits or setting the tables.
13. Prepare and Deliver Iftar to Someone Outside the Family
Choose a neighbour, a security guard, a family your teenager knows is struggling. Your teenager plans, prepares and delivers the iftar personally.
Living in Jeddah you have the extraordinary context of workers far from home — drivers, housekeeping staff, construction workers — fasting alone in Ramadan, far from their families. The act of bringing them iftar, looking them in the eye, saying Ramadan Kareem, is one of the most humanising things a teenager can do.
Charity is one thing that people focus on in Ramadan as a way to multiply their good deeds. If you do food drives, you can involve the children in this. After all, there is so much help needed in it – from helping at home in making the food to the packing to creating tags for packets or boxes to shopping for the needs to of course, delivering it! There’s lots of work to be done.
14. Start a Ramadan Gratitude Practice
Every day at iftar, before eating: one thing they are grateful for that they have never said aloud before. Not generic gratitude but something specific, real … noticed.
By the end of Ramadan you have thirty moments of genuine thankfulness around your table. You have also trained a teenager to notice what they have, which is one of the most important skills a human being can develop.
15. Learn About Zakat, Fitra and Calculation
Most Muslims like to give their Zakah in Ramadan. If you are aware of the process, there is a lot of math in there! But there is another type of charity – Zakatul Fitr (Fitra) that is different from the wealth tax Zakat.
Before Eid, sit with your teenager and explain Zakat ul Fitr properly. What it is, why it exists, who it goes to, how it is calculated. Then ask them to calculate the amount for your whole family.
Look up your local rate together. Multiply it by every family member. Find out where to pay it in Jeddah. Let them organise the payment.
Do the same for Zakah (wealth tax). Teach them what it is, how to know how much to give and if they have enough money saved up to give too. Even just knowing the amount at which Zakah becomes due is eye-opening for most teenagers.
Involve your children in making lists of people deserving and needing Zakah. Help them learn about what kind of activities Zakah is allowed for. Talk to them about stories of these people – it helps them to see reality and human suffering.
My story is that my family moved my four siblings and me to India after 10th grade. We lived in a big house in an extended family. My parents lived here in Saudi. Every year at Ramadan time, the older children (since we stayed in India) were invited to ask if we knew anyone who needed help. We were asked to look for people in our society who needed financial help.
It wasn’t just about money, it was how we could help other families such that they become self sufficient. Consider this as a way of social service within the family. We were being trained to volunteer and serve. Now that my children are older, we have this same tradition in our home.
This is Islamic financial literacy in action — the kind of knowledge most Muslim adults were never properly taught.
The Connection Activities
16. Have One Real Conversation Every Week of Ramadan
Not a lecture. Not a question and answer session. A conversation.
Pick a question and sit with it over iftar or in the quiet after Taraweeh. Some questions that have worked in our home:
What is one thing about Islam that you find hard to explain to your non-Muslim friends?
If you could ask Allah one question, what would it be?
What do you want your Ramadan to feel like when you are thirty?
What is one habit you want to carry out of Ramadan into the rest of the year?
These conversations are where your relationship with your teenager deepens in ways that no activity can manufacture. Ramadan creates the stillness that makes them possible. Use it.
17. Watch Islamic Documentaries Together
The history of Islam is cinematic. The companions were extraordinary. The early scholars were fascinating. And there is now enough high-quality documentary and lecture content available that you can build an entire Ramadan watching schedule around it.
Some starting points: documentaries on the life of the Prophet ﷺ, the history of Makkah and Madinah, the great scholars of Islam, the stories of the Sahabah. Follow with discussion. Ask what surprised them. Ask what they want to know more about.
You are living in the Hijaz. The places in these documentaries are few hours from your house. That connection is extraordinary — use it.
In Ramadan, if you attend halaqas or Islamic gatherings or even conduct them at home, involve your child to prepare and speak on a topic. If not in person, try arranging for them to conduct such activities online.
Of course, with so much technology these days, I am sure you know that children are creating videos of random un-Islamic challenges. Why not encourage them to have Islamic challenges that builds upon their skills instead. They can create videos, powerpoint presentations or even just bring their friends or cousins online to join them.
18. Read the Same Islamic Book Together
Choose a book both you and your teenager will read during Ramadan. One chapter a day. Discuss it at iftar.
Books that work well for this age group: The Sealed Nectar (Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri) for older teens, Stories of the Prophets (Qasas al Ambiyah) for tweens, Don’t Be Sad for teenagers navigating hard emotions, or Reclaim Your Heart for older teens ready for deeper reflection.
Reading the same book creates a shared language. You find yourself referring to it in passing conversation. It becomes part of your Ramadan together in a way that lingers.
19. Create a Family Ramadan Memory Book
Each family member contributes to a shared document or physical journal throughout the month. A favourite ayah. A dua that was answered. A moment that felt sacred. A photo. A thought at 3am before Suhoor.
Children love journaling and scrapbooking at this age. Where physical or digital, why not help them create Ramadan projects.
By Eid you have a record of your Ramadan together — not the cleaned-up Instagram version, but the real one. The tired version, the moved version, the version where your teenager wrote something at 2am that they would never have said out loud.
These books become irreplaceable. Start one this year.
The Life Skills Activities
20. Plan and Manage Their Own Ramadan Schedule
Give your teenager a blank timetable for Ramadan and ask them to fill it in themselves. When will they sleep? When will they wake for Suhoor? When will they read Quran? When will they study? When will they rest?
Then hold them to it — gently, not harshly. Check in. Ask how it is going. Help them adjust when it is not working.
The ability to manage time and energy during a month of fasting is a life skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Ramadan is the perfect training ground because the stakes are real and the motivation is high.
21. Fast and Document Their Experience
Ask your teenager to keep a simple daily log during Ramadan. Not long — three sentences. How did the fast feel today? What was hard? What did they notice about themselves?
We use the ma-Allah diaries that are undated but even a blank agenda diary would do. There are many Ramadan Planners available that you can buy locally or online.
By the end of Ramadan they have a thirty-day document of their inner life during their most spiritually intensive month. Many teenagers are surprised by what they wrote on day three versus day twenty-five. The growth becomes visible.
22. Learn to Wake for Suhoor Independently
This sounds small. It is not.
The teenager who can wake themselves for Suhoor, pray Fajr, and manage the beginning of their own fasting day has developed a form of self-discipline that extends far beyond Ramadan.
Set the expectation before Ramadan begins: you will wake yourself. I will not knock on your door. This is your fast and your Fajr.
The first few days may be rocky. By the second week, most teenagers find their rhythm — and the pride of managing their own ibadah is worth every early morning.
23. Research One Muslim Innovator or Entrepreneur Each Week
This one sits at the crossroads of Ramadan and the entrepreneurial thinking we try to cultivate in our home.
Each week of Ramadan, your teenager researches one Muslim who has built something — a business, a movement, a body of knowledge, a legacy. Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (RA). Ibn Battuta. Fatima al-Fihri, who founded the world’s first university. Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi. Shakour Abu Ghazala – any Muslim entrepreneur they admire.
Discuss at iftar. What did this person build? How did their faith shape their work? What can we learn?
Ramadan is a month of big thinking. Use it to expand your teenager’s sense of what Muslim achievement looks like.
24. Chores and Helping Around Your Home
Contrary to popular belief that children hate chores, I am here to tell you kids actually love it. They feel grown up and productive. It boosts their self esteem. In positive parenting language, giving children chores is the best way to fill their attention and power buckets. Of course, the nagging is what turns them off.
So go ahead and invite your child to help you with things around the home. Give them responsibilities of their own and then trust them to carry it out.
Four weeks of real, consistent contribution. By Eid your teenager has a felt sense of what it means to be part of the family and the ummah — not just as a concept, but as a lived experience.
25. Set Three Goals to Carry Out of Ramadan
In the last three days of Ramadan, before the Eid excitement takes over, sit with your teenager and ask them to choose three habits or goals to carry into the rest of the year.
Not twenty. Three.
One worship habit. One character goal. One life skill or learning goal.
Write them down. Put them somewhere they will see them. Check in at the start of Shawwal. Then again at the next Ramadan.
The mark of a Ramadan well spent is not how it felt during — it is what survives after. Help your teenager design that survival deliberately.
A Final Word
Ramadan with teenagers is not always the picture you imagined.
There will be mornings when they miss Suhoor. Nights when they choose sleep over Taraweeh. Conversations that do not go the way you hoped. Moments when it all feels like you are the only one who cares.
But there will also be the night you look across the room and see your fifteen year old reading Quran alone at midnight without being asked. The iftar they cooked from scratch, nervous and proud. The dua list they wrote that you accidentally read and that made you cry.
Those moments are Ramadan doing its work.
Your job is not to manufacture them. It is to create the conditions where they can happen — and then step back and let your teenager meet this month on their own terms.
The rest is between them and Allah.
I hope all these ideas encourage you to see that there are Ramadan activities for teens and tweens that they can actually enjoy. Need more ideas? Download this chart to give you age appropriate chores for kids from tot to teens!
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mashaalah this is really nice i cant wait till Ramadan