Field trip to a bakery shop

For generations, in Bangladesh people knew that bakery means baked bakarkhani, pithas etc used as snacks. But now a days cakes, pastry and other food items that are sold commercially are replacing traditional homemade pithas, especially in urban areas.
Our children are in love for breads, cakes, tarts, pastries etc, but our traditional snacks still have value in our society.

More about our traditional snacks:

Bakarkhani(also called Bakorkhani, Bakharkhoni) breads are legendary and have been in existence in Dhaka from around the middle of eighteenth century. Bakarkhani or Pithas are often eaten at small meals, such as breakfast or as a snack with tea.

Pitha refers to a indigenous food and food tradition of Bangladesh. For pitha/peetha there is no similar word in English. To explain others in English we interpret pitha/peetha as a rice cake or pie. Pitha/peetha is a part of life and culture of the Banglis, but it is not part of our daily menu.
Most pithas/peethas are seasonal, specially prepared in the winter season because of some ingredients which are available only in winter season.

Field trip to Bangladesh National Museum

November 15, 2014 was the day to go for a field trip to 'Bangladesh National Museum'. We all were very excited to visit our national museum.  Our goal or purpose of this field trip was pr-planned and before leaving our school we reviewed it again. A '1st floor gallery index' of the museum was handed over to teachers.

What is a museum and why we need to visit it?

A museum conserves and exhibit the tradition, customs and heritage of a country. From a field trip to a museum, we can learn important concepts that derived from history, tradition, customs, persons, art and cultures.
Few facts about Bangladesh National Museum:

A field trip to dentist

Monday, 10th of November, our field trip to dentist started at around 9.30 am in the morning showing a Sesame Street video to children about oral/ dental health at school. They also watched the rhyme 'Every day I brush my teeth'.

Before starting our field trip to dentist, we learned about oral health or role of a dentist.

We knew what 'dentist' do. "Dentists are doctors who specialize in oral health/hygiene."
Oral hygiene is the practice of keeping the mouth and teeth clean to prevent dental problems, most commonly, dental cavities, gingivitis, and bad breath.
The responsibilities of a dentist include:

• Diagnosing oral diseases. 
• Promoting oral health and disease prevention. 
• Creating treatment plans to maintain or restore the oral health of their patients. 
• Monitoring growth and development of the teeth and jaws. 
• Performing surgical procedures on the teeth, bone and soft tissues of the oral cavity.

Teaching methods and tips in islam

Having a few years of experience in the teaching field I feel that 'learning and refreshing our knowledge' while teaching is very important. It is the gift of our tech age, providing us opportunity to learn a lot from online resources available at the web. We have access to loads of information by attending seminars, workshops and training programs. We learn from research, experience of other teachers and use those methods in our classrooms for teaching BUT---------- as a muslim,
We should not forget that our Prophet Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH) was the best teacher, and we can learn the techniques or tips from the methods he adopted to teach mankind. Islam itself is a school and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the best teacher and tutor whose teachings and sayings still guide, inspire and instruct the whole humanity. Prophet (PBUH) explains the nature of his duty as follows in a hadith: "Allah sent me as a teacher."
We can see the education principles and methods put forward by modern education scholars in the practices of the Prophet.

A field trip to Dhanmondi Lake

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” — Albert Einstein

Every walk is an opportunity for children to learn about the natural world. Our field trip to (adjacent to back side of 'Earch House Alternative School') was held on 25th September, Thursday. As it was the second day of my school, I was excited to have all school staff and children with us. Before going to details about our field trip, I would like to share some information about the area we visited.

Few words about Dhanmondi Lake:

Dhanmondi Lake is a lake located in the Dhanmondi residential area in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The lake was originally a dead channel of the Karwan Bazar River, and was connected to the Turag River.

Ramadan and iftaar menu in Bangladesh

My friend from Pakistan asked about Bangladeshi iftaar menu. I took some pictures of iftaar dishes to post at 'FaceBook' and at the same time I thought of posting something about our cultural or traditional iftaar food at my blog. Iftaar food varies in different countries around the world. There is a cultural or traditional iftaar menu at each region and so does the Bangladesh has.

Bangladeshi towns and villages come alive with lights and decorations on the street, in shops and in the market places as Ramadan is the one of the most celebrated Bangladesh festival of the year which masses of people participate.
Islam is the largest religion of Bangladesh, the Muslim population is approximately 148.6 million, which is the fourth largest Muslim population in the world (after Indonesia, Pakistan and India), constituting 90.4% of the total population as of 2010.

Piyazu

In Bangladesh, a wide variety of foods is prepared to break the fast at Maghrib time. Special dishes are prepared during the Fasting of Ramadan.

Some of the common iftar items from Bangladeshi iftaar menu include Piyaju (made of lentils paste, chopped onions, green chilies, like falafel), Beguni (made of thin slices of eggplant dipped in a thin batter of gram flour), Jilapi, Muri ( puffed rice similar to Rice krispies ), yellow lentil grains, usually soaked in water and spiced with onion, garlic, chilli and other iftar items), Halim, dates, samosas, Dal Puri (a type of lentil based savoury pastry), Chola (cooked chickpeas), fish kabab, mughlai paratha (stuffed porota with minced meat and spices), pitha, traditional Bengali sweets and different types of fruits such as watermelon.

Beguni

 Drinks such as Rooh Afza and lemon shorbot are common on iftar tables across the country. People like to have iftar at home with all family members and iftar parties are arranged by mosques sometimes. People also arrange iftaar parties at conventions centers, restaurants or hotels.

Muri Bharta

Summer fruits festival and early years

The summer (May, June and July) is specially treated as fruit festival season in Bangladesh when almost all the major and minor fruits are matured and available. Mangoes,Jackfruit, pineapple, guavas, lichi, berries, palms are the main fruits of summer. Of them the mango is the most popular.
9th June, 2014 Monday 'Summer Fruit Festival' was organized in our school. It was a usual hot day but early year children were excited to see and recognize a wide variety of summer fruits at 'Summer Festival 2014'.

There was arrangement of fruits display along with posters and pictures of these fruits. There was an easel board to practice 'fruit printing' for students. Another place was used to show the drawings of students relating to summer fruits.

Fruits display at a corner

Children were enthusiastic to learn about summer fruits. They also recited rhymes relating to fruits.

Fruit printing with poster colors

Summer fruit pictures drawn by students of KG

Nursery class children saying rhymes

Green deen our earth and islam

Our School is ahead in the whole region by raising awareness and celebrating the events related to environment.

2014: March 1st and 3rd 'Green Deen' events were organised related to 'Earth' topic. There is a strong relation of being muslim and Earth.  Deen in Arabic means religion but can also be translated to path or way. So a green deen is literally an environmentally friendly religion.

Islam is based on the understanding that Allah is One, andeverything comes from Allah – He is the Creator and Sustainer. Everything in the natural world is a sign of Allah’s creation.
Islam seeks for us to establish justice and to maintain the Ea rth’s delicate balance (Mizan)

We are required to honor the trust we have with Allah (amana) and bestewards of the Earth (Khalifah)
Living a Green Deen means knowing that we have undertaken a trust ( Amana ) with our Creator to protect the planet.

Earth Day was established in 1970 to raise awareness about the environment.
In the book, "Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet," Ibrahim Abdul-Matin outlines Islam's teachings about the environment, and encourages American Muslims to become more conscious of what they can do to protect the planet. Author Ibrahim Abdul-Matin says: "Green has become the catch-all word for being environmentally friendly.

Related posts:

** What Islam teaches Muslims about protecting the planet and environment?

** In Islam, every day is Earth Day