Celebrating Eid
Technology helps in every part of our lives
and the daily activities are often somehow related to digital and non digital
technology. My home centre is a multi cultural centre where we give respect to
all culture existing in Aotearoa. Amidst Eid celebration, I decided to extend
children’s interest in cooking as I have many the children in my room are
interested in playing at the family corner using different utensil doing pretend
cooking.
As Eid is celebrated by Muslims and cooking “sevian”
and coconut sweets are a part of Eid celebration. “Cooking is a technological activity
or system developed, used by early childhood teacher services to meet children’s
need (Smorti,1999, p.6) .Then I involved a group of children in the cooking activity.
As I set up the table with fry pan and serving spoon, the children start
gathering around me and I invited them to join me in cooking sweets and “sevian”.Although some children belonged to
Fiji Muslim community so they know about their food items and join others, but
other have no idea what is going on. We used different technological tools to
increase for our cooking as a bowl, spoon, serving spoon, electric fry pan and
cups. Children helped me to arrange
the packets of “sevian”, white sugar, milk bottles and measured water in the cup.
I placed the electric fry pans and with the help of children put milk in pan
with “sevian”.The children mixed white sugar to add taste. Then children
received their technological understanding of working of electric appliance and
how the heating mechanism works and how the water evaporates from food. Therefore
the learning outcome of using technology was met by the provision of using
tools, which enabled “children to recognize that different technologies may be
used in various places and setting” (Ministry of Education,1996, p.25).
Lastly, children made the “sevian, as long as the basic technological
tools and the equipment are available. “Technology is influenced by the culture
or the society in which it occur” (Smorti, 1999,p.6). By celebrating different
cultural events in the centre, we are acknowledging and recognizing the
different cultures that the children and their families come from. To build on
this teachable moment, each child in the centre was given a receipe copy to
take home. These “sevian” would make a great special for children’s families/whānau
for the Muslims culture as part of Eid celebration. We all enjoyed eating the “sevian”
with everybody at the centre.
To conclude, this non-digital technology of
cooking with children enhance their understanding of some typical science
concept which are really useful and present in our everyday lives and these
scientific contribute in the children healthier growth and better understanding
of their natural surroundings.
Reference
list
Ministry of Education.
(1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga
mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa : Early
childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The
New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.
Smorti
, S. (1999) Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, 19, 5-10.
