Assalamualaikum and hello dear brothers and sisters. It has been a while I didn't update my blog. Asif jiddan, it seems like this blog is too dusty. Its a really pathetic apology to dearest reader since I have not update anything for almost 3 months I guess. So, today I would like to share my precious experience at.........
TARAAAAAA!!!
Alhamdullilah to my dearest lord the most high! It was a beautiful and sunny Friday on 19th of April 2013 where there were a class trip to The TreeHouse Islamic Montessori Playschool, Kota Damansara Signature Park under Linguistics subject. Promptly at 10 a.m, all the students had gathered in front of the Fatimah az-Zahra College. While waiting for Mr. Nazriq, our Linguistics lecturer, I sat on the bench with all my friends and have a little conversations about how excited we are to meet the kids!
Soon after that, Mr. Nazriq came and asked us to gather according to the groups. We have been told that some of the students will go there by taxi, while me and two other students were going by Mr. Nazriq's car. So there were three taxi and two cars convoy along including Nazirul's car. Alhamdullilah, we managed to get there half and hour later as what had
been planned by Mr. Nazriq.
~~~~~~~~My amazing experience~~~~~~~~
Once I entered the kindergarten, I am so surprised with the designs, decorations and the color elements of the "tree house"! The floor and the walls are all made up from woods! The place was very beautiful, clean, well-organized and entertaining! The toilet bowl, the sink and the table as well are all in a small size! Everything are reachable for the kids. They truly emphasized the concept of a tree house and it was amazing! Wuhuuu! They really did it! *big applause*
The principle of the kindergarten Puan Mumtaza said, "At The TreeHouse Islamic Play School, we emphasized the concept of the Islamic environment. Besides, we are using caliphate system of 'baby caliph', 1-2 years old, 'little caliph' 2-4 years old and 'junior caliph' 4-6 years old. The teachers here talked to the children using a low pitch and soft voice. They must always show good attitudes to the kids and guides them with good manners. All of them used to make a proper communication by using a well order language in every single conversation. This kind of attitude will automatically show the best characteristics to be a good Khalifah."
Based on my observation, most all of the children were able to speak English fluently. Firstly, I've talked to two children who
are charming yet fragile whose are aged around two years old. They were easily
to be approached when I came out with questions of their families especially
their mother, and told me about how they were coming to the kindergarten in the
morning. One of the children, Aina, said her Mommy sent her to the place before
going to work in the morning while her father," Dada " off to
work in the morning earlier by which the workplace is near to the
kindergarten.Yet, her friend named Aina Farina seemed so glooming in her face,
that she told me how she missed her mama after I asked her why she looked so
sad on that day. She wanted her mama very much to be close to her. Although their speech
are quite hardly to be understood, in terms of pronunciation, but I tried to
adapt to it in order to communicate with them. They were mostly using nouns and
verbs when they spoke, and had some difficulties in finding suitable words when
they tried to explain something.The speech that they had been using were like:
Mama sent, I don't like, Dada work, She said.
After that, few
of other uia students wanted to talk to them. But, they refused to have a
conversation with them, and then just ignored the questions asked by them
who are also friends of mine. They just wanted to be with me. Then, I left them
for a while to snap some interesting pictures when everyone was putting their
effort to get close to the kids. There I could see through the picture that I
was capturing Aina and Aina Farina were sitting happily next to few of the
female students who had been rejected earlier. I said " hi " to them
but they acted to me as if I was a stranger who had just entered the place. It
was kind of weird to me. Never mind it would take times to fully understand the
situation, actually it is hard for me because I do not really know how to
handle children especially little kids.
About 11 a.m,
Lil Khalifah and Junior Khalifah were about to have their recitation of Iqra'
book session. The teachers who are called " aunties " by the
khalifahs ( Baby Khalifah, Lil Khalifah and Junior Khalifah ) asked us to sit
by them, and observe their reading till the session is done.When I reached the
platform, everybody had already sit next
to each of the khalifahs waiting for the recitation. I got a 4 years old child
who is named Mohd Naasif. Such a clever and wicked boy, never let anyone
interfere into his matters and recitation unless he asked for it. It might be
challenging to me- really that I have to handle him nearly to an hour. He was
so fluent in his Iqra' recitation, but he refused to finish it instead of
playing around and bothering someone else.Yes, I could not handle him alone, so
'Ammar and Nazirul helped me to calm him as his behavior was uncontrolled. At
first, neither me nor them managed to hold a grip of Naasif, at least for a
minute.
Fortunately,
after a while he sit properly in front of us asking for pens and a piece of
paper to draw something on it with his friend, Adam. I sit besides Naasif and
he told me about his family while drawing a picture of a house. There was a row
of his rooms in top of the roof, his mommy's kitchen at the left of the house,
whenever he is hungry, he would go down from the roof to eat his favorite food,
nasi lemak. Oh, yeah! He also drew me nice car, perhaps a sport car as he was
telling me how his father should have been using the car to go to work every
morning. At the point, I could assure myself that I were able to handle Naasif
and maybe other kids whose are in the sama age like him, with right method in
talking and approaching them.
After that,
every khalifah was asked by their aunties to gather at the square, preparing
for game session. Each of them could take any equipments required for the game
they wanted to play from the racks. Such a coincidence on that day when this
one boy had no company to play with him and me either, letting me to fill the
time instead of wandering around. His name is Mohd Azmar, 6 years old. For the
first game, we have to find the right colors and match it with the color
stickers pasted on the panel ( a rectangular piece of wood ), and he got all
colors correct.Then, for the second game, it is played based on the same rule,
but this time the figure of an object has been used to be fit into the
hole-object shape. From that moment, he begun to tell me story related to what
of he had found throughout the game like cat, airplane and tree. " I was
once g-g-going to..somewhere cold. By airplane, but.. I don't really remem-ber
where is it. Let me think. Oh, it w-was London!. I... went there with my
father, aunties, my grandfather, my grandmother, my cousins and.. many more.
"
During the
conversation, I noticed he spoke with a stammer ( a problem that somebody has
in speaking in which they repeat sounds or words or often pause before saying
something correctly ). I felt a little bit anxious about that,, but it is
important to be noted that children will recover from stammering when they are
growing up. The conversation, however easier to be understood and Naasif
likewise, compared to those of Aina and Aina Farina.
Later, it was half noon when I was busy taking pictures of babies who were sleeping and some of whom were ready to sleep, just waiting for the time to come. I got a chance to accompany a baby in order for him to get sleep as the rules there required the babies ( Baby Khalifah ) to have a sleep, awaiting for their parents to come and pick them. The baby understood what I was talking about when I asked him, but he could not reply me, and just nodded as an answer.
Soon, it was time for Zuhur congregational
prayer. Every of Junior Khalifah were asked to line up in the square, ready to
take the ablution. After that, all of them gathered on the platform to start
the prayer. As soon as Abdul Aqil finished the iqamat, everyone stood up
and prayed together. About 3.15 p.m, I returned to the matriculation centre of
IIUM by Madam Adibah's car. How difficult for me to have this opportunity in
presenting my group for this task, it was a great luck for me! Verily, it was such a precious memory to be treasured and a couple of
salutation for all of the ' baby-sitters '. Last but not least, I also want to
bid lots of thank you to Mr Nazriq and Madam Adibah for the free rides.
Prepared by: Adiba Tarmizi, Nik Hazwani, Mohd. Arif, Aina Zainal
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Special thanks to Mr. Nazriq! Thank you for reading!