Categories
Montessori

Story Mania!!

The enchanted world of stories came alive on May 15th, 2024, as our little authors cast a spell of wonder and awe over their audience at the Story Mania program in Seniors.

With lovingly crafted words & pictures and enchanting costumes, the little authors painted vivid pictures in our minds with their passionate storytelling.
Our Dino-expert enthralled the audience with his knowledge of dinosaurs.

The event highlighted the importance of nurturing creativity and literacy skills in young people, and we are proud to support the next generation of writers and thinkers! Through role play these young children get to envision limitless possibilities.

Categories
Montessori

Unforgettable Moments from ‘My School-Journey of Love’!

Our little ones took their first steps into the spotlight and stole the show! Playgroup and Reception students presented an adorable stage program to a packed audience of proud parents.

With sparkling eyes and bright smiles, they performed with confidence and joy, making their debut performance a resounding success!

Huge applause to our tiny stars, dedicated teachers, and supportive parents for making this special moment truly unforgettable.

Categories
Montessori

Ramadan in the Pre-Primary Section

Ramadan in the Pre-Primary Section is always a great learning opportunity for the littles ones. They are so quick to embrace parts of the faith.
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Alhamdolillah, Shukranlillah!
For a blessed Ramadan!!!

Categories
Montessori

Milad Mubarak Celebrated by the Montessori Section

A colourful Moqib marked a multi-colour river of little soldiers who marched to the joyous beat of drums in a procession to celebrate the 80th Milad Mubarak of AqaMaula tus.

The outpouring of love from their hearts was evident as each class in a specific colour showcased one of the ahadeeth on Hub taken from Ashara mawaiz, with pictures, props and dresses.

The mokib started from the main gate of Badri High School and wound its way across the front ground, round the trees and by the slides, and culminated at the back ground.
The children then presented their mubarakbadis in words of love and devotion on the stage as the air reverberated with sounds of tilawat, salam, matam and madeh in sweet young voices.

Our parents were with us every step of the way through live streaming of the program.

Categories
Montessori

Playgroup Visited Burhani Mahal

This week’s topic in Playgroup was Shelters and Homes. Different types of
shelters and homes for people and animals were discussed throughout the week.
The weeks activities and discussions culminated in a visit to the loftiest of homes,
Burhani Mahal.
On Friday March 14, children went to Burhan Mahal, where our Aqa Moula TUS
lives and give blessings to mumineen.
Children took a plant for small hadiya to present Aqa Maula TUS which is now
hanging in the garden of Gurfah Mubarak. Children did sajda and recited marsiyah
and shahadat of Imam Hussain AS in Aqa Moula’s Bethak Mubarak.
Kids observed the beautiful gardens and pet shelters and fed the pigeons too.
Children received the sharaf to kiss bethak of Aqa Moula TUS. The children were
given salawat milk as they were leaving. One child excitedly told his mother,
“Maula gave me a gift!”
By integrating our cultural values and traditions, children were made aware of our
uniqueness as a community. What unites us all together is our love for our Aqa
Maula Mufaddal Maula TUS. We have the shelter of his blessings over our heads
which protects us from harm.
Other activities that the children did related to the topic, Shelters and Homes:
 camping (in the school premises)
 videos on animal shelters
 Mumin nu ghar (discussion)
 Walk around the school to observe shelters (peoples’ homes, bird nests,
anthills, etc)

Categories
Montessori

Badri High School Pre-Primary Sports Day 2022

On Friday, 11th February 2022, the Pre-primary children presented a unique sports event in the Jamea ground. The theme of the event was taken from Kalemaat Nooraniyah:

چھو unique  تمیں

It was a display of what makes us unique as a community; like Faiz-ul-Mawaid-il Burhaniyyah, libas-ul-anwer, Qarzan hasana, saying Bismillah on fish and 100% vaccination. An example of how the children displayed these concepts is the Ashara Ohbat race. The children ran with their small Ashara backpacks striving to reach the majlis before time. In the Hifz Amma Sanad race, the children crossed stages in hifz by collecting stars until they finally reached their destination.

The children also displayed their unique abilities as they proudly flaunted their ‘I am Badrian, I am Unique’ costumes. The spectacular P.T. drills were a showcase of their discipline, teamwork and physical development through synchronized movements with the music and drumbeat.

The most remarkable segments of the event were the Playgroup Obstacle Path and Unplugged Coding by Seniors. An obstacle track was created with tires, rings, cones, tables and chairs. The children were expected to walk, jump, balance, turn somersaults and pass from under the table on all fours. It was a delight to watch the little two-year-olds overcome the obstacles with confidence just like our love for our Maula TUS helps us overcome all obstacles in life.

The unplugged coding was created on a huge grid and the coders followed a set of commands to make a square and a diamond on the grid. The coders exhibited their critical thinking skills as they physically demonstrated how coding and programming through a computer works. When instructions are followed perfectly, the results are incredible, just as when we follow Aqa Maula’s farmaan, we receive incredible returns, here and in the hereafter.

In keeping with the theme of ‘unique’, the program started with tilawat by the nine Amma sanad holders of Juniors and Seniors and the entire Dua was led by the Juniors. The national anthem was played by the grade IV flute band which comprised of boys and girls. Both the fact that they are very young children and that the band includes girls is a first-time occurrence. It was a uniquely sublime experience to listen to the sweetly played anthem by the young flute band.

The event ended with the medal-giving ceremony to the winners of the races.

We thank Janab Amil-saheb-Al-mohallat-ul- Burhaniyah, Mustansir Bhaisahab and Baisahaba for gracing the event with their presence. We also thank Janab Adam Bhaisahab and Baisaheba who are our esteemed parents as well.

Physical education is an important part of the holistic development of the child. Rapid growth and development take place in the early years and it is vital that children are provided with a suitable environment. Opportunities to flex their physical and mental muscles through competition and collaboration allow children to thrive.

May our children flourish under the benevolent shade of Aqa Maula TUS.

Categories
Montessori

CELEBRATING A DAY WITH GRANDPARENTS

Saturday, 30th November 2019 was a perfect day for celebrations. It was cold enough to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and peanuts around a bonfire and yet the sun shone merrily enough to take delight in the cool breeze.

Badri High School arranged for the students of Pre-Primary to spend a day with their grandparents. Together, grandparents and grandchildren had to complete 10 activities before they could move towards the Fun Area where a roaring bonfire beckoned them with roasted peanuts and hot chocolate and some bubble-blowing fun as well.

The activities showcased a mixture of Tarbiyat and Taleem as children did salam and massaged their grandparents feet in one area and read a book together in another. The handprints frame was a cherished souvenir while the circle of love and rings game got the old and the young walking, hopping and jumping together. The grandmas enjoyed weaving and grandpas enjoyed building with blocks. The fishing game was fun and they all wished they could take the fishes home. Their milad cards were collected by Taalebaat from Al-Jamea-tus-Saifiyah to be displayed in Masjid. It was endearing to watch the grandparents make sure to get their activity sheets stamped at every area.

Guests from an NGO based school were overwhelmed by the hospitality they received, especially when each grandma and grandchild pair was given their photograph as a souvenir. Janab Amilsaheb and UmmeAiman Bensaheba graciously accepted our invitation and spent time with their grandchildren and did many activities together. Our chairman Janab Naeem Bhaisaheb was missing his granddaughter very much and has promised to come back with her when she comes to Karachi.

Parent-child-school make a triangle but when grandparents enter the equation, it becomes a circle of love.
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Categories
Montessori

The First Week in Pre-Primary

The new academic year 2019-20 is a year of new beginnings in the Pre-Primary Section. With expansion in the infra-structure, renovation in the interior decor, the introduction of exciting co-curricular activities, a strong team and a new batch of little children as unique and inimitable as they always are, the BHS Pre-Primary is all set on the high road to success.

The New Playgroup: An Enabling Environment

An enabling environment acts as the ‘Third Teacher’ for the child and enables them to create, build develop and reinforce their learning in an environment which is pleasing, invigorating, comforting and safe. It provides children with opportunities to learn individually and socially even when there is no explicit teaching. The Activity room fulfils this need for the students of the Pre-Primary Section. The two and a half years old children of Playgroup want a play experience that would cater to their needs exclusively, and this was achieved by bringing it into the Playgroup classroom. This classroom will incorporate an outdoor area as well where children will be able to experience a wholesome outdoor experience.

A second room for Playgroup B is under construction. We look forward to welcoming a new batch of students as soon as it is complete.
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Robotics in Seniors

The Seniors will have a one-hour Robotics session every week in which they will work with Lego WeDo 2.0 to construct and program their minibots. Their first project is construction of a fan and programming it to rotate at different settings. Our little stemmers are excited! And so are we!
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The Team Triangle

The orientation on Saturday served as a platform for parents and teachers to get to know each other and share and discuss important aspects of their child’s respective grade in the year that lies ahead. With a strong team triangle of passionate parents, dedicated teachers and the most amazing children, we anticipate great feats from little hands.

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The Year Ahead

The first week of school began with brand new belongings and books, some screams and sobs, meeting old friends and getting to know new teachers and peers in a new room. As the first week comes to an end, the rest of the term now begins with well-settled children who are ready to play and learn and laugh and make strong connections of learning in their minds and unbreakable bonds of friendship in their hearts.

Categories
Montessori

Mind Math in Senior Class

 

The age of five plus is that age where child is open for new things to explore and to learn; whether it’s language or basic concepts of math or taking part in role play. Taking advantage of this learning opportunity we took the initiative to start mind math in Senior. Although we are using conventional methods for addition and subtraction which includes signs and conventional statements, we found that children are able to perform well in mind math too.

Mental math does not only help in solving sums, it also gives a chance to children to understand pattern. They focus on listening to instructions as in mind math there are no conventional signs for subtraction and addition. Their attention span increases and new words are incorporated in their vocabulary. Children use their imagination to solve sums and problems as it gives them the opportunity to challenge themselves. They enjoy mind math activities and that helps them build strong concepts and gain confidence. Once they understand the pattern and are able to comprehend new vocabulary, there is no turning back.

This is right age for children to start new concepts and broaden their learning horizon. As teachers our job is to create more opportunities for mind math in class for our young minds which makes our job simultaneously more interesting and more challenging.
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Categories
Montessori

Creative Writing In Seniors

It begins with the first scribble that the child identifies as ‘me’. Gradually, as a child’s concepts grow with exposure, his vocabulary expands, and his observation becomes sharper, ‘me’ develops from a scribble to a figure with recognisable features and painstaking detail: ‘me’ might now be wearing a frilly pink frock which ‘papa brought from Dubai’ or have a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her nose or may be playing cricket with his brothers.
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As the child learns to read and begins to write, ‘me’ is represented with ‘I like to wear my pink dress’, or ‘I like to play cricket with my bhai’ using invented spelling.
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The more passionate writers also develop the ability to write stories with characters, problems and solutions and create suspense too!

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The world of reading and writing beckons them. And it all begins with a scribble that the child identifies as ‘me’.

 

 

Categories
Montessori

The Playgroup Little Stars Mini-Presentation

The Playgroup Little Stars

Mini-Presentation

The stage was set on Friday, 15th March in the BHS Astroturf ground for the little Playgroup students. The tiny glittering stars on a pitch black backdrop behind the stage looked inviting. Children were going to present a mini stage-show for their parents. They had been preparing for more than a month and they were excited in anticipation of the performance. Their teachers were just as excited as this was the first time the Playgroup students were going to perform on stage in a show which was wholly presented by them.

Two children began with tilawat and then Khadija ben led the gathering to Recite Marsiyah of Imam Hussain A.S.

Playgroup A children then came on stage resplendent in their pink and black dresses with pink star headbands and golden pom-poms. They performed to the action song ‘Wiggle your fingers, blink your eyes……shake your hands, shake, shake, shake”. Very soon they had their parents wiggling, blinking and shaking with them!

Playgroup B came on stage to perform on the all-time favourite song ‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands’. They displayed their joy by clapping their hands, stamping their feet, slapping their thighs and finally waving their hands to say goodbye. They were a treat to watch in their bright red and white dresses, happy-face headbands and shiny red and silver pom-poms.

The best was for the last: the immensely popular ‘Baby Shark’! Both classes came up on stage while their parents crowded around them, mobile phones in hand, taking pictures and shooting videos of their little darlings.

It was by no means a small feat to get almost 60 little ones between 2-3 years old on stage performing in front of an audience. In some cases, it took a lot of coaxing and cajoling to get the children to even wear any kind of costume, headgear or pom-poms. Kudos to the Playgroup teachers!

Categories
Montessori

The Pre-Primary Students Celebrate Reading

It begins with the realisation that those straight and squiggly lines have some meaning.

The child then begins to decode the meaning of each squiggle. He can now understand that the sounds that he uses while talking correspond to a special symbol.

As he journeys deeper into the wonderland of reading, he learns to string the sounds and squiggles to make words which have meaning.

With stars in his eyes, he discovers that he can read!

He can read words!

He can read a series of words put together!

He can understand what all those wonderful words are trying to tell him!

This journey from squiggle to understanding to creating one’s own story has the potential to become a journey of love and reverence or a tedious task and a burden depending on how the child is exposed to it.

We want to make sure reading and writing become a lifelong passion for our students. For that:

  • We’ve introduced DEAR Time for our Juniors and Seniors during Circle time during which students and teachers all sit down with a book to read quietly.

 

  • The students are taking home a book in their library folder every weekend. They look forward to Friday to see which book they will get this time in their library folder. Of course, the child’s preference is also taken into account.

 

  • The Reading Day program with parents is running successfully with parents coming to read for pleasure with their children. We see parents just as enthusiastic about reading as the little ones.

 

  • The Reading Competition in Juniors and Seniors motivated the students to read. It was very difficult for our judges to crown the Reader of the Year. A tie-breaker round decided the winner in Seniors while the Junior winner won by a mere half point!

 

  • The love for reading has now begun to translate into creating picture stories by Juniors while the Seniors have embarked on a simultaneous journey of using words and sentences with invented spelling to write their own stories. Being able to read their story during assembly provides extrinsic motivation to the children to continue writing.

 

  • Story writing has become so popular in the Seniors that now we have to limit them to one turn per week for reading during assembly! Some of the passionate writers have also become proficient in creating a mind map, others can join together two sentences with and and but, and still others can write stories with a beginning, middle and end. The children are already displaying a glimpse of their own unique writing styles.

 

  • We wish the children all the best in their reading and writing. They have their eyes on the stars! For us, they are the stars!

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Categories
Montessori

Playgroup Hunts For Food To Feed The Hungry Caterpillar

Sorting and matching of colours is simple to set up and will arouse child’s curiosity to play and have fun.

It is a great activity to develop fine motor control, coordination, concentration and learning about colours.

The Playgroup students can now recognize all colours . They are able to sort and match colours and shapes through different kinds of activities.

The caterpillar activity is one of them; in the beginning of the activity children tore red, blue and green coloured paper into small pieces. These bits of paper were set in a tray on the table. In the next process, I showed caterpillar to all children and told them,  “this is a very hungry caterpillar and he wants to eat some food”. Will you help the caterpillar to fill his tummy?” Everyone replied, “Yes!”

I showed them the bits of paper and told them it was the caterpillar’s food. I then pointed to the three circles in his body, each a different colour and said that each circle wanted food matching to its colour. I instructed them to hunt for pieces of paper, sort, match and paste on the appropriate circle, for e.g. blue pieces of paper on blue circles.

The children moved around the classroom excitedly hunting, sorting, matching and finally pasting with glue to feed the caterpillar.

While feeding the hungry caterpillar, the children were able to satiate their need to explore, to compare & contrast, to problem solve and to learn with fun.

Such activities develop a range of thinking skills in young children and build the foundation of later concepts.

 
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Categories
Montessori

English Language Classes for BHS Mothers 20th October 2018 – 5th January 2019

 To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world. – Chinese Proverb

This Saturday saw the conclusion of the English Classes for Mothers which comprised of ten 1 1/2 hour sessions held every Saturday from 9:30-11:00 a.m. By giving the participants opportunities to speak in a variety of situations and in front of an audience, we sought to build their confidence in a language which they’re already quite familiar with.

One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way. – Frank Smith

Participants were also given opportunities to express their thoughts in English through reflections and story writing. They could further improve their language and build their vocabulary by issuing a book from the library every week.

The last class was special as each participant had prepared a two-minute speech which they delivered in front of the class. One participant shared that I had never dreamed that I would one day be standing in front of an audience and delivering a speech in English! Another shared how reading and watching English news channels helped to improve her English. Many others shared how the classes have helped to enhance their language, build their confidence and make friendships along the way.

Participants were then taken on a nostalgic journey back in time from the first class through photographs and video clips. Certificates were handed out and the final session closed with a party especially arranged for the mothers.

Considering the overwhelming response, we will announce registration for the second batch very soon, InshaAllah.

Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club – the community of speakers of that language. Frank Smith

 
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Categories
Montessori Primary

Music Classes for Pre-Primary and Primary Students

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!” 
― 
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

With the advent of the new year, music classes have been incorporated into the Pre-primary and Primary students’ weekly schedule. A specialized music teacher will come twice a week and students will be exposed to the different tunes and melodies with the help of the organ according to their grade level.

Our children are surrounded by music in their daily lives beginning from the melodious sound of Azaan as the day begins.  The spirituality of Tilawat and Qasida infuses their minds and souls with the spiritual strength for learning. The inspiring notes and lyrics of the national anthem serve to foster patriotism in them. Throughout the day, they listen to and sing poems, clap and tap to a beat and observe and listen to sounds in their surroundings.

It has been proven that exposure to music from early childhood onward helps children to speak clearly, develop a larger vocabulary and strengthen social and emotional skills.  The psychologist Howard Gardner stressed the importance of music intelligence as music has the ability to strengthen the connection between the body and brain to work together as a team.

 “The piano keys are black and white but they sound like a million colors in your mind” –Maria Cristina Mena

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Categories
Montessori

Winter Fiesta at Badri High School

Winter usually passes us by in Karachi with a quick nod. But this year it stopped to say hello and we, at the Badri Montessori, were prepared to welcome it in style!

Playgroup parents were invited with their children for the Winter Fiesta but the actual program was kept a surprise while the teaser videos, sent in the days preceding the event, added to the anticipation.

Friday, 14th December dawned with a chill in the wind-perfect weather for the winter fiesta! The parents and children arrived-dressed for the occasion in shawls, hoodies and sweaters- bought ‘tickets’ at the ticket booth and embarked on their train journey.

At ‘Hyderabad’, they visited the famous bangle bazaar and sorted bangles in creative designs.

The next stop was Multan where they helped wrap the famous Multani Halwa.

At Faisalabad, they were awed by the clock tower and tried to create a tower with blocks.

Kite-making in Lahore for the Basant season was so much fun!

They visited the Rose and Jasmine garden in Islamabad and made paper flowers.

The rest of the journey was completed by car and parents and children were greeted with a spray of snow as they entered Murree. They were served hot chocolate, peanuts and chocolate-dipped marshmallows, which they enjoyed around a roaring bonfire. Pictures and selfies were clicked with the snowman and the lovely train, while our music teacher added warmth to the chilly air with lovely music.
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