StrikingSatiety

Understanding Science, Technology & The Design of Everyday Things

As a Human Factors Engineer, I'm always curious about how things work. I'm curious about how people make sense of different objects in their environment. Working with Prisha in the kitchen has allowed me to observe how she perceives the design of numerous technologies present in the kitchen. Does she understand when something is switched on or off? Does she understand if a surface is hot and why it is hot? Does she understand what all the different buttons, k***s, icons, images on the numerous gadgets mean? Can she exercise her five senses to understand the workings of the kitchen appliances? Most importantly, is she successfully able to transfer this knowledge to other objects and gadgets outside the kitchen?

Our children will shape the future of science, design, and technology. Let's make them more aware of how machines work and how they are designed. Make them observe the world around them and the different machines in the world that help make our lives easier.

Pro Tip: Read the book - 'Design of Everyday Things' by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Don Norman. Here, he talks about how design serves as the communication channel between object and user, and how to optimize that channel of communication to make the experience of using the object pleasurable. Talk to your children about machines, technology, and the designs of everyday things.

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In the past few months, we have taken up a new hobby - gardening. We are inspired by my father who grows ~ 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers annually at our farmhouse near Mumbai, India.

Planting a garden and taking care of it together as a family provides an excellent opportunity to bond. It is a practical learning activity to teach children about healthy habits, sustainability, and the importance of caring for the environment.

Today we planted tomatoes, mint, lemongrass, spring onions, and fenugreek seeds. It’s our first time growing these plants in our humble apartment-abode and we are hoping the plants will grow well.🤞🌱 Do you grow plants? It’s super easy and fun, do try this activity with your children and share your experiences 😍 While gardening you can talk about - Where does our produce come from? How and where different plants grow? Why do we water our plants? Why do plants need sunlight?

One of my roles as a Social Psychologist was to enhance the socio-cognitive-emotional development of destitute children in Mumbai, India at a local NGO. Here, we planned lots of hands-on activities for the children to teach them essential life skills. The most important skill to lead an independent adult life being - Cooking!

The benefits of involving preschoolers in the kitchen are countless, and through Prisha's culinary journey we would like to share them with you.

Indian Gooseberry and Saffron Candy
In Diwali of 2018, my dearest in-laws introduced us to Gooseberry and Saffron (amla kesar) candy from a store in Delhi called Taneja's. I remember they gave us a bottle of it to carry to Abu Dhabi and I ate only 1 piece a day, not wanting to run out of it. What’s even more precious about this homemade recipe is that Prisha helped me prepare it from start to finish. During the process, she learned the benefits of eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle.

Recipe
* Boil 250 gms of gooseberry until it becomes soft and you notice that it’s slicing up. Let the water cool down. Remove the gooseberry on a paper towel and deseed them, while carefully peeling off their slices.
* Arrange the slices neatly on a paper towel, to remove excess water.
* Take a glass bowl with a lid. Mix gooseberry slices with 9-10 strands of saffron in the bowl. Pour 250 gms of brown sugar on top of it and close the lid. Let it rest for 2 days.
* After 2 days, remove the gooseberry from the liquid (don’t throw this liquid).
* Keep the slices to dry out in the sun for 2-3 afternoons. Voila, your candy is ready. You can dust it with powdered sugar to make it sweeter but we liked it as is.

Pro Tip: Use the liquid from the glass bowl to make a nutritious amla kesar sherbet (a sweet summer drink) . Add cold water, a pinch of black salt and drink this yummy concoction.

Create A Rainbow Line Activity
Gather items from your kitchen (or around your house) that are of colours of a rainbow. Keep them jumbled up on the table and ask your baby to arrange them in order. Talk to them about what rainbows signify. Have they seen a rainbow before? How did they feel when they saw a rainbow in the sky? Do they know how a rainbow gets formed? Can they explain this in their own words?
Rainbows are formed when light shines through water, like when the sun shines through the rain. This light is bent and reflected, like a reflection in a mirror, and this causes all of the amazing colors that you see. ... Rainbows are made up of all seven colors that come from light. (Coolkidfacts)

Let's Make Playdough
- an economical activity!
Making and playing with playdough keeps us engaged for at least a couple of hours (and also helps us save money). We get creative by mixing and matching the primary colours to make new colours (red + green = brown). Playdough- this simple preschool staple lets children use their imaginations and strengthen the small muscles in their fingers—the same muscles they will one day use to hold a pencil and write. Playdough also encourages children's language and literacy, science, and math skills—all at the same time! (Playdough Power, NAEYC)
____________

Recipe
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp cream of tartar
1 cup hot water
1tsp Lavender oil (optional)
Food colouring of your choice
Steps
Mix everything in a bowl and combine till you form your very own playdough. Store in an airtight container.
Pro Tip: Excellent activity to teach the value of money to your kids. You can compare the price of store-bought playdough with the money you spent to make your homemade playdough, how much did you save? why is it important to save money? Teaching young children the value of money is an important financial skill that will help them navigate life.

Shades of Green Activity

Gather all the green veggies and fruits and put them in a basket or a tray. Ask your baby to arrange them from the lightest to darkest shade. Talk to them about why colours have different shades. Talk to them about what the green colour signifies.
Green is a primary colour that can be used with red and blue to create all other colours. It is one of the most common colours in nature as most trees and vegetation is due to chlorophyll. Green is perceived as a cool colour and is associated with nature, life, springtime, freshness, and tolerance. Green is often used to symbolize positive things. (Simplicable)

Pro Tip: Enhance your child's vocabulary by asking them to name all the fruits and veggies.

Name Tracing Activity - Sensory Play

Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates your young child's senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight, and hearing. Sensory activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourages children to use scientific processes while they play, create, investigate, and explore (Educationalplaycare). Today we are learning how to trace our name in cursive handwriting.
Materials:
- Baking tray or any big tray
- Lentils, preferably moong dal - paper
- tape
- pen

How to play?
- Write down your child's name on a piece of paper and tape it to the table. Pour dry lentils on a baking tray and ask them to trace their name while spelling out the letters or letter sounds in their name. Have fun!
Pro Tip: If your baby does not know the alphabet yet, then you can also ask them to create patterns, lines, shapes, faces, etc.

Levantine Cheese, Za'atar and Labneh Manakish Recipe
The Levant is a term in geography that refers to an area in the Middle East which includes the historic areas of Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Manakish is a pizza-like flatbread topped with cheese, za'atar, foul, labneh and other toppings. It is commonly eaten during breakfast in the United Arab Emirates. After reading at least 10 recipes, we tried and tested the recipe below and loved it. Go crazy with the toppings, Prisha calls this the Arabic Pizza! - Dough Ingredients
(Dry Ingredients)
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 cup of multigrain atta
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (Wet Ingredients)
1/2 cup warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup EVOO

Steps:
- First mix dry ingredients in a bowl
- Next, add the wet ingredients to the bowl and make the dough. Apply EVOO on the top so that it doesn't dry out. - Keep the dough covered with a plastic wrap or a plate in a dry cool area in the kitchen. Let it rest for 2 hours. - Next, knead the dough, divide it into equal parts, and make your base. - Bake the dough along with the desired toppings for ~20 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees in your oven. - Serve hot with Arabic coffee, or hot milk.
Toppings
1. Za'atar: Mix za'atar with olive oil and apply it on top.
2. Cheese: You could top with any shredded cheese you have at home, traditionally it is topped with Akkawi cheese and finely chopped parsley. You could also combine feta and mozzarella and apply them on top.
3. Labneh: It's your hung curd. Apply it, and top the labneh with za'atar or veggies. Prisha loves to top it with veggies, especially black olives - her favourite!
Pro Tip: Excellent way to teach flags. We baked manakish during Prisha's Arabic week at school. To teach her the colours of the UAE flag, we rolled the dough and cut it in a rectangle shape. Then topped it with labneh. By adding, tomatoes, green capsicum, and olives we had our mini UAE flag ready! How many flags can you make?
'atar

Making Patterns in a Rice Tray Activity

Materials
2-3 cups rice
2-3 contrasting colours
paintbrush
tray
storage container

What to do?
Let your child colour the rice. Place the coloured rice in the sun so that it dries out completely. Put the dried coloured rice in a white or black tray and ask your child to make patterns (loops, zigzag lines, spirals, verticle lines, horizontal lines, dots). Show them how to make these different patterns with their fingers.
Pro Tip: Store this rice, we will use it for other activities. Be ready to clean the mess, preferably sit with the rice tray in an area that can be easily cleaned up (no carpets please).

Fruit or Vegetable Sorting Activity

Place assorted fruits and veggies in a basket. Ask your child to sort them and watch the fun. After they have finished sorting the items, explain to them the difference between fruits and vegetables.
Botanically speaking, a is a seed-bearing structure that develops from the o***y of a flowering plant, whereas are all other plant parts, such as roots, leaves, and stems. This includes such botanical fruits such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes. (Livescience)

Pro Tip: Add more rare and complex vegetables or fruits for older kids. You can even print out the images. Do your research before making your baby play this game and be ready for all sorts of questions :)

Make a dough activity!

Prisha loves messy play! At 3.11 months she has mastered the art of making almost round rotis using a rolling pin and circular board. Her naani (grandma) was the first to teach her this artsy exercise when Prisha was only 2.5 years old! Since then she loves playing with dough.

If you can make the perfect dough then you can easily make the bread in any cuisine- be it rotis, pizzas, pasta, manakeesh, nachos, mathris at home!

Pro Tip: Encourage your child to roll, squeeze, twist, pinch, push, press using their fingers to shape the dough using the different movements. Demonstrate and practice with them these different action words.