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The Pups and Calves were given a challenge in the morning for their morning ITP (Invitation To Play) where they were asked to create music. The twist was, they needed to make music with no musical instruments. The reaction was priceless - excitement, curiosity, eyes sparking up with wonder, confusion, lost... F: Go ahead and make music! You can do it!
Suddenly they were everywhere. The facilitator wasn't prepared for their reaction. Some started clapping, some were trying to whistle, some banged the tables, walls, tables, some stomped, some made sounds with their mouths, some banged on beds, some took chairs and banged against the wall...needless to say there was a plethora of sounds that arrived as part of their experimentation. Some wanted to sing, so they did.   Suddenly T says, "Let the girls sing and boys make music!"
And that was what happened. With a little help from the facilitator, girls got together and sang our school's anthem while boys clapped, stomped, whistled, etc. And vice versa. All in all, children had a gala of a time making music today with absolutely no instruments! Who said we need instruments to make music? As long as we have our imagination, we can achieve anything! Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool. #inspiringconfidentlearners #youngachieversacademy #sparklingmindzglobalschool #21stcenturylearning #socialemotionallearning #everychildcancreate #everychildcanplay It was a typical circle time for the Pups and Calves until we decided to continue the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle from the previous day. Today was 'Recycle' discussion. From the previous discussion, we had arrived at not using the same dustbin for all the waste and to use different dustbins for different wastes. F: What are the different dustbins you think we should have ? K: cardboard An: Plastic H: Paper F: What all goes into the 'Paper Waste' dustbin? H: Tissues Av: Paper F: What is cardboard then? K: Plastic F: Why do you think it is plastic? There was silence. F: Is paper hard or soft? Collectively: Soft. F: How about plastic? Collectively: Hard. To further deepen the thought processes, they were asked two prompts: 1. What makes something plastic and what makes something cardboard? 2. How does one know something is plastic? Do we touch and find out? How do we find it? Since we didn't arrive at anything convincing or conclusive, we decided to take it a step further through a small experimentation: How about we take plastic and cardboard and poured water on both? Our wonder questions were: What will we get? Will they both stay the same? Since our bottles are hard, will cardboard also stay hard? Will our bottles become soft like paper if we put water on them?  To find out, children who didn't have plastic water bottles were given plastic cups to experiment with. They all got into their chu-chu trains and marched to the taps. One by one they all poured water on their bottles and cups and got back to class. K: Mine is fresh now. S: Mine too! H: Mine is soft Av: Mine is also soft now (in a very playful manner) They all went back to class and sat on their mats to feel the texture further and collectively discussed and agreed that the bottles and cups were still hard. So plastic doesn't get soft after putting water on them. Then they were each given a cardboard piece. They followed the same routine of putting water on each, came back and sat on their mats. There were lots of giggles and surprised expressions on their faces when they realized they could bend and tear the big pieces of the hard cardboard. H: This is soft ma'am. Ab: Ma'am see I can tear S: look ma'am there's one line here on the cardboard F: So if the cardboard is soft and we can tear it and bend it, is it plastic or paper? K: Paper!  So the conclusions made were, 1. When we put water on plastic, they still remain hard and we can't bend or tear it. 2. When we put water on paper, it bends and tears. Post this, we all agreed that we will have 3 dustbins:
A) Paper waste (tissues, paper and cardboard) B) Plastic waste C) Food Waste It's easy to give away the information to children rather than letting them experiment and figure it out for themselves. When they are given the freedom to experiment and figure it out for themselves, they learn so much more than when they are just given the answers. They will learn things more deeper than usual because the learning happens right in front of them. And that journey is exhilarating and fun! Isn't that what learning is all about?! #sparklingmindzglobalschool #inspiringconfidentlearners #youngachieversacademy #everychildcanwonder #everychildcanexperiment #21stcenturylearning #socialemotionallearning Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool. As day 2 of this year's summer camp at SM Preschool began, the 2 to 5 year olds sat down for their morning Circle Time with the facilitator where they each were given a chance to share about what their holiday plans were. The day's learning theme was 'In and Out' where the activities planned were all intertwined in with the said theme. But how was the facilitator going to introduce this? As each of them started sharing about their holiday plans, F noticed T distracted and talking to others. When the F brought it to T's awareness, T suddenly said," A mosquito bite me!" F: "Oh! But they only come at night. Is it night now?" T: "No!" F:" But where did they come from?" Collectively: "They came in through the window." F: "Okay, what else can come in?" There came a bunch of answers as expected - bees (where they pretended to buzz like a bee), mosquitoes, bats, etc. In the midst of those conversations, Ta's voice went unheard for a bit as she shared. Sh brought it up louder for the F to hear," Ta said mosquitoes come at night in and out." F: "Yes. In and out!"  At this point children had already noticed the TV that was on where the F had planned Hokey Pokey to be played to them (which revolves around in and out theme too) for the day. So the suspense and curiosity arose when they were told that it will be played in a bit. And it was time. F:"Shall we all stand up and dance for an In and Out song?", to which they all happily agreed. In between the song was paused and the F asked them all to find other things in the class that can go in and out where they ran all around finding things. Sh found a TV remote, L found glue stick, Ad found a toy with a spring kind of material on it where the balls on it go around...while T found pink paint and a brush that she opened, dipped the brush in the paint and went, "Paint brush goes in and out too!" They all then danced to Hokey Pokey again after, by holding onto the things they found in their little In and Out hunt.  Concepts, when connected with everyday things, become easier and more playful to learn. They also depend on the way the F introduces them by grasping and pulling all the threads that are opened up, together and connecting them to make learning happen. It's easier to learn by just studying the vocabulary but even simple words such as 'In' and 'Out' are much more than just words to be used everyday. They have life of their own and when children learn them by tinkering around the words, exploring them by making connections, they get embedded deeper and opens more dimensions to them than ever before. Therefore, how each concept is introduced and explored matter so much in the concept of learning.When was the last time you learned something? How did you learn it? How would you have liked to learn it?
Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool. Our Cubs have been curious over honeybees ever since they spotted a bee flying into their class one day during their regular Circle Time in the morning. Another day they saw a honeycomb itself where their fascination grew even bigger, An: Maybe they are having a team game! T: It looks like they are having a group hug. This conversation went on about why the bees could be staying together all the time and such. A few days later, the comb fell off and it was taken upstairs for the children to see, and a little bit of that wonder got captured, and is documented below. Initially, they were very sad to see the comb having fallen down, wondering why the comb fell down, where will the bees go, where did the honey go, why are there so many ants on it, how do they make their home, and such. This exploration is going to last a lifetime, a layer of learning added each time they discuss, explore and observe together! Please note: As the interest grew, children were taken to a honey factory near by where they got to see the worker bees, how honey is taken out from the comb and processed, packaged and labelled. Their learning did not stop there, it continues. And here are SM, we are all learners for the lifetime! Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool. #reggioemiliainspiredlearning #sparklingmindzglobalpreschool #inspiringconfidentlearners #emergentlearning
Post this, they all sat around for the book reading. Not many seemed excited about this particular book, especially the two boys who didn't want to read it but we were on an exploratory mission, so we went ahead anyway.
F: Do you think this book is only for girls? H: No it's for boys and girls. Because there are kings and princesses in the book. K observing and nodding as if agreeing to the question whether this book is only for girls. Aa loses his patience in the meanwhile and calls out to the facilitator: Ma'am can you please read the book? F: Alright. And the book reading began. On the first page, it talks about how the three princesses were taking a break, drinking tea, after managing their kingdom. There was a discussion on what kingdom is, where a kingdom was compared to the size of a country where they all wowed and drifted off to an imaginary land. F: What do princesses do? T: Have lovely tea parties. An: Long hair … This conversation didn't seem to go anywhere. So the facilitator decided to give the children another perspective on princesses as they were having difficulties imagining a princess to do anything else. Since there were lots of games being played in the class with a lot of superheores and robots and fire, the facilitator thought of it as a good connection to make. F: Did you know there are princesses who can shoot arrows and fight with swords? There was silence. There were no sparks. No connections. So the facilitator decided to give an example, F: Who here has watched Bahubali? Most of them raised their hands to this! F: Do you remember the princess in that movie who fought the bad guys with swords, bow and arrow? Suddenly there were sparks in their eyes as if they were all in another land where they were witnessing princesses fighting wars and being heroes! Both the boys and girls were completely in on reading the book after this. After finishing the book, they all collectively agreed that whether they are princesses or princes, kings or queens, we need to be kind, strong and compassionate and that it's not always about looking pretty. Boys thing - girls thing is a very common distinction that's prevalent in our society today. It affects our children from such a young age and they refuse to participate in things that remotely resemble anything of the opposite sex, making children most of the time very inflexible and to start fights. An amazing book as this would have gone unread if it wasn't read in class to everybody and broken the stereotype of this 'boy-girl' confusion. As parents and adults who work with children, we need to make sure that we let our children figure things out for themselves and not pass down stereotypes and belief systems that aren't productive. Children need to learn to look at the world and wonder, and not corner themselves saying they are limited only to certain types of things just because they are born in that gender! We need to teach them to be free and wild, just as how naturally they are! Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.  Yes, Sparkling Mindz has been recognized among the top 50 educational companies in the world! We received the award last December, 2019, in Le Meridien, Dubai, where we shared space with the other honorary organizations and visionaries.
This has been a huge honor and celebration for all of us to have been recognized and appreciated internationally. We express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for believing in our vision and supporting us through in this journey. Here's to many more achievements and expeditions together! #sparklingmindzglobalschool #youngachieversacademy #inspiringconfidentlearners |
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