A typical day at SM begins with an invitation to play for children where the class is set with materials for children to play with as they arrive in the morning.
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As the preschoolers aged 4-5 years were coming back from their two weeks long vacations in Jan I thought of setting up something exciting to welcome them back: the classroom was arranged with multicolored balloons and sketch pens, waiting for them to come and apply their imagination!
 
As the children came in, they picked their favorite colored balloons and started playing with them. They began throwing the balloons at each other and played catch-catch for a while and noticed a bunch of loose sketch pens on the table, they picked one each and began drawing on them. 
 
Have you tried drawing on balloons? Is it easy or hard? Does the surface present an interesting challenge or an uphill task? Would you have thought of drawing on the balloon?

As children started creating their works of art, they also started sharing what they had done. One thing led to another and before I knew it, they were spinning a story!

S. Ma'am look what I have drawn...(pointing at the images she drew on her balloon). This is black clouds and this is rain, this is a generator...
F. That's awesome! Can you tell that to me in the form of a story?
S. The black clouds came and it started raining from the black clouds, then S gave the generator so that the lights don't go off. 
F. That's great! Does anyone wants to join with S and continue the story? 
(Some of them raise their hands, T gets to go as she was quick in raising her hand)
F. So T, what happens next?
T. Then a little girl came and read a story book and then she slept.
F. Great! Who wants to go next?
(E gets to go)
E. There were so many thunderstorms and she heard a twittery voice and she found so many eggs, the eggs hatch into chickens.
F. Who wants to go next? 
(M gets to go)
M. Then fire comes from my head and mamma rescues me.
(Ad goes next, the facilitator scaffolds by reading to him the story so far)
F. What do you think happens next?
Ad. There was a boy playing basketball and the flood comes and pushes them all away and the ball goes far away.
J. There was flowers and the rain drops fall on the flowers and the rain stops and the flowers grows and a train comes.
Ar. There was a car that went round and round and round not realizing it's the same way and he can't go anywhere.
Av. There was a little boy playing with the ball when the flood came, the boy jumped on a tree and the tree took him to his home and the ball got washed.
( Facilitator scaffolds by reading the story so far)
V. And boy cried.
An. A boat picks the ball and gives to the boy and it's still raining and the trees are growing. The boy feels happy and plays with the ball at home and the baby birds were crying for mamma.

Stories are a great way through which children learn. Stories ignite curiosity and spark imagination and stories that they spin by themselves are a great exercise for those creative and critical thinking muscle in the brain. 

At the end of the activity, children had co-created a story through emergent play. The facilitator reviewed the story with them and they reflected on how the story could have progressed in a better way. They also made connections with their library books where the stories usually revolved around one character and got excited about creating better stories in the future.
 
P.S. Looking at their enthusiasm in creating stories, the facilitator makes a note to take this forward with them, introducing them to structure and how to create better stories in a future class. More power to them for more stories to come...

​Contributed by Yashika CG, Asst. Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz.

It was around 9:30am in the morning and we only had daycare functioning that day. I had decided to drop by and say hi to the children. Only Ad, a 5 year old, had arrived by then. I went in to see him playing with a set of kitchen toys. He was really happy to see me and I decided to strike up a conversation.

He talked a little about how much he enjoyed the Annual day (which had just got over), how happy he was to see his Mommy in the audience and also about a step that he had forgotten in the dance. All of a sudden his eyes lit up as he said,

Ad: Ma'am, I'm so excited! My Papa is coming today.
Me: Oh wow! Is it? 
Ad: Yes, he'll come in the night when I'll be sleeping and I'm not coming to school tomorrow.
Me: So you are going to spend the day with your Papa?
Ad: Yes, he's my best best best friend at home! He plays catch-catch with me. We play so much!
Me: That's awesome, where had he been?
Ad: He went to the US, I used to think he doesn't love me and he went away.
Me: Really! What do you think now?
Ad: I think, he goes just for work. But I don't like it when he goes. I think he'll not go again. 

Those lines got me thinking about how children interpret their parents' absence in their lives, even for a short while. It all directly translates to  - they don't love me or I'm not good enough!

In our culture, we often don't see a need to involve children, especially this young, in our decisions, which often leaves them feeling left out or insecure. When we trust them to understand and also acknowledge their feelings, we can start to have a meaningful and respectful conversation with them about how they feel and what can be done about situations that are sometimes beyond our control. We can also talk to them about priorities and they learn to negotiate the real world, understand what matters to you and not just themselves and so on....in short, it helps them to learn and grow as individuals who in future have to navigate these decisions and emotions on their own.

It is extremely important to have conversations and set expectations with children regarding the changes they are going to deal with, this will equip them to cope with it with much ease, without disrupting their emotions. Even if they don't agree, it's still important to talk and discuss as it will help build the bond of trust between the parent and the child. Trust me, they eventually do understand! 

Coming back to Ad, the transformation in this child was amazing to see. The same child who would cry and be upset for days every time his dad left, was showing such a deep level of trust and understanding with his parents. As a school, modeling trust-based conversations and interactions with a child for parents is an important aspect of the relationship we develop with each parent and child. It has helped Ad transform and so have several other children and parents. Experiencing the bliss of close connect, trust and empathetic connect with your child is unparalleled and seeing your child grow with these values is icing on the cake for the parent!

Contributed by Yashika CG, Asst. Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz.