Sparkling Mindz
  • Home
  • School
    • Young Changemakers' Summit
    • Changemaker Missions >
      • SM Plates (Healthy Food Practices)
      • TRUI (Climate Change)
      • CSP (Community, Stories and Practices)
      • MCV (Mission Child Vulnerability)
    • Poetic Fete
  • Preschool
  • Programs
    • Young Thinkers and Achievers
    • Early Learner's Enrichment
    • Summer Camps
  • Enquiry
  • Testimonials
  • Blog

Are you a Parent Looking for answers too?

17/10/2013

Comments

 
Quest for a personality development programs for my child

 A year ago, I was the distraught parent of a shy and timid child groping for answers to my questions. My five year old was not the exuberant, confident and outgoing child that I wanted her to be.  My quest for a sound personality development programme in the neighborhood was unfruitful. The prospect of sending my child to an activity center where children are herded in droves did not appeal to me.  About eight months ago I saw an ad for Sparkling Minds and it changed everything. Here was a fresh and innovative approach to a child’s development using an activity based approach centred around NLP and MI. It was very evident from their website and brochures that a lot of sound research had gone into the design of these programmes. Working in groups of ten meant individual attention to each child. Finally, the impressive credentials of the founders reassured me that my child would be in safe hands.

First exposure to 21st Century Skills - becoming greedier!

The first interaction with the coordinator opened a world of possibilities beyond personality development. They were offering to groom my child to become a 21st century citizen with attributes like interpersonal skills, independent thinking, sound decisions making, leadership etc. This was more comprehensive than any generic personality development program. The holistic feedback system would ensure that I would know the best way to work with my daughter. From being confused and worried, I became optimistic and maybe even a little greedy about this whole new world of possibilities.

New Learning Experiences & Lovin’ It!

It has been four months since I started this relationship with SM and I have loved every minute of it! My daughter loved going to Sparkling Mindz right from the word go. The facilitators, the activities and the carefully designed rooms made her very happy. In the first few days itself, I saw a never before eagerness in her to be a part of everything.  Even at home and at school, her social interactions and confidence improved.  She became enthusiastic to participate and perform without any inhibitions.

There is way more, if you look carefully…

While these changes were noticeable in the initial couple of months, imbibing attributes like self-confidence, not buckling to peer pressure, learning smartly, listening and observation, structured thinking etc. happened later.  About three or four months into the program, my daughter started displaying the above attributes in her own small ways. 

  • She started becoming curious about learning the process behind any activity or product
  • She subconsciously breaks down any given task into steps for better execution
  • She figured out on her own that if 5+5=10, diving 10 by 2 would be 5 without any prior exposure to the principles of division
  • She started using rhyming words to remember spellings better

This morning she stumped me again. We were watching a show called Mr.Maker on Discovery Kids, which was previously aired on CeeBeeBees. The final credits alluded to ceebeebees.com. Pat came the question as to why should ceebeebees be a part of the credits if the programme has already transitioned to Discovery Kids, why are they still referring to CeeBeeBees. That was a home run for listening and observation!

My child will stand out from the crowd – thanks to Sparkling Mindz!

My daughter has embarked on a journey of self-discovery and loves it. She is acquiring critical life skills which are essential to survive and succeed in today’s dynamic environment.  The children of today are all smart and intelligent. But the Sparkling Mindz programme will help to differentiate her from the rest.

The right program at the right age

I too have attended sessions on team play, structured thinking and interpersonal skills at work. However I have observed that these initiatives do not always generate the desired results because adult personalities are pretty much set and transformation is difficult and time consuming. By starting early, my daughter will have these traits and would not have to be tutored as an adult.  I am glad that she is developing an edge without even realizing it! 

Contributed by Roopa Balakrishna (Dhriti's mother), she is an equity analyst by profession and currently a full time doting mother,

Comments

Learning Cannot be Messy or Can It?

22/9/2013

Comments

 
Picture
For the past few years our team at Sparkling Mindz has been engaged in creating activities for children to enable them to think and communicate their thinking process. At the very outset we began an uphill battle with this simple thing called the "eraser". What we observed was that it was simple sure, but could severely limit the thinking process. How? You might ask and rightly so. We have all grown up using the eraser and loved its elegance, right?

As part of our activities there always comes a time that children record their ideas, thoughts, capture their imagination in pictures/words and time and again, we saw children looking up from their work because they had made a mistake and wanted an eraser urgently to erase it. Sometimes, they would go rushing about the room in the hope that they would find one that allowed them to erase their "so called mistakes". In fact the next class some of them even bought an eraser from home! Most of the times when we looked at the so called "mistake" they wanted to erase in their work, it was a very tiny little mistake – a wrong line here or a curve gone haywire there, a letter a bit shaky or a word out of place – nothing much compared to the quantum of thinking they just disrupted to go look for the eraser! (Sometimes, it was a clear indication of the fact that no real thinking was probably happening)

We did a nice little trick at our centers, we banished the eraser! We told the children the erasers had gone for a walk and would come back when they were ready to tidy up their work.

What we realized was that in our education system, it was easy for the teachers to focus on neatness, it was not a process it was an outcome. Easy to see, easy to grade, easy to appreciate. Hence, all attention was diverted to a neat outcome vs. a thoughtful one (which was of course process oriented). In fact, this amount of focus on a single dimension (neatness) cultivates an underlying assumption in a novice learner that ‘learning cannot be messy’

To me, it has greater implications in terms of stifling the very process of creative thinking itself – where mistakes are not only permissible, they are essential part of the thinking process. In fact there is no concept of something being ‘wrong’ or a ‘mistake’, else how will one generate lots of ideas? how will one think out of the box? if you are constantly self-censoring yourself and correcting what you ‘assume’ to be mistakes!

Additionally, it also shows a larger inability for the learner to let go of a small error and focus on the larger goal at hand of generating ideas, thinking and owning the learning process itself. After all in life, we cannot erase mistakes, we have to learn to live with them right?

Obsession with neatness is killing the learning process and the learner in our children. The eraser needs to be banished from classrooms until children have learnt to think for themselves – let them be messy!

As one of my professors in college used to say, "I know how much thinking you have done by how messy your book is!"


Comments

A heartfelt letter from a Sparkling Mindz Parent

19/9/2013

Comments

 
Dear Team,

I would like to thank the entire team for the attention you have been giving to the students and appreciate your efforts in passing on the knowledge.

 Sparkling Mindz has given special touch to my children (Zaida and Numa) and has definitely improved them from what they were about 8 months back.

You truly are a standout team because of your sheer dedication to your students. My children enjoy every moment and all the fun activities you included in your class to enhance learning at Sparkling Mindz. I especially appreciate how you always relate the activities to real-life examples that would allow the students to make more logical sense.

Thank you again for the great concept and for always going the extra mile as a mentor to my child.

Best Regards, 
-----------------------------------
N K Shaik Shavali (father)
Comments

Why I really do what I do?

11/11/2012

Comments

 
Picture
Children Excited! @Sparkling Mindz
It was a cold Sunday morning and I was finding it difficult to get up and prepare my mind to get ready to go for work. I had to go to another center and it would take quite some time for me reach there. I somehow got out of the refuge of my blanket and got ready to leave.

I go upstairs (I live as a paying guest) and find out that Aunty hasn't prepared breakfast till now. She seems to have just got up. I must have forgotten to tell her that I am leaving early. I say it is alright. I will manage

I put the ear plugs and switch on the radio and start walking. For people who don’t listen to Radio on Sunday morning. Here is a fun fact. They always play old Hindi songs, mostly the early 90’s period. And for me that was not the best period of Indian Cinema and they are really not my taste. I flip the channels then switch to my own playlist. I am feeling hungry and a few biscuits I had in the bag, didn't fill my tummy.

I went and had breakfast and enter the place. All the children were standing for some activity that they were doing. The moment I got inside the bunch of little kids looked and called out my name. They had charming smiles on their face and any other feeling of my lazy Sunday was lost. The thrill and excitement made me forget about everything else, the warm blanket, the empty stomach, the bad music, everything!

I realized yet again, why am I really here and why I love what I do. 

Contributed by Nikita Kayal, Designer Experiential Products with Sparkling Mindz. She is an NIFT alumnus and loves designing products for children.

Comments

Having fun vs. learning

15/9/2011

Comments

 
This is a question we encounter on a daily basis. Being an activity-based module, we get asked this question quite often, "If children are having fun, are they really learning?"

The answer to this question in our minds is very clear - YES! When you have fun, you are in an open state of mind and it is a very conducive state for learning. The truth is, when children play there is a lot of subconscious learning happening about team work, self-confidence, learning from mistakes etc. Add a little bit of structure and reflective thinking into the mix, you have an ideal environment to not just teach concepts but work through applications. That's what we achieve and it helps children internalize concepts much faster.

Then, there is another question we get asked (rarely, but it does happen), "What do you do to make sure children are having fun?" In order to answer this, I have to mention a basic philosophy of ours - "we aim to create confident thinkers" - fun and activities are just part of the process to get there. While we try our level best to keep things fun, the definition of 'fun' is very subjective and can mean many things to many kids. Especially when it means running around unsupervised, destroying things, watching TV for as long as they want and not engaging in any brain work - that doesn't help their learning process and goes contrary to the whole reason for the program. So, we have to first work on expanding the definition of 'fun' with the children and we are creative thinkers, so if one of our tools/methods/approach does't work, we try others...then, ask the question again! 
Comments

    RSS Feed

    RSS Feed​

    Sparkling Mindz is an organization with a vision to create millions of confident thinkers and communicators amongst our children!

    ​You can read more on...

    CEO's FB Page

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    July 2017
    June 2017
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    September 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    July 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    21
    21stcenturylearning
    2 Year Olds
    3 Year Olds
    4 Year Olds
    4-year-olds
    5 7 Year Olds
    5-7 Year Olds
    5 Year Olds
    5-year Olds
    8 13 Years
    8-13 Years
    Activity Modules
    Add
    Adhd
    Afterschool Program
    Age Appropriate Session
    Age-appropriate Session
    Age Group
    Awards And Recognition
    Bangalore
    Being Changemakers
    Book Reading
    Child Development
    Children Making Friends
    Children's Activities
    Children's Workshop
    Children's Workshops
    Collaboration
    Communication Skills
    Communication Skills Workshop
    Community
    Concluding Sessions
    Confidence
    Confident Learners
    Confident Thinkers
    Conflict Management
    Conscious Parenting
    Creative Individuals
    Creative Thinking
    Creative Thinking For Kids
    Creative Thinking Summer Camp
    Creative Thinking Summer Camps
    Creative Thinking Tools
    Creative Thinking Workshop
    Creative Thinking Workshops
    Creativity
    Creativity For Children
    Critical Thinking
    Critical Thinking Workshop
    Curiosity
    Deep Learning
    Deep Thinking
    Dep
    Developing Creativity
    Distracted Behavior
    Documentation
    E
    Emergent Curriculum
    Emergent Play
    Emotional Quotient
    Emotional Vocabulary
    Emotions In Learning
    Empathy
    Everychildcan
    Experimenting
    Exploring Emotions
    Facilitation
    Facilitator Discussion Diaries
    Flexibility
    Flexible Brain
    Following Your Passion
    Fun Activities
    Fun Activities For Children
    Fun Modules
    Fun Places For Children
    Game Based Learning
    Games For Kids
    Getting A Quiet Child To Talk
    Growth Mindset
    Holistic Development
    Hyperactivity
    Imagination
    Imagining-with-blocks
    Impulsivity
    Innovative Learning
    Innovators
    Inquisitive Children
    Inspiration
    Inspirational Stand Up
    Inspiring Confident Communicators
    Inspiring Confident Learners
    Interpersonal Skills
    Invitation To Play
    Joy
    Joyous Learning
    Just Books
    Keys To Success
    Kindness
    Lateral Thinking
    Learning For Keeps
    Learning From Play
    Learning Styles
    Learning To Make Friends
    Light Play
    Logical Reasoning
    Making Connections
    Motivation Skills
    Music
    Natural Things
    Nature Of Creativity
    Nature Walk
    New Age Classrooms
    Open Ended Thinking
    Openness To New Expeiences
    Ownership In Children
    Parenting As A Skill
    Parent Invites
    Parent Testimonials
    Parent Workshop
    Peer Intervention
    Play Based Learning
    Playschool
    Poem For Children
    Poem For Children 8+ Years
    Positive Attitude
    Preschool
    Preschool Activities
    Preschool Games
    Preschoollibraryactivity
    Pretend Play
    Problem Solving
    Programs For Children
    Reframing
    Regg
    Reggio Documentation
    Reggio Emilia Inspired Preschool
    Reggio-emilia Inspired Preschool
    Reggio Emilia Inspired Preschool India
    Reggio-emilia Inspired Preschool India
    Reggio Emilia Inspired School
    Reggio Emilia Preschool Bangalore
    Resolving Disputes
    Resolving Fights Amongst Children
    Role Plays
    Self Expression
    Self Identity
    Self-identity
    Self Learning
    Self-learning
    Selflove
    Sensory Play
    Shy Child
    Shy Child To Talk
    Skills
    Social Emotional Learning
    Social-emotional Learning
    Sparkling Mindz
    Sparkling Mindz Stories
    Sports
    Stories
    Story Telling
    Story-telling
    Success Stories
    Summer Camp
    Summer Camp 2012
    Summer Camps
    Takehome
    Team Work
    Thinkers
    Thinking
    Thinking As A Habit
    Thinking As A Process
    Thinking Corner
    Thinking Program
    Thinking Skill
    Thinking Skills
    Thinking Skills For Children
    Thinking Skills Program
    Tinkering
    Traditional-classroom
    Trust Based Parenting
    Understanding-children
    Value Based Learning
    Visit To Park
    Visualization
    Weekend Activities For Children
    Wittyconversations
    Wonder Based Learning
    Workshop For Kids
    Workshops For Children
    Workshops For Kids
    Young Achievers Academy
    Young Thinkers Academy

Announcements

Admissions are open for 2020-21 batches. Limited seats remaining. Call us at +91 9900080331/2 for more details. Click here to register.

The season 3 of our TED-Ed Clubs are open now! As we are waiting for talks to get published, you can see past videos here!
​​
Next Trinity Communication Skills exam will be held in Oct 2020 at Sparkling Mindz. Our students have achieved distinction across grade levels in the exam the past two consecutive years! Enroll in our Young Thinkers and Achievers Program here today to participate. 


If you are passionate about innovative and joyous teaching and learning and want to be a part of SM Community. Apply here!

Locations
Hennur - 8/4, Kannuru, Bidarahalli Hobli, Hennur-Bagalur Road, Bangalore 562149
Kalyan Nagar - 408, 2nd Floor, 5th Main, HRBR Layout 2nd Block, Kalyan Nagar, Bangalore - 43

Contact Details
Mobile: +91 9900080331

                 +91 9900080332
Phone: +91 80 4111 5607
Email: contact@sparklingmindz.in

Company

About Us
Team
​
Child-Led Missions
Careers
Media

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
​Privacy Policy
© COPYRIGHT 2011-2023 AVIDA EDUCATIONAL TRUST.