Today's interesting challenge for the 3 and 4 year olds at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool was to make anything they want BUT with only two white coloured pipe cleaners!

They took on the challenge with so much enthusiasm and out came a river overflowing with different kinds of play.  They all started the play by sitting on mats on floor, 
S: Ma'am look I have horns!

​And they all pretended to be animals and roared around a little.

When the facilitator saw that they all got up and started running around , pretending the pipe cleaners to be guns and shooting fire, it was clear that they didn't know the pipe cleaners could bend too! 
F: Did you know I could make anything I want to with these by bending it too? 
This caught most of their attention and they each started bending it, trying out different things. 
At: Fire!
K: Look, I made a 'M' (he used both the pipe cleaners and joined them)
An: I made a knot. I curled it. 
And she unknotted it and looked proud of her discovery. 

Suddenly Aa comes and says," I want to connect it", touching the tips of both the pipe cleaners. When asked how could he do that, he walked away as if in deep thought. 
While this happened, Av came around playfully and poked it on the facilitator's face and walked away to join the others who continued to run around pretending to be animals with horns.

Suddenly T screamed at her friends," I don't like this game!" and made a sad face. 
Nobody seemed to have noticed it. She screamed again. No response from the others. 
Finally the facilitator asked her why she seemed angry. 
"They are all screaming. My ears hurt!" replied T. At this point S was watching T and he visibly used soft voice. The amount of consideration, understanding  and compassion he showed towards T was immense for a 3 year old. T was very touched by this and suddenly calmed down and went ahead to play with the others. 

After a few minutes, H was done with her play with the pipe cleaners ,"I don't need it. It's ok", and went and neatly kept it in the cupboard where it belongs. And one by one they all went and kept their pipe cleaners and were done with their play for the day. 

There was a lot of imagination, pretend play, problem solving and movement that were involved here where they were playing with just two pipe cleaners. It's amazing where things can take them when they are not restricted. Each child has a story to tell with everything they do. Once we observe and get to know their world, it will not only create sparks in our imagination but also is another chance for us to embrace play in our lives as us adults forget to play too. 


Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool. 

​#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#everychildcancreate

Thursdays at SM are always exciting!
Every Thursday we pick a book and read it with our 4- 5 year olds. Another reason why children look forward to Thursdays is because they get to take home a new book from their library. And this Thursday we chose to read a book called “Not a Box”. To help children connect better with the book, the class was set with empty cardboard boxes of different sizes for them to imagine and play with. 
 
As children came in, some were confused, some amused and some curious. Sh came inquiring about the boxes in the class,
Sh: Ma’am, why are these boxes in our class? Did you put them here?
F: Yes, I put them here. You can do whatever you want with them.
 
After this conversation, it was amusing to see the things children could imagine with mere empty boxes!
 
In the image below, all that can be seen at the first glance is probably just a bunch of children standing inside an empty box. But if looked a little deeper, a whole new world of theirs is what we will see.

For E, they are on a bus traveling to school where V is the conductor of the bus. For Ash, it's an aeroplane ship, an aeroplane that turns into a ship when it falls into the water and for Av, it's a submarine.

J pulled out a long strip used for compartmentalizing from inside one of the boxes, wrapped it around himself and said “Ma’am, this is my seat belt”.
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Ad and An playing ‘Peek a boo’.  And on and on they went with their wonder, excitement and endless bouts of imagination!
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Often as adults, we are so clouded by our understanding of how things work, that we forget to understand what it means to play. It then gets easier to teach children what things do before letting them tinker, experience and learn by themselves first. If we step back and observe with an intention to know them rather than teach them, we will see that everything that comes across as ambiguous about our children will begin to inspire us. They are exploring the new world around them, constantly making connections, learning from everything they see or do and reproduce it in different ways.

​And we can contribute in their journey by learning to explore with them. 


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

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...
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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. 

As a welcome back play, the Pups and Calves (aged from 3 to 4) were taken upstairs to the sandpit to play. They always look forward to playing upstairs. Soaking in the sun, spotting new flowers, watering the plants with the water in their water bottles, fun time building an empire in the sandpit, etc. are just some of the many things the children usually engage in when they get to go upstairs and explore. Today they were in for a play in the sandpit but with a twist: they can only use their feet! 

As expected, this news was received with a lot of enthusiasm and confusion : how will we play with our feet, my legs will get dirty, what about our shoes and socks, and so on were some of the both expressed and unexpressed questions that arose. 

They all wore their shoes, carried their water bottles and stood in a line, all geared up and excited about their new game and marched upstairs to the song 'We are going up the stairs'. After reaching the top, they all removed their shoes and kept them below the table where they usually keep their water bottles. 

Some of them then enthusiastically stared at the sandpit wondering how to jump in and play with only their feet while some of them just went for it and started moving their feet around feeling the sand. A few splashed the sand around with their feet and others tried digging the sand with their feet and hands, and needed constant reminder to use only their feet. 

While all this play went on, two of them refused to join their friends, where one said, "My legs will get dirty ma'am. I don't want to play." When he was told that he can even go play with his footwear, unwillingly we walked to the sandpit, jumped in for the sake of it and ran out, and the second child said,"This is boring. I don't want to play", and marched off to the corner, passing comments at others expecting them to join him. After a while both the children who refused to play in the sandpit joined to play 'Robot Robot' by themselves and were left to play in their robot world. 
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On the other side in the sandpit, there was a little exploration that was happening,
" The sand is so soft. It's also wet!", said K with a lot of curiosity, digging the sand and finding his feet wet when they touched the wet sand underneath the dry sand. 
S: "You put water and it will melt and go down down down. That's why sand is wet."
 H: "Ya. There's water. Rain came."

While this discussion was going on, T came in and was asked to remove her shoes and jump in. But she seemed confused. The confusion was broken by An who called out, "But she can't remove her socks. She's wearing sock pants!" She was suggested that she could use her hands if she wanted, but she just wanted to stand and watch her friends play. 

By then it was already time up for the play to be wound up. They all then happily washed their feet, hands, wore their shoes and marched back down to their class with a lot of memories to carry forth.

When was the last time you truly played with something and let go of your inhibitions, and let your inner child out? What did you learn from that little play?

Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz. 

 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.

 Today was another school day for the preschoolers as they walked in for another surprise - they were all going to make their own set of playdoh! After they were told what they were all about to do, the facilitator saw a bunch of curious and confused faces as all they saw were flour, bunch of bowls, food colouring and water. 

As usual they all sat around and started playing with whatever they saw: flour and salt. Once they poured water in, some realized the water was warm and giggled, some requested for more water to be poured in, some needed help with kneading, some wanted only a single food colour to be put in while the others asked for a mixture of colours, some were more curious with the term 'kneading' and repeated it a couple of times to get the hang of it and others found the term funny. A conversation takes place around the activity.

H: It's so slimy in my hands
An: It's so soft, I want to make a bed a sleep on it

​T, A1 and L kept quiet throughout, just absolutely immersed in the whole experience while A2 was experiencing discomfort on how it's making his hands 'dirty' and wanted to run and wash his hands, calling it 'disgusting'.

A3 took his colourful dough and banged it on the floor saying," My amma do this at home", and K was reminded of the time he made slime at home and told everybody of his fondest memory of making the slime with glue and water.

Not only are messy hands and clothes fun for children, in the process of growing and learning, they also love the entire experience they have while they do it where each of them experience things differently and the whole process of 'fun' is different for each of them. ​