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

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.

An interesting conversation that took place with a 4 year old today during their usual library hour where I was issuing each of them books:

Me: K, come on up with your book. 
K (screaming with excitement): Ma'am I got 'Princesses are not just pretty' book this time!!
Me (surprised): WOW! How did you know the name of this book?
K (smirking, without a pause): That's because I am a clever clock!

K and I were having a moment of the witty comeback when H came up beside him and said, "Ma'am I only told him the name of this book".

To me, the witty comeback was a sign of K's growing confidence and his ability to make a good connection with what his friend.

​ What kind of wit or humour have you heard from your child recently? Do they make you laugh or cringe in pain knowing that they are shining a mirror onto your behaviour sometimes?

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

​Children came running into the class after playing a very fun game of ‘Aim and hit’ using balloons. While the 2-3 year olds had used bats to hit the balloons, the 3-4 year olds had a challenge at hand – to hit the balloons using only their hands and not letting it touch the ground. They all seemed to love the game; screaming, running and chasing their balloons, trying to keep them afloat!

Later, when they gathered for circle time, the facilitator asked the children ‘Is it important for us to move our body and play?’ All of them agreed in unison, ‘Yeeees!’ However, there was one voice that said ‘No!’.
F : Oh! N says it is not important for us to move our body.
V (looking at N) : No, it is good.
Av :  It is good only!
F : Why is it good?
V : Because it make us healthy..and and strong.
F : Yes! And how do you think our body feels when we move it?
Ad &V :Haaaappy!
F : What do you think N? Should we move our body to stay healthy?
N : Yes!

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This small conversation is an example of how children as young as 3 year olds are capable of peer intervention! When children understand the why, what and how of their learning, it gets deeply imbued in their minds and shapes their values and views of the world.

Contributed by Disha, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global School

The Calves, our 3 year olds class, and I started our story time one day in August. Little Engine was the story we picked and all of us sat down in a circle to listen. For our story time, we have a wall full of emotions where children can identify and relate to what the character is feeling as the story progresses. 

Throughout the Little Engine story, children constantly ran over to relate to the emotions. Over the course of the story, children constantly connected with the Little Engine that was stuck in the middle of nowhere as it couldn't go up the mountain to deliver the toys it had promised to the children. Here's how the discussion went:

H (points to the thinking face): It is thinking about going, is stuck. 
(She was talking about how to get the train unstuck, from the train's perspective)
Av: It's scared and shocked. Another big train is coming on the track. 
S: It's happy ma'am. 
F: Why is it happy?
S: Because it's going to give toys to children. 
Aa: Crying, the big engine is not helping it. 
K: Sad. Because the storm is coming. 

 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. ​

As part of our neighbourhood connect walks our 1.5-3 year olds went outdoors to a local park. At the park 20 months old Vivaan who had just started to talk in words noticed a ‘circle’ shaped hole on the floor. It was such a tiny hole with a yellow colour leaf lying next to it. 


One can’t fathom the deep and connected ways in which children learn and the different perspectives with which they see the world around them.

While going through the nature walk pictures with the children back at school Facilitator picked up a circular shaped block and showed it to the children for them to connect to what Vivaan had seen in the park, earlier during the day.

 To everyone’s surprise, 2.5 years old Daniel picked up another block and tried to connect it to the ‘rectangle shape’ in the picture. Can you spot the same?

 The other children didn’t see it as they were focused on Vivaan and his circle. Daniel could zoom out and see the space around Vivaan as well as where he was standing to see the stand alone tile to spot the rectangular shape.

 It was a connection the child had made which showed the capability of the child to zoom out of the current frame of reference and see something bigger and different. How many of us do this on a day to day basis in our lives?
 
Contributed by Maria Sanjana, Learning Facilitator @ Sparkling Mindz

As children we are natural Kinesthetic learners. As adults too, we may not realize it but many of us feel drained and are unable to think of ideas unless we move our bodies around. Our mind-body is a connected system and for many of us restricting our body movements can lead to an inefficient learning experience. So, then, why are classrooms, conference rooms, training rooms designed the way they are? Well...that's an interesting question best answered through an interesting design that we used for our classrooms. Keeping in mind that children needed multiple kinds of learning experiences and not merely "Auditory or Visual" lectures we chose minimal furniture and a design that let children move around, dance, huddle in groups and achieve maximum learning through movement. We chose to use stories, role plays, drama, experiential and hands-on activities to engage students through multiple modalities of learning outcomes. Most importantly, we chose learning outcomes that would engage their whole being in the learning experience - developing a positive attitude, perseverance, focus, deep engagement and multiple connects with prior knowledge, a thirst to learn more, perspective to look at problems as challenges and more...

A child who can connect with learning outcomes higher than mere knowledge, use their entire mind-body to experience learning and work with others confidently to achieve desired results is going to be successful in any economy, any crisis, any situation that you put her in. In fact, she might be the one that chooses the toughest situations to spend her energy on because she can, because it is worth her while and because nothing LESS will do!

Seriously, as parents it is time for us to collectively decide, NOTHING LESS will do for your child. It is important that they experience learning in enriched visual-kinesthetic spaces with facilitators who understand the importance of visual-kinesthetic learning. It's upto you, you can choose to give them an EDGE today.

I often crave for new experiences. I do take out time to explore and experience new things. Whether it is trying my hands at a new instrument (I have no prior knowledge of music), a new cuisine, meeting new people or a genre of book I have never experienced. There is a myriad of emotions that one feels over new experiences. One feels a tinge of fear, a tinge of anticipation, a lot of excitement and so many unnamed emotions that gives you a feeling in your tummy. When we are born, everything is new for us. The excitement to explore and tinker is visible in the sparkle of our eyes.

Over time we start losing our ability of being so open to the new experiences and soon we start shunning them. The fear of messing things up and making a fool of ourselves overrides the sheer pleasure of doing and feeling something new. Having said that, what is so great about the new experiences anyway?

New experiences positively correlate to both creativity and enhancing learning skills. Having a diversified array of experiencing things forms a big pool of knowledge and experiences which can then be connected to make progress in Creativity and Innovation.

At Sparkling Mindz, we see new experiences as a culture. We ensure children get to experience new things and so do we. New experiences are not a luxury, they are a necessity. It is all around us, the world is full of them, we just need to see it with the curious eyes of a toddler!

When was the last time you experienced something new? How can you bring novelty as a part of your daily life?

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.