​Times have been unpredictable, with the COVID-19 spreading, driving the world to take refuge in a dark shell of uncertainty. First, the schools were shut, then we were to keep our distance from each other and then, a complete lock down extending for over a month. Does this mean we shut everything down? Should children's learning stop? How are parents going to keep them engaged? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves.

We, at Sparkling Mindz value and nurture growth mindset. We believe that there is always a way, even in the face of adversities. We took to technology and reconnected with our children over video calls. Our children too vibed with our mindset, that NO Virus Can Stop Our LEARNING! 

We have been connecting with our children ranging from 7year Olds to 14 year Olds, reiterating to them about the importance of managing themselves mentally, emotionally and physically, and being able to create a routine that involves productive engagement. Oh! trust me, our children can create amazing schedules for themselves. 

On the last video call with our youngest group of children (the 7 to 8 year Olds), we presented a variety of activities that they could add to their schedules, which included different kinds of chores, workouts, experiments, skill building activities etc. Our children were  more than delighted to accept the repertoire of  options to choose from. 

Here, we have V trying to pick ice cubes with a piece of string as part of his play and learn experiment. The joy on his face shows us his engagement and wonder. Knowing V, we can imagine the curious wonder questions and observations he must have made while he experimented. 

Here is our Advika, doing the same challenge, inspiring all of us in the process, in her own creative way!

We viewed this adversity not as a hindrance but rather as an opportunity that presented itself to help our children and us learn and grow through it. 

Children, need to be encouraged to deal with adversities with a growth mindset. Why? So they become individuals who can deal with their circumstances without giving up on themselves or their dreams.


Contributed by Disha HK, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global School.

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It's the month of August, the month that's special for every Indian. It was the month in which India achieved Independence from the British rule 73 years ago. As the rest of India celebrates this month by reminiscing the sacrifice of the various people who contributed to the Indian freedom movement, our pre-schoolers (5-6 year olds) at Sparkling Mindz began their discussion with a prompt "What do they love about India?" and the following were their responses along with how the discussion moved forward.

*Sh: I love that India is a big country and I love the national anthem.
Sh: Why do we sing the national anthem?
Ash: We sing national anthem to wish India*

This opened up an opportunity to discuss about the geography of India. The States, union territories and their capitals. How big India was before Independence and how big is it now and a little about the national anthem.
*Ana: I love that freedom fighters fought for our country*

This led us to discuss about who did the freedom fighters fight against and why? Why did the British East India company come to India? Who were the freedom fighters and how did they fight (Violence and Non violence)?

*Em: everywhere I travel in India, I love the buildings*
This led us to discuss about the famous monuments or heritage towns in India.

*Aad: I love India because it's colorful*
This opened up an opportunity to talk about the diversity in language, food, clothing, culture etc. And how inspite of our difference we love each other.
*Tan: I love India because it's beautiful*
*Abh: But, there are also people who litter in India*
This statement ignited a spark in the class and everybody seemed upset and concerned.
Facilitator: Why do you think people litter in India.
Abh: Because they are bad people.
Facilitator: It is? Sometimes in class we forget to follow ground rules, does that make us bad people?
Class: No, they just don't know the ground rules.
Facilitator: what do you think we should all do about this?
Tan: When somebody litters we can take it and throw in the dustbin.
Facilitator: Do you think they will learn if we pick up all the garbage for them? Is it possible for us to pick up all the garbage in India?
Ved: We need to clean our roads.
Abhi: We need to have more bins on the pathways.
Avy: We need to have poop bins for the dogs on the streets.
Adi: If you don't find garbage bin, keep it in a bag and throw it when you see a dust bin.
Post this discussion, children began reporting about littering incidents they come across on a daily basis while traveling from school to home and other places.
Noticing the concern and the spark in children to make a change, the facilitator gave them a choice to come up with ways to educate people on keeping India clean.
​
Few suggestions they came up with were-
1. Role play
2. Making placards
3. Making videos
4. Writing letters

Considering all their suggestion the facilitator helped them thread through a mime which they performed to educate their parents on Independence day. They also went about and wrote letters to people they see littering the streets. 

​Contributed by Yashika CG, Facilitator, Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool

It was time for all the preschoolers to go home. But Pari was just not in the mood to go get her bag. She had tears in her eyes instead. 

Pari: I am upset. 
"What happened Pari?"
Pari: Kar is not my best friend anymore. 

And she starts crying. 
Kar walks by, we call him and he comes in with his bag and hat, all set to go home. 

"Pari called me Bad Kar!"

Pari looks at him, keeps crying, expecting him to apologize. But he doesn't. 

Unfortunately, the situation was not resolved. 

"Pari and Kar, can you please talk to each other?"

Pari:" I am upset."
Kar:" I was also upset when you said that."

That was the end of their discussion. Upon hearing that the words she chose to say to Kar had made him upset too, she quit. She turned around and walked away. It was also time for her to leave as the van was waiting to leave for the drop. Kar looked lost and unresolved. We talked about resolving it on Monday when we meet again and parted for the day. 

Monday arrived and they came back together to talk about it. 

Kar:" She called me a bad boy."
Pari, with her hands folded and face angry:" He came and closed it!"
Kar: "I was making door"

"Door for what?"
Kar:" Car. They were making a car!"

"Oh! Pari , he was helping you make a door for your car!"

Pari's face broke out into a smile, "Oh..."

The whole mood of the situation elevated into pleasant smiles. 

"Kar, but if you want the play with somebody, don't you think you should ask them and then do the necessary things?"

Kar nodded a yes. 

"Pari, next time you don't like something, you can always tell them what it is that you don't like about what they are doing, instead of calling them a bad boy or girl."

Pari, still smiling also nods a yes. And they walked back to class in harmony. Pari pulled Kar's cheek to show affection and happily went back to play. 

The situation stayed with them for more than 2 whole days, unresolved. It was necessary to get them together and resolve their issue. Even if as adults we perceive these issues as 'little', it could be a great deal of distress for them, and is necessary that these loops get closed. It sure is beautiful how a lot of emotions got processed and conveyed throughout this little episode, from anger, hurt, compassion and kindness, calmness, etc. Children are capable of so much more than we realize and it is important to keep an open mind when we are with them. It all makes it worth the while in the end.


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

"OWH!" cried out Sid, and he looked at me.
I kept quiet to see how this situation would progress or get resolved. 

After a few seconds of silence and staring at each other, Sid asks Adit," Would you like it if I took this bat and hit you?" 

Adit had hit Sid with the table tennis racket while playing. It was purely accidental as Adit aimed for the bat and not Sid's hand. Adit, a 5 year old Joey and Sid, a 4 year old Cub, stay at SM post their school hours for daycare. Their current game/fascination is tennis that they play with plastic table tennis rackets. 

"No", said Adit, feeling bad, looking at Sid. 
"Then why did you do it?", asked Sid, hoping for more clarity. 
"I thought this was the bat", replied Adit. 
Sid thought for a second and continued, "Let's not play this game anymore." And he walked off with Adit into the daycare room, to play with something more gentle. 

Children are capable of standing up for themselves and making rational decisions. Every child knows what they like and dislike. And they deserve to be respected. When they are trusted that they can stand up for themselves and make the right decisions, and given the right vocabulary, they can do anything in this world. 


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

​"Ma'am Aad broke it!" came Avi running to me holding 2 pieces of a plastic block they were playing with.

Aad looked concerned.

I bent down to the mirror cave he was sitting in with a blank expression and asked him what had happened. 

"I was playing with it and it broke", replied Aad.

"Okay. How can we fix this?" to which he said with so much hope, "I'll fix it with a glue!!!", and he runs to his class to get the glue. Aad and Av are part of the Cubs (4 year olds at SM). This happened before the class started (around 8:40am). 

He came back with 2 glue sticks and a fevistick. He realized that with the glue stick, the pieces wouldn't stick. So he switched to fevistick without a word. "I am putting only little ma'am", said Aad. Since children were pouring in too much fevicol to stick little things, we had a discussion on how much glue was too much which, he seemed to have remembered at this point and put to practice. He came to sit next to where I was sitting, trying to get it together, without giving up.

It was so evident how much he had grown as a person when I saw him not giving up on it because it's easier to give up and not try harder if the first few tries fail. 

"It's not sticking ma'am", said Aad with a perplexed expression. 

"Don't give up. Keep trying!" I reinforced. And he followed suit. He did not give up.  

The 3 to 4 year olds at SM were having their Movement Song today and they were running, walking, jumping, clapping, singing...and just pretending to be different animals. Post this, the facilitator thought it would be a good idea to sing '5 little monkeys' to get the whole class together when they started to run all over the place. As soon as they started the rhyme, the facilitator was in for a surprise! The rhyme took a whole new turn itself! They wanted to be dragons instead. So we sang...as follows:

5 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mamma called the doctor and the doctor said,
No more dragons...

S: Ma'am, dragons don't get hurt. They get up say arrrrrrrrr and fly away. 
F: Okay. 
5 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Then he got up and..?
 
At this point they are all making dragon sounds. 
S: Then he got up and started flying because he's so strong. He doesn't get hurt. 

F: okay so how about,
5 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"

They all were strong dragons at this point, enacting the whole thing out, screaming "arrrrrr"... 

F: And then? 
Collectively: He flew to the sky. 
F: Awesome! 

'Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!'
F: Does that sound okay?

S: YES!!!
F: Let's do it then!

The new song is as follows:

5 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"
Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!

4 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"
Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!

3 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"
Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!

2 little dragons flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"
Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!

1 little dragon flying in the sky,
One fell off and bumped his head.
He got up and said "Arrrrrrrrr"
Opened his wings and flew back to the sky!

They loved this new rhyme that they co-created and have been pretending to be dragons ever since. They had to be brought back to reality by calling their names to shake the dragons off and come back to class again as themselves. 

Magic arrives and manifests when children are left to be themselves in the class. They truly become co-creators of their own learning, and enjoy the whole show. There was no facilitator in the class at that point, just a bunch of curious individuals who love to learn together!

"Ma'am, we were looking for blue. We wanted to show you", says Aaditya and starts pointing out different shades of blue on his clothes, during the morning Circle Time in Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.
All his 3 and 4 year old classmates get inspired by this and start running around, spotting all shades of blue. 
"Sky is dark blue ma'am", says Karthik by pointing at the worksheet he had taken home to colour. 
This goes on for a while until the facilitator asks," Are they all the same blue?", and they collectively agree that they are all different shades. 
"Why are they all different shades?", asks the facilitator again. 
"Because somebody likes different different colours", says Hasini with a lot of thought, and everybody agrees. 

"How can we make different shades?", asks facilitator.
Children came up with different combinations of colours such as mixing yellow, green and blue, red and blue, etc. to make dark blue and we agreed on experimenting post snacks. 
​
Here are the results: 
Siddharth tries to get green by using pink and black.

Aaditya comes running excitedly, pointing at his palms saying," Look, I made dark blue!!" It seemed like a lighter shade instead. 
"How did you make this colour?", asked the facilitator to which he responds, "I was mixing the colours and I washed my hand and mixed it" 

Abhijit mixes black with blue to try and get dark blue but black overpowers the little blue he had put. With a proud expression he told us that he's made dark blue!
"Hello guys!!", comes in Karthik with a victorious expression and clean hands, after making light blue by mixing blue and silver.
Anya finds her palms full of blue, "Wow", shows Hasini and wonders at how she arrived at that colour on her palms while Atharva mixes all the colours together and paints all over the chart.
"Hey! I got orange in this!!", screams an excited and surprised Avyan. When asked how he got that, he gives an expression of pondering how he arrived at that colour so he was left to his thoughts to reflect more. After a while he comes and says, "I made Iron Man colours - dark red and light yellow ma'am", and moved on to wash his hands.
"I painted blue at the back and golden in the front"', says Tanmayi when asked what she was painting.

Post this, their experiments were hung up on the wall with annotations, which they are always excited to look at with pride. In their eyes, they see perfection and learnings that they will talk about for a long time, and giving them the chances to experiment their thoughts bring in more questions, more curiosity, more wonder.


Children then went on a colour exploration on another day by mixing the primary colours (red, blue and yellow) in a bowl in the water with ink droppers. A wide variety of colours came in through :
"Look, Purple!", screamed Aaditya with excitement.
"I made Pink ma'am", calmly said Hasini with pride in her eyes.
"Mine is Red", replied Anya to Hasini.


They then asked for various other colours such as white, black, green etc.

Aaditya took white and black, and mixed them together to make "Purple!", he exclaimed, which he later changed to "Gray, ma'am."


Around this time, Avyan came in with a bucket, walking around collecting all the experimented coloured water in to clean up and they all cleaned up.

The next day was a Friday Connect where the whole school came together to do activities together. To take their experiments a step further, they were all given natural materials to make colours with: turmeric powder, coriander leaves, coffee powder, milk, tomatoes.

They started with attempting to get red colour out of the tomato pieces they were given.
"This is pink ma'am", said Tanya.

Then coffee powder made their papers brown. And when milk was given after they tried to get brown colour with coffee powder, Jordan goes," Ma'am, it smells so nice! Can I drink this?" and took a long breath to breathe it all in experiencing the freshness, Anagha follows.
​
Coriander leaves brought in a bit of a struggle as they were trying to squeeze to get the juice out. Some of them threw it to the side of the paper while some of them tried to stick it on their papers. When failed to stick, they moved on to playing with turmeric, making all of their papers and hands as yellow as the sun even after multiple attempts at washing them. It was already time to go home and some left with an unsatisfactory face as they couldn't experiment and make colours with the purple grapes that were put out in the front, but satisfied for having painted all over their papers in such amazing hues and shades of all sorts of colours with all sorts of things.

The end products were:

• Yellow hands
• Smelling like coffee
• Mostly torn papers due to overuse of watery substances and repeated scraping with tomatoes
• Wonder on why they couldn't get the colour green with the coriander leaves
• Slightly overwhelmed with the yellow colour of the turmeric
• Lots and lots of fun
• Understanding that colours come not just in paint boxes
• Trials and errors towards producing certain colours

Next week they read 'Mix It Up' book together to have a visual experience of mixing the primary colours and closed the mixing games and activities for the year aiming towards raising a generation that never stops to wonder or get inspired!  


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

To get all the 3 and 4 year olds back together in the class post snacks break, the facilitator started singing 'Green Grass Grows All Around' and out sprang a conversation:
F: 'There was a tree…hole in the ground', How do trees grow?
An: From seeds
K:I put a hole, then some seeds and plants come out.
F: So we put seeds inside the...?
An: Ground
Av: And we have blood inside our bodies
F: But why do we need blood?
An: I don't need blood.
Ab & S: Even I don't need blood.
F: So if you don't have blood then what happens?
An: We go so soft and tiny
H: Same like a skeleton and like weh weh weh weh weh
F: What happens if the blood is outside the body?
An: Then when we speak we become weak (reduced her sound to be inaudible to show her point)
Av: And we also get soft and soft and soft
H: And broken skeleton we get.
T: And our tummy will break
Aa: Ma'am you know, yesterday at my house I was closing my eyes when I was walking to the front and I got hurt. Then my papa put medicine.
F: So what happened when you got a cut?
K: Blood will come out.

Children then talked about a few times when they all fell down and got hurt. An introduced the terms 'tumbled down' - "Avy once came to my dada's office and tumbled down", and everybody started using it then.

F, a while later, continuing the conversation: So why do you think blood comes out?
H: I know, because we get a scratch.
F: So blood comes out because it hurts or because we get a cut?
H: Because we get a cut
F: So how do we get more blood?
K: Beetroot is like blood only
H: Also watermelon, we need red like beetroot so that's also kind of blood
Aa: Little lollipop watermelon, it can't hurt me.
T: Hey, that's red like blood (pointing at the puzzle of pomegranate Kr was doing)
F: So you're saying only the food with colour of blood gives us blood?
K: Red crayon is like blood only

They then went on to explore a while longer among themselves what food we need to eat to get blood when the topic of skeletons came in.

F: Why do we need skeleton
H: Because we need to be strong
Av: Then we are walking on the stairs and then you will tumble down the stairs
F: Why so?
Aa: Then some skeletons can break but we can fix it with glue (shared his memory of a Halloween function he'd attended)
F: Okay, what does it do for us?
H: When we do something like this, skeleton copy us (moves her hand to show). Bones are inside.

And the conversations came back to blood and its colour.
H: Some children have purple and blue and so many kinds of blood.
F: Why are there so many different colours of blood H?
An: Some people have them.
F: Where have you seen them?
H: In the road. And in the shops
K: There are screws inside. Our bodies will get screwed. 
F: So if blood makes us strong, what makes plants strong?
T: So if we give water, it will come like a blood. For that happens
K: First we make a hole,then put some seeds and cover it and water it. 
Aa: It can become big big big big

We wound up the discussion with wanting to cut open a plant to see what's inside a plant after discussing on what we see after we cut open our bodies (blood, skeleton and bones), and what makes plants grow.

A few days later, they went upstairs for free play and came down together with plants that they were going to cut open and observe.
Seeds, ants, snakes, caterpillars, worms, cockroaches, etc. were some of the answers that popped up when asked what they might see.
At this point Av said with a low voice, "Maybe we shouldn't cut it ma'am", as he had scared himself with his imagination of snakes and worms coming out of the plant when we cut it.
K: No, blood will come"
F: Is that so? Shall we look and see? How do you think they might feel?
"Plants will feel frightened", said H
"They will feel sad", replied T with a sad face when said how they plants might feel.
F: Why do you think so?
H: Because my mamma told me

They seemed to pour in emotions and empathize with the plant for a brief moment and quickly moved on to see what could possibly come out.

They then walked with the facilitator on the journey of actually cutting opening the plant to figure out what is inside, walking through what each part of the plant is.
Their curiosity and impatience arose as the plant was getting cut as to what could be inside the stem. When they saw it just green on the inside too, Aa replied," That green is the blood!"

K made a request, "Can you cut the branches?", and F did so after passing around the cut parts of the plants for children to observe. They all carefully sat in their seats, looked, touched and experienced it, and observed the textures of the plant's pieces.
Ab held the roots and was left with mud on his hands which he thought was blood to which Aa told that it is mud. They then saw water and concluded that blood has water inside and that it has white colour blood because they grow. They drifted off to talk about their blood being red and the F showed them a video of what's inside of the human body to satisfy their curiosity on what really is on the inside of our bodies.

Aa: Skin, if you remove them, your skeleton will show up!
Aa: My skull is very soft.
S: Mine is very hard
K: Mine is cold because bad weather cold came in.

Post this they touched and felt all their outer body parts and talked about what is inside while watching the video, and wound up for the day with wonder on what each part of the body does and could possibly do. They went home with an internal promise on finding more about their bodies while also searching at home to bring a plant to school to experiment on feeding the plant various things to see what does it need to grow as our bodies grow with food and water.

The children brought back two plants the following week, named them Robot and Sony, fed them leaves, water, etc., to see how it is going to grow and which of the things they fed, the plants like more. The experiment has come to a pause now as the children have gone on their summer break.

We at SM believe that children are curious individuals and their curiosities are sparks we value and nourish so the fire that burns brightly in them never fades but only burns brighter as each day passes by.


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


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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.

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”.
​

Ad and An playing ‘Peek a boo’.  And on and on they went with their wonder, excitement and endless bouts of imagination!
​

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.