It was a serene evening when the sun was setting and it was time to wind down and leave school for the day. I was intrigued by a couple of kids busy making a cauldron of mud and water mixed together, cheerful as their hands, clothes and feet were covered with mud. 

It took me back to my childhood memory of playing hours in the sun and led me to wonder what they were up to. So I went closer and asked, looking at them busily toiling and moulding the mud, "What are we making here?" 

N looking at me says without a blink, "I'm making chapatis and lollipops!"

Being pulled into his imagination, I continued, "Oh, I wonder how it taste like?"

"It is brown chapatis because it is made of chocolate and it tastes chocolaty", was the response I received without a second further spent in the imagination.

I was struck by the thought of how play goes beyond what it seems like outwardly, to a process that involves imagination, thinking, connections and logic, innovation, reasoning, motor skills and a lot, lot more. 

​Here at SM we believe that play is just not an act but a deep learning process that a child involves in with all their senses and enriches with learning.

Contributed by Grace Veronica, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.
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It's been a very different year for all of us collectively, this year. But that has not stopped us from exploring, especially during this Independence Day!

Explore what? You may ask.

​Well, we explored our culture, identities, and much more. And we would like to share it with all of you through this video.

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#everychildcan
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​#independenceday

"Hurray! It's our Sports Day!", screamed the children and facilitators alike. To us at SM, sports day is a celebration.

Celebrate what, you may ask? Well, we want to celebrate our growth, our togetherness, our hard work with respect to the trainings, learnings, pushing ourselves beyond our usual 'workout' days. 

And this year, the preschoolers of SM were introduced to a new team game. They took it with open arms, learning about what it's like to work with a team, be part of a team, resilience, focus, etc. They learned so much in the field…what more? They learned to take all this learning back to their classes too. 

Sports is not a goal or the finish line for us at SM, but an integral part of the classroom too, and this begins with our wide and deep disconnections on what sports means to them, what does it mean to fall, what can we do when we feel like giving up, and so on. These learnings they apply to their overall life too. Well, to get a glimpse on what Sports Day is to us and how the Sports Day of the academic year 2019 - '20 went, watch this video. We would like to extend our gratitude to Ajit Sivaram for capturing this culture beautifully.

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The 4 year olds were making a circle with all of the colourful chairs around them for their usual Monday circle time. They had just gotten back from a 3 days long holiday and had lots to share! The circle was almost complete when Paridhi was just standing in the middle of the almost circle with an upset face, refusing to talk to anybody. 

"What happened Pari?", asked the facilitator (F).
Paridhi, with more tears," I want Elsa's chair!"

At this point, as the F seemed confused, children explained that the blue chair is Elsa's chair and the others are Aana's chairs. At this time there were no more blue chairs as children had all already occupied all of the rest, except for a green chair.

F continued," Why don't you take another chair and sit? Because there's no more blue chair."

Pari,"But that's Aana's chairs. I want to be Elsa!" and continues being upset. 

F noticed Tanmayi was sitting on a yellow chair and pointed at Tanmayi ,"See Tanmayi is sitting on a yellow one!", To which Tanmayi replied," I am sitting on yellow one because it is a bright colour chair. It is sun fairies,moon fairies, anything you want to be!"

F,"Oh wow! Did you hear that Pari? You can be aaaaaanything you want to be! What would you like to be other than Elsa?"

She thought for a few seconds and shouted with excitement," Butterfly!"

F,"Awesome! And which chair would you like to sit on?"

She pointed at the only available green chair and happily sat on it, and the problem was resolved.

With the right prompts, children can figure out solutions for themselves. It's important to understand the care-abouts of children in every situation as it helps to resolve issues at a deeper level, leaving everybody calmer and happier. 


Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.

As part of their Independence day visit,  our pre-schoolers expressed interest in knowing more about the freedom fighters. Considering their curiosity, they were taken to Freedom park, a place that served as a prison during Indian freedom movement which is now converted into a park. 

As children arrived at Freedom Park, A noticed grass growing on the gaps between the tiles on the pavement and screamed.

A: Stop everyone! Do not step on the grass! 
He succeeded in getting everybody's attention and they walked carefully making sure to not step on the grass. 

Post this incident of A displaying kindness and care and encouraging others to do the same, they walked ahead exploring the different areas of the park, the prisons, the execution place etc. As they walked, they came across a little insect strolling on the grass. Av, picked up a small twig and killed the insect. 
Rest of the group screamed: Ma'am Av killed the insect.
Em (visibly upset): it didn't even do anything to us.

Seeing his friends holding him accountable for his behavior, Av feels bad and tries to defend himself by speaking gibberish. 
​

A while later, children exploring the park found a fallen branch. They picked it up and started playing tug-of-war (it's been their favorite game ever since it was introduced to them a year ago). Just then, M saw it and ran to her friends. 
M: Everybody stop! You'll get hurt.

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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#youngachieversacademy
#everychildcanwonder
#21stcenturylearning

"Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.”

Our morning inspirational stand up today was inspired by this quote by the author Khaled Hosseini. We thought about how we might interpret this and take it forward.

We were trying to think of the very many connotations this powerful line could have. First, we spoke about how, just because we have colours and just because we think children are empty books, we may feel the need to fill them up. But can we resist that urge and work on our belief instead?

Could we try and find other means to actualize our impulse to colour and create? For, our children are neither our work of art nor our trophies to display on the mantelpiece. They are living, breathing, growing, changing beings who have their own journeys to create.

Where does this urge to fill up colours come from? And not just colours but our favourite colours. What happens when we fill our children with our favourite colours? They start to look just like (and ONLY like) our favourite colours. What about the entire spectrum? Do we know the entire spectrum ourselves? And even if we don’t, do we want our children to know them, experience them and colour their lives with the entire range of possibilities?

What about the fact that we are coloured books ourselves and we can’t help colouring (or influencing) others. The mere act of being becomes an act of colouring. We are bound to at least ‘impress’, if not consciously 'colour'. How can we help this? One way to minimize the effect is to be aware of our colours ourselves and to know how these colours would or could interact with other colours, and with blankness. Some colours are darker than others, some stronger. Once we can know and see ourselves for the colouring books we are, we can begin to take steps to add new pages to this book…

Once we realise that we are coloured books, we might also realise how we need not have been. And perhaps, our children need not be either. Because if our children are colouring books, then even if we do not fill them in with our favourite colours, someone or something else might. What if we were to not think of our children as colouring books or blank slates but instead as seeds…which have lives of their own? 


Contributed by Poorva Agarwal, Assistant Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global inspired by an inspiration standup that happened at school in the morning of 21st Jan 2020.

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

As I interact with children across age groups at Sparkling Mindz through our Young Achievers Program, through the TED-Ed Clubs, I see a shift in the attitude towards learning. Most of them trivialize learning, want to run away from it, don't think it is useful or meaningful in their lives and those who put in hours of effort too only know how to figure out the answers for questions in the text book so they could excel in exams. When you run on the treadmill of exams there is little time for anything else.


The world, however, has higher expectations from your child. The world expects your child to discover and nurture their uniqueness, develop an opinion, a voice that they can use to stand up for not only themselves but the community and world at large, to solve problems bigger than themselves and how are you training your child to develop these skills?


The classic moment was recently when I asked a bunch of children, "What do you learn English for?" pat came the answer, "for exams" and after a moment of silence I heard one of our Young Achievers voice, eyes shining, she said, "for communication." and the room lit up in awe. I would think every child should have thought of and known the answer to that question as most of them learn the English language for well over 16 years as a subject!


Another interesting conversation I had with a 14 year old. He was quite angry with the fact that his mother thought that video games were a waste of his time. He loved to play them and saw a future in the industry. However, according to the mother not wrongly so, no exams, no marks, no future so he should study and keep the video games aside for a while. He took it up as a challenge to prove to her that video games were not so bad. It took him a while to research the pros and cons, articulate what he felt, figure out what to use/discard from the research and eventually change his stance to "too much of anything is bad" and pick up and analyze examples of learning from games that he liked. Much of that too was researched data, the child did not yet know/understand how to add a layer of own insight into the research. Diving deeper into topics results in children discovering their own interests, passion and a sense of identity like nothing else does. Like everything else in life, it is a matter of choice to empower your child with the skills to go deep and discover themselves or skim the surface of learning where everyone else remains too.


At Sparkling Mindz, it's our mission to nurture and develop children's curiosity and make them confident learners.