It's Poetic Soiree time of the year again and the preschoolers are busy practising their poems. The two 4 year olds in Cubs class at SM Preschool were reciting their poem called Invention by Shel Silverstein, which goes like,

I've done it, I've done it!
Guess what I've done!
Invented a light that plugs into the sun.
The sun is bright enough,
The bulb is strong enough
But, oh, there's only one thing wrong...
The cord ain't long enough.

Post this recital, the Cubs weren't happy with leaving the ending in a way where the invention seemed useless. So together they solved the problem, and came up with an extension to the poem with the help of the facilitator,

' So I take six ladders,
Put them together as one.
Then I take a few cords,
Attach them together
And plug it into the sun!'

Children used empathy as a tool here to come up with solutions. They stepped into the shoes of the poet, became the poem and realized that they could help figure out what the poet can do to make the invention work! At first they were unhappy with the original ending, as they found it ending with a problem and not a solution. And almost immediately, with no intervention required, they started exploring various solutions for the same. They moved around the class, pretending the sun to be at a high place, having a short cord, asking each other what they can do. And in a matter of less than 5 minutes, they solved it together as a group! 

When children are invited to wonder, the world of curiosities open up. They step into that world and emerge out victorious with questions, solutions, answers...Perhaps that's all we need as children and adults, a safe space to wonder, be curious, ask questions and figure things out. 


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

It was 9:05am, which meant, it was time for the preschool children at SM to go into their respective classes to begin their day. As I was calling them all in to the class from the front space of the school, Aarav was looking around the window area , looking out, touching the surface, etc. He seemed to be in deep thoughts. As I called him too to go to his class, he stopped me and asked me, "Ma'am, how do we close the window?" 

Aarav and Aadya stared at this in wonder, trying to have an experience of opening and closing the window. After having figured it out, they happily jumped out and ran to their class with a newer dimension of thinking about how they could close the window. 

This little conversation served as a morning inspiration as it was yet another reminder about how curious children are about every little thing. And their passion to figure things out, and also helping others to figure things out. 


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

"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.


#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#everychildcanwonder
#21stcenturylearning

Invitation to Play (ITP) set up for the preschool children(2 to 4 year olds) that particular day was Light Play!

​As soon as they walked in, they noticed the curtains were all closed and the classroom was dark. They were left to wonder why for a few minutes. After a few moments of silence, the facilitator started to switch on the fairy lights, torch, light box, etc., without a word.
They gasped! "WOW!", cried out a few of them while the others ran to touch what they had just seen, throwing their bags all around the class with much excitement.

​To engage and experiment deeper, some of them took sketch pens and started drawing on the light box while some passed around the torch light around the light box to see if it created any additional effects. When they noticed there weren't much happening, the torch light was then separated and used individually by each child to see what it brought out on the walls and the floor - shadow hunt, playing with the intensity of light on different surfaces, etc. were some of the ways they played with the torch light. At this time, most of the children ran to pick up the trail of the fairy lights, jumping and twirling it around screaming and singing out their wonder and joy! A few more moments of light play later, they wound up the day's ITP.

​The next day, children were to explore shadows of their favorite objects from in and around the class as they seemed interested in exploring shadows the previous day. The class was darkened as usual with a torch light present. Unfortunately, the torch light's light wasn't strong enough to project shadows so the facilitator used the phone's torch light, which worked! When children saw this light, they got curious on the sharp light that was projected and started to explore that by placing various things above, under and around it. 

Some of them had difficulty figuring out how to trace and eventually figured it out with the help of the facilitator and other friends. Once they were all done, they got up one by one and went for free play, and wound up for the day.

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...
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.

#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#21stcenturylearning
#socialemotionallearning
#everychildcancreate
#everychildcanplay

​It was a typical circle time for the Pups and Calves until we decided to continue the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle from the previous day. Today was 'Recycle' discussion. From the previous discussion, we had arrived at not using the same dustbin for all the waste and to use different dustbins for different wastes. 
F: What are the different dustbins you think we should have ?
K: cardboard
An: Plastic
H: Paper
F: What all goes into the 'Paper Waste' dustbin?
H: Tissues
Av: Paper
F: What is cardboard then?
K: Plastic
F: Why do you think it is plastic?
There was silence. 
F: Is paper hard or soft?
Collectively: Soft. 
F: How about plastic?
Collectively: Hard. 

To further deepen the thought processes, they were asked two prompts:
1. What makes something plastic and what makes something cardboard?
2. How does one know something is plastic? Do we touch and find out? How do we find it?

Since we didn't arrive at anything convincing or conclusive, we decided to take it a step further through a small experimentation: How about we take plastic and cardboard and poured water on both? 

Our wonder questions were: 
What will we get? Will they both stay the same? Since our bottles are hard, will cardboard also stay hard? Will our bottles become soft like paper if we put water on them?

​To find out, children who didn't have plastic water bottles were given plastic cups to experiment with. They all got into their chu-chu trains and marched to the taps. One by one they all poured water on their bottles and cups and got back to class. 
K: Mine is fresh now. 
S: Mine too!
H: Mine is soft
Av: Mine is also soft now (in a very playful manner)
​
They all went back to class and sat on their mats to feel the texture further and collectively discussed and agreed that the bottles and cups were still hard. So plastic doesn't get soft after putting water on them. 
Then they were each given a cardboard piece. They followed the same routine of putting water on each, came back and sat on their mats. 
There were lots of giggles and surprised expressions on their faces when they realized they could bend and tear the big pieces of the hard cardboard. 
H: This is soft ma'am. 
Ab: Ma'am see I can tear
S: look ma'am there's one line here on the cardboard 
F: So if the cardboard is soft and we can tear it and bend it, is it plastic or paper?
K: Paper!

​So the conclusions made were,
1. When we put water on plastic, they still remain hard and we can't bend or tear it. 
2. When we put water on paper, it bends and tears. 

Post this, we all agreed that we will have 3 dustbins:
A) Paper waste (tissues, paper and cardboard)
B) Plastic waste 
C) Food Waste
​
It's easy to give away the information to children rather than letting them experiment and figure it out for themselves. When they are given the freedom to experiment and figure it out for themselves, they learn so much more than when they are just given the answers. They will learn things more deeper than usual because the learning happens right in front of them. And that journey is exhilarating and fun! Isn't that what learning is all about?!


#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#everychildcanwonder
#everychildcanexperiment
#21stcenturylearning
#socialemotionallearning

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

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

​It was around 10:20am and our 4-5 year olds were setting their class up for snacks. Just then, the facilitator spotted Ad and Sh fighting for the red chair. The class had just one red chair and this was not the first time children were fighting over it. The facilitator intervenes and takes away the red chair from both of them.
 
F: Okay! Looks like we have a very serious problem.
Ab: Because of all of us!
F: What do we now? There is just one red chair and so many of us want to sit on that one chair.
Ash: I’m sitting on a yellow chair, Everyday I’m sitting on different, different chair.
F: People sitting on different chairs everyday, that’s great! Now, how can we solve this red chair problem?
Ab: No red chair (He meant, taking away the red chair)
(Ad, visibly very upset, takes a chair and sits away from the circle, making angry gestures.)
F: (To the class) Ad will calm down and tell us how he wants to solve this problem.
 
F (now addressing the whole class): Do you all have any suggestion for Ad?
Sh: I have! Maybe he can say sorry to the red chair and not fight with the red chair.
F: Was he fighting with the red chair or was he fighting for the red chair?
Ab: He was fighting for the red chair.
Ar (Raises his hand): Take away the red chair!
An: He can take the chair some of the days, he cannot take the chair tomorrow.
F: So you are saying, Ad can take the chair on some days and some days he can give it to others?
Ab: I have a solution, we can paint the red chair in different colors.
Ash (Interrupts): If we paint the red chair, all the paints will be over.
Ab: We can stick paper on the red chair and paint the paper.
F: Hmmm… Ad loves the red chair, if we change it to another color, would that solve the problem?
M: We all love the red chair. All of us love all the chairs.
F (To Av): Do you have a solution?
Av: The solution is when Ad is going to take the red chair, somebody else should take the red chair.
F: Do you think Ad will like it?
Av: If Ad wants red chair, we can just cover it with white.
F: How will that solve the problem? He still loves the red chair isn’t it?
Ab: Maybe we can get more red chairs.
Ta: Ma’am, I’ll give my red chair to Ad and take a different one.
F: You could do that, but Ad likes only that Red chair (The bright one).
Sh: Ma’am, all the other chairs are saying we love Ad.
Ad (still angry): (makes roaring noise)
T: Maybe I’ll tell everyone that Ad wants the red chair and please can you let him take the red chair?
F: Do you think it’s fair to let Ad take the Red chair everyday? Sh also likes the Red chair and she also wants to sit on it sometime.
T: Maybe, you can let him take the Red chair today.
F: OK, how about we agree on An’s idea? She said Ad can take it some days and give it to others on some days, Would that work with you Ad?
Ad: Today I’ll take it, tomorrow I’ll give it.
T: Maybe Sh and Ad can keep on exchanging.
An (Raising her hand): I should also get it.
 
Everybody else in class also started raising their hands one by one saying “I also want the Red chair”, and we decided to make a timetable and put it up in class so that everybody gets to sit on the red chair. Ever since then, there has not been a conflict regarding the Red chair.
 
Taking away the red chair would have easily solved the problem but that would have been momentary and would have robed the opportunity form children to discuss and arrive at a solution. Here, they not only displayed their reasoning and problem solving capabilities but also, in the process felt that their voices mattered. Encouraging or involving children in decision making and problem solving will help them build trust in themselves as well as creates a sense of ownership as the child feels understood and listened to. 

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

#sparklingmindzglobalschool
#inspiringconfidentlearners
#youngachieversacademy
#everychildcan

The 5 year olds classroom had a problem: Take homes were not being brought back regularly. As we gave them work that could help them connect with their learning and tried to make it as interesting as it could be. We figured the motivation levels with self-work at home seemed to be low and how might we increase it?

So, one day, the facilitator explored the option of giving points for take-homes that was done promptly, for better participation in class discussions, and for following the ground rules in the class. The idea was to motivate the children to complete their homework regularly, concentrate during class to ensure better learning and to maintain positive discipline.

After a while it was noticed that some children who usually followed all the ground rules started accumulating points very easily. Over a period of time, these children started getting obsessed over getting more and more points, though they did work towards it. Whereas, the others started giving up on their efforts to become better since the goal seemed very far away to achieve.

Obviously, the system was not working. A change was needed. While discussing with the team we figured that like we give them victory claps from their baseline and view their growth from their baseline​, what if there can be individual goals set for each child to work towards so that goals can seem more motivating.

To initiate this process, children were shown a video, ”We’re different, but we’re the same”.
This video talked about how our looks, appearances and nature may be different but still we all
belong to the same group. Based on the video, a discussion was held in class where we discussed
about how each of us have different strengths and challenges.  Children were
encouraged to think about how they can aim to become better by comparing themselves with
their our own previous performances rather than comparing themselves with others. This set the stage for children to work on setting goals for making themselves better.

​​Children started identifying areas where they need to improve and came up with their individual goals. 

Children who were just learning to read, or usually showed reluctance to participate in reading activities, came up with the goal , “I will learn to read”.
Avner identified that he gets easily distracted during discussions and came up with the goal, “I will not play in the class (during discussions)".
Ananya decided to challenge herself by coming up with goals to learn new words and share new
ideas.
Children who were not very regular in doing their take-homes decided to do their take-
homes regularly.
Naitik and Vineet identified specific topics or worksheets which they found to
be challenging and came up with goals like, “I will learn to do clock worksheet well", "I will
do syllabication worksheet well".

Daniel who was yet to learn to write in cursive, made his goal as, "I will learn to write in
cursive." 
Vineet who tends to cry and shout when he gets upset decided, “I will not cry and
shout”. 
Some children who seek their parents’ help for their take-homes, instead of attempting
to do on their own, came up with the goal to do their take-homes on their own.
Chirag identified that other children in the class get hurt because he tends to jump about in class and decided,” I will not hurt”. Children who usually prefer to sit, talk and play with only their friends, decided to make new friends...

​​The goals have been put up in the class and children have embarked on their journey in
MAKING THEMSELVES BETTER! Here all the children are equally challenged as they were
working on their individual shortcomings. And also, the goals seemed achievable to them. For example, the facilitator helps Avner by putting tally marks on the board every time he gets distracted, and every day he is now working towards gradually reducing the number of distractions. Rithanya, Nithin and Eden have started saving time for reading practice every day during the snack break. Mishka and Vineet have started working on doing their take-homes regularly. Mohammed is trying to make new friends by sitting with different children during activities and circle time.

​When given the opportunity, these 5-7 year olds proved that they were capable of self-
introspection, leading to self-awareness of their strengths and challenges, and setting goals for
self-improvement! How amazing?!

Contributed by Jennifer Christy, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.