Expansion of life and learning

She is 2 years old. She comes........cries for a few minutes and then she's busy learning, trying, exploring, communicating and doing. I see that she is very clear about    what she wants,  how she wants, where and how much she wants and so on. Diya was watering the plants and she tried lifting the bucket but it was too heavy. So said 'No' and went looking for something else to water. When I offered her a paper cup, she accepted it and decided to use it to water the plants. As Diya sat near the bucket, she realized that her sleeves were too long and it'll get wet so she pulled them back. While watering, the paper cup was getting squished but she still figured out a way to use it. When she could no longer use the paper cup, she went around looking for something else to water with. No matter what she was determined to water the plants.  Aren't they making their own plans every minute?  Aren't they capable of creating and designing their learning? Aren't ...

I am capable. I decide. I do. I ask for help. I teach my friends.

I realised that we get immersed in the process and spend a lot of time in the sessions. So, today we decided to have a fixed time to finish our cleaning and setting up the place.  We reached at 10:15am  and decided to finish sweeping, mopping and watering the plants by 10:45 am. All of us were aware of the time and were intentionally doing our task. We had set target (time)  for ourselves. No reminders to do the work fast, No instructions or constraints like don't talk, do like this, don't do that, do properly etc.  We believed everyone is capable.  Everyone knew what had to be done and when.  We finished everything exactly at 10:46am. We appreciated ourselves and moved on with our day.

Imanuel was looking for pictures with different feelings. He was skimming and scanning the newspapers. There were many emotions and feelings in the paper and he was confused. He took time to understand and read the body language in the picture.  He was thinking, understanding and connecting to his old and new knowledge about feelings.  Which picture should I select? Which feelings is this picture showing? What else can I see?  He was not willing to settle for just few feelings he knew. He was frequently going back to the feelings list. He also was asking his peers 'Which feeling do you see in this picture?' He would collect all the answers and then look at the picture again and again and again and then settle at one feeling he felt suited it best. Whenever he asked me "Which feeling is this?" I would ask "What do you think?" Sometimes I also gave him some options to choose from. Again he would sit quietly looking at the picture thinking. I chose not to give ...

This week we are exploring Feelings. Through a game we got to know our current understanding about feelings. Passing the ball with a twist - Whoever gets caught with the ball... will enact a feeling. Show the feeling through facial expressions and some actions. Others have to guess the name of the feeling. We all had fun making those faces. Body speaks.  Through actions body shows what feeling one person is experiencing. If we observe people closely we can see what they are feeling. Thinking about the feelings that actions portray makes us sensitive to one's body language and how much it can say. This will also help us in being sensitive to other's feelings.  We scanned through the newspapers and looked for pictures with different feelings. The children got to see in detail and talk about how specific expressions or body actions tell us about what a person is feeling. One of the observation is that the vocabulary of feelings is limited to happ...

Adults generally keep everything ready for children. We keep the space clean and arrange everything for them. They come and do activities or eat or play. I decided instead of taking the stress of deciding, planning, cleaning and preparing all by myself, how about co-creating with all the members present in the camp? It was interesting to see on the first day that we had no lengthy discussions or instructions and when children came they joined willingly in the setting up and cleaning the space. Everyday we all come together and co create the space. It starts from opening the lock. One  child takes the key from me and opens the gate and the door. We all patiently wait for the child  to open the lock. Together we clean the space, arrange the materials and plan the day. We have listed the work to be done before we start our day and everyone picks what they want to do from that list. Some sweep, some get water to mop, some mop, some help to pick t...

A tyre was kept and that's all. It started with rolling, cleaning, sitting inside and going through the tyre. Then came the idea of making an obstacle race. They started collecting obstacles. Some stones, duppatas, a plank and bricks made the obstacle race. There was lot of discussions, agreement, disagreement, thinking, exploring, supporting, failing, making rules. My ideas... Your ideas... Our ideas... Sometimes they were leading, sometimes they were following. There was a team working together towards a goal😃😃😃 Read the experience shared by Amogha(10 years old): I woke up when I felt a hand on me, apparently pushing me. It was a girl, and everyone called her Smriti. She played with me like I was a toy but I wanted to tell her, I am a Tyre !!!  Next, everybody wiped me and cleaned me, to take out the dust that was sitting on me for months. They made me fall with dooooommm... a lot of dust came out of me.. Another girl stepped back to avoid dust, her name was Sad...