Once we began having rural children come regular to the campus on Saturday, thirsty to learn and do. We realized that doing conducted activities, where we as facilitators are driving the whole session is not really creating a different environment from school.So we began the concept of Learning Stations. Using different resources, we created learning stations. With minimal instruction, the activity is self led by the child. The idea is to let the children choose which station they want to go and explore the activity. Also catering to different age group, we divided the children and created different level of learning stations.
Somebody created a rhyme on a cat, while the other made a cap with newspaper. One was engaged in making words with alphabets for almost an hour. A group used their imagination to create a forest using animals models, sand, stones and leaves. While some where engrossed in creating a picture.
It was interesting to see children engrossed in their activity and deciding what they want to do by themselves. As a facilitator I was able to observe children, I saw that somehad resistance to write in English or even read while some were excited to make and write lots of words, some children followed whatever their friends were doing, while some children did only what they wanted even though they were alone.
When children werewriting the wrong spelling or forming the sentence wrong, I wondered whether I should correct them? I pulled back from correcting as I did not want to make it about right or wrong but at the same time I wonder whether correcting them will help them to learn or not?
The 4th Saturday of our Outreach program with the village kids finished very peacefully. It was a small group of 15 children but we were able to do something productive and meaningful.