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It takes a village to raise a child is a proverb which means that it takes an entire community of different people interacting with children in order for children to experience and grow in a safe environment. (Ref –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_a_village) Family week at Aarohi is an attempt to get exposure to different practice from different lives,…

When we live together, we develop liking for some, dislike for some. Also, some of our actions are accepted, some actions creates difficulty for others. HelpMatesis one forum which offers opportunity for all of us to come together to understand each other. This is also a space to share one’s voice for any discomfort or…

Safety training is part of living at Aarohi. We need to be equipped to handle some emergencies and fire safety is in our list of safety training. One of the advantage of these training is to understand our own paic – the one of the most important aspect in any emergency “do not panic”. But…

What is learning? I ponder.. Cooking or Making a knife stand or Shaping the clay or Baking a bread or Sharing about my life or Singing a song or Making my plans or Sketching or Opening a laptop or Reconciliation accounts or Painting a canvas or Cooking a meal for dogs or Doing puja or…

Last 15 years working in theatre, last five years passion is profession (full time in theatre). When he needed to direct a play on life of a painter, he decided to learn painting. He would paint for days, weeks or months…this became his full time hobby. Playback theatre – Playback the audience responses with improvisation,…

Celebrating “thinking skills Observation” this week. What is this? How is this different from “seeing or just observing”? How do we develop the thinking of observation? Observation is not limited to visual sense – its a way to think. We all play in rain, but some of us observe – how is the phenomena happening,…

Often we are questioned “but what about the real life? How will they face real life?’ I wonder if the current education making our kids ready anyway for LIFE? This week 7 kids at the campus. (10 yrs to 19 yrs old) during weekend. I began my morning with internal frustration – Only two can…

Do you listen from your children “why me?” Why are you only telling me? You hate me? You always think I am bad? The job a facilitator is a dynamic job – we flow as the river flows – sometimes serene and calm, sometimes gushing, sometimes waterfall, sometimes playful, sometimes a stream. During one of…

Democracy cannot be learnt, it can be experienced. Our most aspirational endeavour – to create and keep Aarohi as a democratic space. We are experimenting with many form of interactions, communications, interventions and systems – all targeted to make the community truly interdependent – with co-creation, co-learning and co-existence as key parameters MY VOICE- A…

The concept of “Projects @Aarohi” or “campus needs” is to experience DOING and get introduced to various skills. Each one of us have some skills, some we develop as we move ahead with the project. One can choose any projects and start working. One also has the option of not choosing and continuing to work…

Welcome to the world of open learning atAarohi! Sometimes the word “open” can be misleading and lead to “doing nothing”. And doing nothing is not contemplating but distracting, postponing, procrastinating….Here we suggest THREE steps suggestion to start your open learning journey ONE – Choose at least 20-30 things to explore including known, unknown, easy, difficult,…

The job a facilitator is very dynamic – we are always on roller coaster ride – sometimes doing down, sometime going up, sometimes getting goosebumps, sometimes screaming with joy! Three kids sketching for few weeks now. They came up with their own methodology – Sketching by imagination, seeing a picture from computer, challenging each other…

When my daughter, Asawari was 10yrs old, she showed potential in art and dance. I was in a hurry to reach somewhere, to achieve, to concur that talent…we put her in art and dance classes. She learnt but she didn’t explore. I didn’t understand then. She was fortunate to have dream teachers in art as…

Mr Jayaprakash, an innovator of portable eco friendly gasifier chulha (smokeless stove), visited Aarohi to help us with designing and setting up with smokeless chulha for our growing needs of cooking in the community. In2012hegot the award for his invention of portable stove. He shared his life journey – His observation of fire in chimney,…

Two kids were shopping with me in the supermarket. I picked on 200 gms packet for rs 105/- and 500 gms packet for rs 220/-. I asked both of the to find the cheapest pack. They both selected 200 gm packet (lees money). I gave one of them 5 packets of 200gm and one of…

Often asked what if a child does not know what he/ she likes? Here is a small story After a couple of weeks spent at the campus, one child with tears and anger expressed “I don’t know what I want to learn”.The conversation was full of ” I can’t do this because…I know I am…

As a child I thought, the teachers job is very easy. Wear nice saree, sit in the chair, check homework and teach her subject. As a facilitator I thought I don’t even have to teach, even easier job! But becoming facilitator was not easy. It demanded to settle internal struggle. It needed to look into…

Fridays are special atAarohi – sometimes visiting places, sometimes working together, sometimes watching movies! This Friday we no different – we together went for Afforestation. Its easy in principal to say “saveforest, grow more tress….”. But in practice it needs efforts and participation. Active We this Friday brought all of us together to plant more…

They signed up for “storytelling sessions”. One of the facilitators was telling stories in different languages…they were happy and entertained. During one of the story sessions, they were introduced to shadow puppetry. They were excited with the play of light, and of characters to create a story. They felt that the shadow box was too…

The job of a facilitator is dynamic – we constantly play around with how we respond. We cannot respond in one way only because the situations are different, people are different and we are different!One child was excited with the new blogging system at AarohiShe was apprehensive and asked for help “I am excited for…

Jatre at Aarohi means “Celebration of learning”. Each day we celebrate by bringing a new learning exposure. It ranges from knowing about deep sea diving to mathematical calculations. And any age can bring this Jatre. This week we explored mathematical conceptual understanding by playing around with the concept and creating our own concepts! We played…

Where does our food comes from?Where does our resources comes from?Where does our tools comes from? We went out into the neighbourhood, seeking information about the market and suppliers – visited bakery, vegetable market hardware shops,utensilmarket, grocery shop, petrol pump…the visit included knowing about them, knowingtheroute to those shops, being there,interacting, buying, negotiating,understandingrates and exploring…

We want to keep bee boxes at the campus..to do this we needed to know a lot about bees – we realize we hardly know anything about them. An hour session withGuru was enough to wonder about bees. Guru is pioneer in bee keeping…hope to have some bee boxes at the campus soon! We know…

Business Jaatre with Valli, father of Aditi to understand started with a question ” what is business”? Work, generating money, transaction of money, make and sell…What all we need to do a business? Passion, skills, patience, understanding, know-how, people, social skills. Business generates employment, earning opportunities, revenue for govt (tax paying). He runs a business…

Mindfulness is the themes of the week..a session on Mindfulness to bring awareness about awareness! One can call it awareness or way of living. Awareness and knowing what are you thinkjng, what are you feeling, what are you doing now! Mind works like a search light…focusing on one thing at a time and keeps shifting…

It began with a question “can there be higher degree of autonomy? But to give or receive that autonomy community needed to understand the meaning of autonomy.Onebelief, “we can live life with far more autonomy right from the childhood” led to exploring higher degree of autonomy atAarohi. Perhaps we need an understanding of the process…

Every time I feel I have learnt a lot, someone shares something new! Megha, cousin of SreeLakshmi joined to share about Capoerira.Meghaencouraging the healthy movement, touring world, visiting 14 countries. It was not only about the art form of Capoeria, but as well about the history, society and culture of the Brazil. For her it…

Some new, Some old, Some big, Some small…it didn’t matter. The life began with exploring autonomy – the power to make decisions! The life of each one of us revolved around “what I want to do” – A wish to make own laptop led to opening an old laptop, endless play of table tennis, practicing…

I saw few cardboard boxesI saw few things made up of cardboard boxes (doll house, fridge, sofa etc).I thought I can make for kids at the campus.I decided to not make it!I collected few and decided to not to make. I kept all the boxes as “resource of the day”.Day one, two kids picked up…

Can a campus Teach?Yes, We believe a campus can be the very lap of learning if it is conceived anddevelopedjust as mother nature;if it offersconstraintsto children which make them think, do, learn, and live differently The Architectural Design of the campus is based on these three guiding principles: Design tobuild less Design toinstall and use…