Category: Blogs

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

She came in search of herself. She finished 11th and took the plunge into gap year. She shared “I have been staying in Aarohi for 5 months .It was a very good experience . I think a child gets a lot of options to choose his interest in what he /she has .I got to…

Someone asked, “any working parents homeschooling their kids?” For all practical purposes, I have always been working mother! and our kids have “working parents”. Here is about me as working mom! People can label me “workaholic” but working or the need of my time was never an issue to homeschool my kids. I was never…

Showing interest in football, construction, athletics, wall climbing, rock climbing, sessions conducting, water sports, few childhood games, art, electrical, business, bird watching, and gardening. An active, hardworking, organized, inspiring child who likes beauty in work and things and understand feedback. Showing interest in painting, construction, sports, adventure, photography, theatre and electronics. He likes to do…

The joy of writing a letter to mother. We received a kit from “Battees”, Delhi basedorganization run by Shivani and Harnehmat. The kit is designed to encourage writing letters. This brought an opportunitytopauseand think about one person in ourlivesand connect througha letter. All ages participated with joy to write a letter to their mother. Thank…

Different ages – Different skills and the joy is learning from each other – from different ages. 7yrs old Advay was not too small to set up a learning stall to teach “how to cut wood using a saw”. 9yrs old Prapullawas not too shy to set up a learning stall to teach storymaking. 47yrs…

The fourth week of summer began with parents and kids joining with a constraint that kids are not kids and parents are not parents but all are equal. The equality is not easy but the week began with experiencing the life in a space where all are equal and all needed to speak for themselves…

The joy was planning a whole day trip to buy TrampolineThe joy was in assemblingby selfThe joy was in understanding its componentThe joy was in debating and arguing in assembling the TrampolineThe joy was in installingThe joy was in understanding the do’s and dont’s of careThe joy was in the whole process. Bhargav, Aparna, andAchileshdonated…

Vishruthi, a mother of 2-1/2 yr old boy, a passionate RJ by profession visited Aarohi during summer- sharing her experience. Honestly, Aarohi experience is unique in its own way. Something we (city people) don’t even think or consider, you guys are practicing that in your lifestyle. It lot many ways I have started rethinking the…

Strengths and Weaknesses are like Hero and the Villan of a movie. The hero in the movie is always nice and full of goodies while the Villan in any movie is always bad and ugly. None wants to be Villan but all aspire to be Villan! Why it is good and bad about strengths and…

Empowerment means “I am able”. We believe we all require self-reflection to truly understand our potential. Introduced S.P.A.C.E. framework as a way to explore self. We did this with small activities for each element of SPACE. Realise that “I am the only one who will stay with myself the whole life”, realise how important it…

I am sad, I am angry, I am bored…do the feeling have limited vocabulary? Or we feel only within these limited reach of feelings? What about the feeling of rejection, respect, joy, peaceful, remorse, hostile, inferior, superior, dejection, success, overwhelming…To explore the vocabulary of feelings, the game of making a tower with playing cards was…