Category: Blogs

“I want to paint” was the desire.She was advised to just START and rest will follow. No guidance, no art lessons…she just started. Imagine Aarohi where there is no teaching – because we believe that children can decide how they want to learn – on their own, with each other and from various resources, etc.…

We can search anything with a click on google maps, but we can not find human interaction with a click. for that, we need to reach out and connect. Just dial Kelmanagalm was organized to connect with out the neighborhood. We divided ourselves into various teams, Each time reaches out to various people who support…

What will you like to do after you have visited science museum? May be talking about it (I went and I saw this and that) or may be wondering(how did that happen? why was it like that?), or do nothing. Outdoor to Visweshawaraiah Museum inspired us with a thought “what can I create/replicate at the…

Everybody loves a hero. You see, even if he gets left behind on Mars all by himself (referring to the movie ‘Martian’), he is unfazed, undeterred, unaffected, and unbeatable. He, to somebody ‘old’ like me, looks so unreal and un-human. But, everybody loves a hero. So, let us keep our skepticism aside, and see how…

Ask a child to draw and hear “I don’t know how to draw”. This is a commonly heard phrase. And we often encourageby saying “draw to express, don’t worry about the beauty, just draw”. And invaraibaly we get the suprisingresponses “how is that possible?” The skill of drawing is restricted to “nice”. Kids often stop…

Each day we spend time outdoors and we call it Active ME – bird watching, gardening, farming, playing sports, climbing trees, chasing butterflies or just simply trekking. Once in two weeks Active WE bring all of us together. This time we made mud wall of our upcoming sports cabin. We also spent time in our…

We re-visited our Schedule of last year. The need of more sports time in the evening brought some changes in our schedule. After experiencing for three weeks, it was time to get feedback on the new schedule. The feedback began with exploring “What is the purpose of schedule? and then followed by thoughts on the…

He has come to Aarohi for one month with only one agenda ‘to be independent’. He wondered for days ‘what is responsibility and freedom?”. And obviously he did not get any direct answers from us, all he got was multiple of experiences. He himself defined his own definition when he was allowed to do some…

Sharing own travel story – Lakshmi and Avani sharing about their trip to Spiti Valley.

Meditative…Exploring Mandala Art with Supriya

Jatre of Creative Writing with Supriya began with a question – What is creativity? The responses were – Thinking, discovering, doing differently, ideas, listening to mind, being with it, adding value, relating, imagining…We began to write a story, not with pen and paper but visualizing…a hero, a situation, a problem, a value and a solution.Our…

After Jatre on understandingelectricity, it looked easy to install plugs in our laptop stations. Pulling wires led to pulling down all the existing casing and capping :(. The first learning – it’s easy to just pull and difficult to put it back! Second learning – it’s easy to attend a session, answer some questions based…

One child asked me, “how is my painting?” I replied, “you know how it is?” He asked, ” why did you say that?” I replied, ” you know that also”. He asked another child, ” why did she say that?” Another child replied “she knows that she liked. But do you know how does your…

Topic of Monday thought club comes from our life at Aarohi – Teasing. We expanded it to “Bullying”. First, it was about exploring what is bullying, we came up with our experiences of – gossip, name-calling, physical abuse, playing a prank, putting down, isolation, rumors etc. When we did the audit of Bullying on “either…

Travel is part of living at the campus. We travel in local trains. We travel in the group. This requires each one of equipped with understanding about travel, travel in a group, the place we are going, what to expect, what are the constraints and what is the responsibility for safe travel. Traveling in groups…

We have fewer plug points and more electrical items to use. This needs more plug points, so the session on understanding electricity, what’s inside the plug was natural to happen. What is electricity?Why do we need electricity?Where do we get electricity from?What is the battery?What is solar energy?Why do we need inventor?Where is the light…

Campus training is about knowing, understanding and being ready for different situations to live at the campus and to in general in life.We began with assessing ourselves on different topics. This assessment helped us in deciding if one needed to work more on any topic or work on other topics. The assessment was based on…

We are often asked this question – how does a child discover what all one can learn?We believe that there is certain exposure the child gets around him and child notices them. There is certain exposure when a child meets other people and travels. There are certain exposures a child gets when a child gets…

One maths problem a day or one story a day or one map exploration a day for one minute…and magic happens in that one word, one calculations or one exploration. And all this is related to life around us… the cost of support staff, the cost of food, distance from hometown, the distance we travel…

Imagine Aarohi that is not a restaurant, rather a kitchen. We have no dish to offer. We do not serve our children any learning on a platter. We aren’t cooking to satisfy the children. We’re like a kitchen: Raw material and tools (resources) of all kinds are available. Children are challenged to cook for themselves,…

Manthanthis year with parents began with connecting with our wishes. When the whole world is the curriculum everything which one likes becomes important. So there was no limitation to the wish one had. The community relished the wish of craft as much as poetry or science. It’s not that we respect all the wishes by…

Jatre…aFair with a variety of exciting stuff to form a Celebration called life. At Aarohi we now haveJatrefor one hour – every week – primarily exploring a variety of exciting stuff from life. Jatre gives exposure to all …to expand our learningmaps beyond what we already know.We began Jatre this week withPLANTS. We all see…

Dream, Do, try, fail, again try, reflect, connect, do differently, do it again, fail again, take help, talk about it, share, get inspired and inspire others…these are some of the common vocabulry at Aarohi. One announcement “We need Tipity taps for all our wash basins, interested people can connect with the facilitator”. He came forward…

Often tools are considered to be used by ‘some experts’. We don’t know how this beliefis formed, but we rarely consider coming close to them and becoming friends with them in our living. The learning Jatre at Aarohi brought carpentry tools closer to many of us. Some of us have been using these tools for…

Jatre of Zentangle with Asawari. She shared Zentangle is a type of an art. It’s all about the play of white and black, Lines and curves, a little imagination and a pinch of observation. Its also like meditation. We believe each individual is a wonderful story and we benefit by getting exposed to each story.…

After a break of five weeks holidays, we began the session – few new kids joined, few old continued. The energy was unimaginable. Children from different cultural and economic background coming together to enrich our learning environment. The speed of sessions has slowed down for translation in multiple languages (Tamil, Kannada, and Hindi). This slow…

This summer, organizing the event brought the power of feedback. Each week the participants took part in giving feedback to Aarohi. Each feedback documented and shared with the team helped in growing each week. Various kids took part in organizing the event of summer camp. The work was part of our regular life at Aarohi…

Aarohi campus was alive with the spirit of joy, doing and togetherness. Thank you, all for participating forthe spirit of joy and doing you brought to the community. You matter to us. What does OPEN LEARNING COMMUNITY mean at Aarohi? OPEN to learning anything on this earth. All gossiping was out of the scope of…

Any group of people can form CLUBS and follow this informally in their own time and schedule. The journey was different for everyone Yashas Says, “I enjoyed playing and practicing football with different people. I was feeling lonely when people were not coming to my club. I was feeling achieved when I was playing and…

Each day in the morning we have fitness on our schedule. Sessions are mostly conducted by kids – when they prepare for the session they also understand what are the various exercises. A mix of stamina, strength and flexibility routines brings understanding about various types of body needs. Each week feedback from the group like…