Category: Blogs

Often holidays means ‘food, entertainment, and shopping”. At the Aarohi campus the life continues all days, we have no holidays as all days are holidays for us – We cook, we visit places, we work together, we watch movies, we discuss, we get the repairs done, we visit market with a BIG list for the…

A day with Permaculture with Upendra. Upendra, an engineer started his journey with a dream to build bridges. He grew up with a dream to play cricket. And every time he played, he destroyed something. As an engineer, he built few bridges and destroyed many resources to build that connectivity. Something did not feel good,…

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. Hmmm… this sounds skeptical as many of us believe that one can learn only when one is taught. At Aarohi we look at…

The topic of Monday thought club comes from our life at Aarohi. Teasing is part of our life at the campus. 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…

From a mother’s diary – our neighbor’s son and my son (Advay) are both 6-year-olds and are very good friends. They play together a lot. 2 days back, Advay came back home inspired to do the same home work that his friend was given at his school: to create “Indian flag”.He first created the flag…

Our reporter at the campus shared wind speed 23km/ hr. Wind speed at the campus has changed from 8km/ hour to 23km/ hrs. We can feel the flying power of the wind at the campus. The experience of change in speed called for a session on an understanding wind. We pondered…. What is the wind?…

Two kids got introduced to Vedic Maths. They decided to teach other kids. They prepared the session, it took them a week to prepare. They shared what they learned. In the process, they learned double! Imagine Aarohi where there are no classes – because we believe that when children learn and teach each other –…

Community Satsang hosted by Jayita, Twesha, Lalit, and Kanchan at their home.Mythology was the theme and that brought a thought…what is Mythology? Characters of Kumbhakaran, Mahabali, Krishna, Water, Fire, Shiva, Ram, Ravana, Saraswati, Soopernekha, Moon, Prophet Mohammed, Prahald, Lakshmi, Sun, Greek goddess, Bahubali, Zeus, Poseidon, Air..all came alive with each one of relating to one…

They decided to paint walls at Aarohi. They had not painted before. They did not know what they have signed up for! Well, Desire to ‘paint wall’ was not as easy as it looked. It began with reading about the paint on the paint box (exterior or interior), direction to use and prepare…it was yet…

“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…