Category: Blogs

Offering to as many children – from the surrounding villages – an environment, opportunities and invitations to lead their own learning, thinking, development and destiny,we go to Government schools during weekdays.We want that, without any value judgment of socio-economic or geographical background, open learning reaches all. In one of the session, we explored multiple intelligenceusing…

Finally after 5 months I was super excited to be with kids…..Could notice the same with them too…. We greeted each other by pulling our ears.. Kids sat in a circle and played a ball game. Whoever gets the ball shared their name and a dream that they have… Few shared they get dream to…

Can touch communicate? We explored in our mindful activity touch with communicating with touch – How we can communicated just by hands touching other’s hands (and eyes and mouths closed). We expressed various emotions via our hands and realise touch can say so much!

One child had put up Barbecue while making menu for the week, Barbecue was planned for dinner, He was confident that he will prepare for Barbecue in hours time in the day time and then barbecue in coal in the night. We have been failing in our barbecue till now.Few more joined, they spent four…

If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today.” And whenever the answer has been, “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” Inspired by Steve Job “last day” we planned our weekly planing this week “If…

The occasion of Ayudha puja brought an opportunity to come closer to our resources. The whole community worked on cleaning and sorting our resources and resource spaces we use. Parents recorded and shared their stories of resources they used in their childhood, shared what was precious and what was available in abundance. We celebrated with…

Do you wonder how we used our resources? What was precious for us and what was in abundances? Parents sharing their childhood stories with the community. They shared how one pen was precious or that one round of bike was important or water was precious and how one pencil stayed long and longer. As parents…

It began with a child initiated the drive to arrange for the outdoor. He was so much into making the schedule, calling up, finding information, route map he was totally into it for the whole 3 days to get the complete information. At times, rolled with struggle to decide, screamed at others with tension in…

Visit to brain museum was lifetime experience. Thank to Dr Shankar and his team we came so close to our own body. Touching and feeling actual parts of the body brought many emotions. The study of body looks so much relevant. Some kids felt disturbed to see actual brain and other parts of body. They…

It began with need to buy our snacks by ourselves. Aarohi ki Dukan opened up. Each week, each one of us get Rs 13/- budget. We can also use cumulative amount. We make our own bill and give to the shopkeeper. We can use any medium to calculate. We can take help but we need…

Every day, each one of us clean atleat one meal. Thsi includes clenaing tables, slabs, washing sttaion and floor after each meals. This is a skill which many of us are develeoping. Many of us do not know how to clean table after meal, donot know how and where to start brooming. Well, a training…

Just few questions How do we store water? What all is at the bottom of tank? Is our water dirty or clean? Does stored water means dead animals in it? What does it feel to go 12 feet below the ground? How to organize water tank clean up? When to clean tank? How much water…

Baking session started with one of us announcing it.As they entered kitchen there was excitement and anxiety. One of them announced so this is baking class? Another one was anxious for the ingredients, one was lost and just started helping others, one came to me with desperation where is flour, where is, how much should…hmmmm…

So the story began with reviewing and reflecting in the month of May.We realized that it’s time start working on neighbourhood relationship. We planned to reach out to them through our collective skills of the community. Thsi year, last week of September was dedicated for that. Due to some or other commitments this again got…

Exploring movement this week with mindfulness…start with walking and paying attention to how you walk, which body part moves, how you touch, how to distribute your weight, how much do you lift your feet, how your skin, toes, heel feels, how your legs feel, how knees move, how hips sway, where is tummy, chest, back,…

Thinking skills can be developed – when we informed kids this week they were surprise ‘is thinking a skill like painting or tailoring?’. Began with an announcement for planning ‘make anything with newspaper ( not use any other tool) and come for session’. Some learnt from others, some made what they knew, some thought new…

Used Bloom taxonomy in reviewing proposal…In ‘my voice’ we got the proposal to review the usage of gadgets while travelling in local train in group computer to and from campus’.Currently 15-20 kids travel with few adults and one facilitator by train every week. During the travel usage of gadgets to play inside the train became…

TV show on electrical safety….Advay sharing about electrical fire. Advising us to throw sand to extinguish the fire and switch off the electric connect to and not ever mess up with bulb holders. He further emphasised that replace broken switches for safety and don’t use extension cords. Shiva, Dhrupad, Arsalan, Pratyaksh, Skanda, Shiva, Ally, TW…

Steeplechase in Olympics inspired us to create our own Steeplechase / hurdle track (10 hurdles) and then we all did practice to master the same and finally all did a time trail to check our performance. As a community we learned (from each other) on how to form, and overcome hurdles.

‘Fire’ the word brings anxiety, fear and danger. Since many of us associate fire with danger and fear, we need to even more understand it better. In campus training we worked on fire safety.Drill of ‘stop, drop and roll’ helped to get some idea how to handle fire on body. This also created a need…

Each day in our schedule we have 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the minutes in the evening to get ready. Each room has eight people. Each person has one hour.So the maths is very simple, each room have 8 man hours in the day to clean one bed and one cupboard.…

Stories are wonderful. Stories from real life experiences are even more wonderful. And our parents stories are just awesome to hear. Each Friday in thought club we have stories from here and there. This week kids got ‘Stories of parents’ – this brought excitement in our story session – stories of their childhood, struggle, joy,…

Nothing stays same at Aarohi, we keep experimenting to create challenges.Last week was ‘reading’ during wait until dark (after dinner). Most kids fell asleep by 9:30 tucked warmly with their books.This week was journal writing. Few found it difficult to be with self, few stayed with self, few slept early while few stayed awake but…

Sound can itself be feedback Started with activity – observe what sound it makes when we do our regular job like …scratching head, turning page, typing, reading, writing, walking, running. Observe next time how you run..sound of our shoes can tell us how much force putting and how that can effect our knee in future.…

Imagine Aarohi which guarantees one definitive outcome – that learning will be self discovery. This week we tried new recipe of Stuffed Spinach. When me and Varhsa read the recipe, we felt ‘capsicum without cooking will not taste nice’. But we both decided to go ahead – it turned out to be DELICIOUS. In kitchen…

It joyful to celebrate together

Khojis sharing their journey of Swaraj -Samyukta says she Learnt a lot about self.Jawahar wants to live his dream so in Swaraj.Self Directed Learning was new for Abhiram. They shared, program at Swaraj is semi structure, because many of them come from main stream and it’s difficult for to switch completely into self directed. Program…

Togetherness – Forgotten board games – community games – Exploring various medium of entertainments,