Category: Blogs

Give some empty cans, few stones and see the magic. No instructions, no designs. Just simple play. We played Bowling with stones – the idea was to just create our own games.

Just one chart in our dining area created joy of exploring ‘which vitamin am I eating today?’. After realizing what all vitamins we are eating, we started wondering ‘which vitamins in rice?” We are exploring what are we eating and what goes in our food…it is not something we can do in one session or…

Festivals brings joy at Aarohi, sometimes we do elaborate planning and celebrate. Sometimes we just do impromptu. Janmasthmi was one of the impromptu celebration. One child arranged for toffees, another one hanged in the basket (Krishna’s pot), one lighted the Diya and collected some flowers from campus…and we used ladder to break matki and enjoyed…

Free any facilitator or teacher from the boundaries of ‘curriculum’ and then see the magic of learning. Often parents are worried that ‘no curriculum at Aarohi will lead to no learning or notmuchlearning ’. I see contrarily, that ‘no curriculum’ leads to LOADS of learning. Any person whom we meet, we learn and we do…

We continue to explore measurements and realized so much we can explore in cms and mm, feet and inches or gms and litres. One child who wanted to measure circle, was given circles to play. After two session he came up with his own way to measure the circle with a thread “wrap it around,…

Stories are meant to be told to kids, and kids are suppose to listen and enjoy. This week we asked kids to get some books for themselves and share not the story but what were they thinking when they were reading. They shared about the author, the imagination of the author, about the characters, about…

Laughter is powerful. In Thought Club we brought thoughts on laughter – we asked each one to make others laugh. It was difficult to make others laugh! We wondered, we all like laughter but we seldom make others laugh – shared our thoughts what makes us not using laughter so often, If we enjoy laughter…

Each day we did this just for 15 minutes to start the day Day one collect stones – kids ended up not only collecting the stones but also smelling them and making games with them Day two – collect leaves – all kinds of small, big, dry, wet leaves were collected and different arrangements with…

Thank you Sunita for introducing this art form – simple but beautiful.

Grand parents are blessing for us – important part of eco system of our community, they bring love and affection. Thank you uncle for coming and spending time with us. Playing with us, working with us and living with us.

Fear is not a problem, it is a choice. We do not need to solve, we need to dissolve it!! We began session on fear with kids. It began with a survey on fear with few questions. Kids answered following questions What are the things you are afraid of? Recall one or two situations that…

Various travelogues by kids – For many of them it was first experience to write a travelogue. Some had heard this word ‘travelogue’ but had no idea, some took it literally ‘travel’ and filled up travelogue with travel details like when they did what … read more to explore how various children made sense of…

How does one learn history or rather how else can one learn history? How about MOVIES!!! Yes we announced a history course with movies. Many were clueless how movies can be a source to learn, we watch movies for entertainment and that’s all!!! We saw some movie clips and noticed the words which we would…

Each individual is a wonderful story and Thank you Sunitha for spending time with us at campus – you came to experience Aarohi, but our children benefited by getting exposed to your story. You came as a guest and soon you were part of community – thank you for cooking with us, playing with us,…

Here are 12 reasons to drum….http://artdrum.com/TWELVE_WAYS_STUDENTS_BENEFIT_FROM_DRUMMING.HTM We drum every week, we drum in rhythm, we drum in group, we drum to listen, we drum to be with ourselves, we drum to ENJOY!

We celebrated ‘relationship’ at Aaorhi. we live together, we have different relationships and Raksha Bandhan was a good day to celebrate relationships. Not only brother and sister, but all kinds of human relationships.

People are source of learning, Often people ask us “what will I be value to your children at Aarohi, I know nothing to teach” and invariably we say “We believe each individual is a wonderful story and our children would benefit by getting exposed to your story. Aarohi is a learning space where there is…

The book is written for teachers and anyone who is working with children. Each chapter talks about different research relevant to education and learning and concludes with suggestions to bring changes in our approach. The simple, language ensures readers are not struggling to understand jargon of research papers. The book deals with many other aspect…

The tale of princess Kaguya (Japanese). If your child likes ‘water painting’, the animation is treat to the eyes. Together you can also admire making of the movie, which took 8yrs to make each frame by hand.

The word ‘travelogue’ was new to many in the group. So we began our journey. Instead of knowing what it is we just started writing about the trip.After one round of travelogue writing we made a mind map using the following template ​We used only key words to fill the mind map and then used…

Another aspect of outstation trip is learning about the place, by experiencing, by being there. For any place we did not take guide, as kids expressed that they want to explore by themselves. Sea Shore Temple – We saw Sea shore temple early in the morning and it was wow! We were mesmerized by its…

Every outstation trip creates many aspect of learning. It begins with learning about travel and its adventure as it unfolds. Traveling in different weather. Every time we want comfort of shade or hot it is not available. We need to work without fans/AC when we are on road. We do not get always what food…

Every snake we spot in the campus, we learn from it. More we spot, more we learn :). Every new child brings own fear of snake and every spotting of snake allows each one of us to meet our fear in many different ways. Last time we spotted a snake, one child commented ‘ this…

Take a candle (done best in dark room) light it up, give one candle to each child, using the first candle, all light up their candle. Once all have lighted up, sharethoughts– some of thought shared One candle can make more light Some are poor, we can share our money with others We can help…

We have lots of different kind of board and other kind of games at campus, often hidden under other priorities…what we did is brought them out in welcome…and all were curious and indulged into playing all kinds of games.

No occasion, No festival, – the only reason was WIND. Wind is blowing in campus with good speed and some kids felt that its a good time to fly kites. Some flew for first time, some taught others … all ages enjoyed

Travelling is amazing education. Travelling together is even better. That is what are outstation trips – travel, see, meet, eat and learn. We go for roughly 3 to 4 outstation trips in a year. These trips can be anything from 2 days to a week long duration. Children together choose themes for the trips, then…