Category: Blogs

Two kids were working to understand about Butterflies and Cats, One was chasing butterflies, catching them, putting them in closed jars, making them dance by putting music in the net….another one was chasing cats, holding them, kissing them, making them dance in his lap. Does this all sounds gory, insensitive, inhuman, abusive, hurtful?…..well, this did…

I was an observer in the project of movie making. Kids knew what they wanted, how they wanted to do. They had so much in their head that it was important for them to do what they had thought, This was not the time for me as a facilitator to do anything in between. My…

Our children work/learn/play and continue to do so…. When a child gets reward for the efforts in terms of grades, stars and medals the self worth gets a boost. But if others fail to recognize efforts and fail to give grades, medals and stars kids are disappointed and this sets inside in terms of ‘inferiority,…

When we meet our child after school or a class (piano, chess, art etc) or sports we ask “ what you did? We often miss out the range of feelings a child has gone through in any experience, let’s ask “How did you feel today in or after the class?” Often we feel ‘playing is…

It was not about teaching children how to make roof so they can make their own roofs :). But the idea was to create an environment of work and experience how we can find joy by doing. We all worked together, some worked all four days, some left in between, some argued, some listened, some…

Share one weakness you would like to share with others (or rather you are apprehensive to share and open up yourself). Often we keep our weakness inside us and do not own it and many times they become deeper weaknesses and hinder our growth. Once we take this out, express to someone, may be we…

Thank you VK for bringing awareness about cycles in campus. We all knew that our cycles are neglected…your presence made us know our cycles more and understand their maintenance. Thanks for sharing simple tools and techniques to clean them (specially WD 40 and remove rust). It was like coming closer to what we posses and…

Self assessment is internal assessment, often bring internal awareness of self. It also works like a mirror to show us our own internal side – sometimes it is frustrating to see ourselves like that.Self assessment is part of living at Aarohi. We do it in different ways. One of the way is to rate ourselves.…

It began with a child sharing “I am not able to focus in session, I am only thinking about a demon and want to make one” He collected some cardboard boxes, old sheets and …..one more joined him, they drew from laptop…they also fought who will draw first. They talked about some business they can…

We are not one person everyday, every event… we are different at different times. When we accept our diversity we make ourselves free of images and their pressure on us. Here is what one child shared how he was different on different day I was a different person everyday. On Monday I was very happy…

Often we ask kids to dance when we want them to perform and skills like Dance and Art have remained ‘performing arts’ in our home and schools :). Bring free dance in your homes and schools….play music and dance freely First round – SELF dance – all dance in their own style, without commenting on…

Do you get stuck with listening to same statement from you ‘listen to me, you do not listen to me, how many times I have told you, I am feeling frustrated, you better listen, all listen…. I think the statement ‘You listen…” is incomplete term. If we were to make clear statement we can add…

Listening to Nature by Joseph Cornell. A book to deepen awareness of nature. The book has many small chapters – each chapter starts with a photograph, thought on nature and one activity or an experience. One of the activity which I like is the concept of ‘time walk’ and ‘being walk’. Often we do time…

Few kids got together and started making films… they discussed, searched for props, made props, played with toys, made drawings and finally decided to use their ‘BODY’ to shoot. They had cameraman, director, actors, script writer … their work continues Kids shared “Then next day I thought of making movies, then I was cameraman who…

Watch this video from movie Burfi (or any video) – http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xswxxq_ala-barfi-full-video-song-hd-barfi-2012-ranbir-kapoor-priyanka-chopra-ileana_shortfilms Do this at home with family and spend evening together OR do inbetween class to freshen up the minds. Watch it many times and each time Focus on the feelings of Barfi and other characters (Self) Focus on the colour comparison of Barfi’s clothes…

Dance in many forms, just dance alone or in a group.

Many things happen in day or week, but many times we are left empty with the thought of ‘nothing happened’. This feeling pops in especially when we are into unschooling and are typically not following any structure. When achievement is measured in terms of subjects/content, we feel even more empty when we do not have…

I decide, I do and I reflect…At Aarohi we reflect in many different ways, One of the simple way to reflect would be to just make a cause and effect diagram. draw a line and one side you write what happened (effect) and other side you write why that happened (be cause)…one use paper and…

Explore newspaper in many different ways – understand what all different kinds of news comes, what language is used and why?, make a song with headlines or just simply make a collage. See more here http://aarohilife.org/resources/flocci-word-newspaper-reporter

Usage of material also leads to breaking or tearing….we try to repair by ourselves, if does not we also take help of others, if still does not get repaired we take it to the market to repair…still does not we buy new or live without it. one of the butterfly net got torn last week,…

A very simple material, we kept in for exploration. Day one we kept only tape rolls, next day added small balls, Day three we added ropes….no instructions given on how to use or what to make…kids used in many different ways. Watch this video

There are many ways one can learn – here are few ways we do at Aarohi… CONDUCTED – Somebody announces a course and teaches it (somebody could be another child, facilitator or an outside expert). FACILITATED – anyone arranges and provides multiple resources – but no one teaches and each participant in the course can…

It began with a child expressing ‘ I am feeling ghost around me’. We announced a session on fear and invited anyone to join. Two children joined and we began with talking about fear, first they expressed ‘lets keep it secret, don’t tell anyone – the stories we tell you’. We took pledge to not…

One of the child announced that he wanted to conduct sports. He converted it into sports day….it was a day of sports for him: Entire day he was busy preparing, planning, inviting and preparing ground for the event. Some joined him in arrangements….at the end of the day we all raced – old and young.

We use adjective in our communication without knowing that this is called adjective…..before we teach them about adjective, let’s experience adjectives. Few activities we did at Aarohi this weekChoose an adjective about the food today from the chits – keep chits in serving bowls with food.GIve an adjective to the next person and person enact…

When we had no TV/radio/internet….birds were the source of music” says Samira who shared what role birds plays in our life. “I observed one of the researcher, observing a nesting bird everyday for few months….I was 3 yrs old and this experience stayed with me, I went on to do bachelors in Zoology, masters and…

Fashion Designing is not necessarily for people who loves fashion or are fashionable. It is about detailing, observing, understanding (culture, trends, needs), resourcefulness, illustration, imagination, inspiration fine motor skills…..and hard work. Yes, this is what we understood when we visited J D Institute of fashion technologies for outdoor. We went through a presentation on what…

Often at home we look for opportunities to interact and to know when kids are thinking. And often it may start with ‘so tell me….’. Here is a game you can play in different forms. Play this game of Thumbs up (like), Thumbs Down (dislike) and lock fingers (interesting). Say random words – travel, planning,…

We have been making things with electronics – using batteries to make fan run or car move, using circuits to make lie detector with the help of mentors. This we week we spent some time understanding fundamentals about what is circuit what is conductor, what is capacitor, what is the role of current or voltage,…

Butterfly Dancing – One child who continues to chase and catch butterflies at campus, this week made them dance. Watch video to understand his idea and how he implemented it.