Category: Blogs

  • Generosity

    Today, one child came to me and declared “I want to give my I-pad to Aarohi, My mother has also agreed”.I thought he does not know what is he talking about (I was wrong) :-). I asked, “what does it mean?”He said, “it means I am giving to Aarohi”. He asked me to write a…

  • sing in style

    We sing any songWe sing in our styleWe sing from heart

  • One campus – two spaces

    The O campus came in existence because we needed to create learning space. As kids were growing in number and age, we felt the need of bigger space and more resources. I-campus offers the comfort of home and leisure of time, while O-campus offers space and resources to take learning forward. I feel while the…

  • Live station Draft mail

    Some children like to meet people and learn from them. Some children when they meet people, they get inspired, they get motivated , they get new ideas, they get new directions in their learning and also get new ideas. Live station at Aarohi is to invite people as resource to learn from. If you would…

  • Freedom comes with responsibility

    A group children were assigned to the task to clean the attic in sunshine room. There were just told to do clean up. The next day the kids went and looked at the room. They had a discussion among themselves what all they need to do and how all to do? Each shared their thoughts…

  • Facilitating Thinking skill Creativity

    Few kids choose their content of learning as making bags. The kids went and brought the required materials in a tray and were starting to work. I saw these kids using cross stitch materials to make bag. I asked them; “are you using these cross stitch materials for making bag?” . They replied, yes. I…

  • Bandh

    Last week we had a very on & off session, 1 day holiday and another was bandh (though we were open). On thursday,we had a very few children attending the session. Intially they shared its very boring day but still they continued with their work. In the middle of the session, one child said it…

  • PARENTS AS PARTNERS

    PROPOSED ACTION PLAN For parents who are not involving in the community development (Manthan)?For Parents who are not participating in Mela?For Parents who are not doing Parents workshop on fridays by turn? Below are the action plan by Aarohi Faculty team If any parent is not coming for parent workshop by term/doesn’t want to do…

  • To get new resources

    I am coordinating for Art week at O-campus. I have put a constraint for self that I will get more people, so kids get exposure of resources (else I am pretty good with art). I sent 19 mails to different e-groups 69 personal mails to people 19 post on meet ups 9 post on FB…

  • Understanding punishment consequence and behaviour

    Post on Fb by a parent “Today some children were given PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT in Aarohi. They were made to do 50 sit-ups for not maintaining silence during silence time. Is anyone else aware of this? Plz share your thoughts.” When we read this post, it created an opportunity for us to know what made kids…

  • How to read story books

    This blog is dedicated to kids who have shown me many ways of reading story books – here is compilation of few of the ideas I stole from them. Open a story book and start from any page. After reading the text in the story – read the pictures aloud or with silence. How the…

  • Action packed week

    This week started with good and bad news – when our pet team went for Tiger’s (cat) rabies vaccination, he ran away (Tiger was very scared after car ride).Previous week we talked about sterilization of our pets and on Monday we found that one of our cat (Pepsi), gave birth to two kittens.We all had…

  • New Restaurant – Aadab

    Today our kitchen was turned into restaurant “Punjabi Dhaba, Aadab”. It was a surprise for all of us. It was a pleasant surprise to enter the kitchen and being greeted by “staff”. She took me to hand wash, offered hand towel and accompanied me till the food serving area. I was greeted by two chefs…

  • Learn from video games

    How to use video game in experiential learning?Play a video game – we played video game in which we had to make a bridge.We played the game few times- purposefully made different designs which will fail.Then we identified a place in the campus to make bridge.We collected required material, and we made a bridge, we…

  • Puppets

    Give puppets any age and experience the magic.

  • Safety Team

    Our Natural Disaster and Accidents team (We call them fire team) – After working on thunder and lightening, they bring fire safety for us. They first worked on wild fire, as we have dry grass at the campus. They bring safety for us, they tell us how to understand different kinds of fire, how to…

  • cars

    Give one card box, few card boards, fevicol, few lids, one hand drill, one big needle with thread and space to work and forget about kids for few hours. They made car, tried putting wheels in many different ways.

  • Welcome

    This week one of the welcome material was “different types of cutlery”. One would think they will explore different kinds of cutlery is available (I thought so). Hmmmmmmmm they looked through different glasses and explore the properties of glass :). They looked through the glass and enjoyed skewed and multiple images. None talked about variety…

  • Sound of snake

    One child came running, few more followed her “I saw a snake!!! I asked the description of snake – color, size, ……..she said “ I did not see, another child told me she heard the sound of snake”. She was sacred, it spread in seconds “I heard, I saw, It was black, it was cobra………..”.…

  • Make it open

    This week we have many books on how and what to talk about sex, all about boys, all about girls and so on. Three kids came to me screaming “aunty gross, they are without clothes”. They showed me a sketch from chapter on intercourse. They talked about “bums”. We looked at more pictures from the…

  • Child Abuse – measure at Aarohi

    What does it take to wake up a society that is so inured to child abuse? Abuse of all kinds – physical, mental, emotional, sexual. What does it take to create awareness about this epidemic called Child Abuse? The society is taking a knee-jerk reaction to the unfortunate incident that happened recently in Bangalore. Installing…

  • Session design for preparing children against sexual abuse

    We present here a design of a session which can be done with children to prepare them to escape from child abuse. This is followed by a video example of one-to-one with a child. The text here can be used as direct speech with child SESSION DESIGN Intro: Some children get abused by adults. Adults…

  • Role

    What is my role as a mother? What is my role as a father? What is my role as a faculty? What is my role as a leader? What is my role as a director?…………The list is long. What is the word role and what it does to me? Once we define the role we…

  • How do we solve?

    At campus we use chulha to make hot water. At times for few children it becomes difficult to take water from the pot. They expressed fear of getting burnt. So how do we move ahead? What are the options here? One option is one care taker or any peer or any faculty can help them…

  • Glimpse of the week

    Last week was full of assessment and evaluation. Monday we started with stimulation. Activities were weaved around evaluation thinking skills. After stimulation we concluded stimulation with writing a letter to our friend. Children started planning and goal setting. Throughout the week we explored different words like: assess, judge, evaluate, defend, decision, gathering, recommendation, criteria, important,…

  • Numberline

    We brought number line as part of flocci this week. We played game, read a chapter of time line and solved some problems based on number line. The number line on the wall was real excitement for children where they could feel it and play with it. All children explored it differently. At the end…

  • Thinking Ads

    First we made a mind map on advertisement. We spoke about ads, types, why, how, elements, about what etc…. Then we thought there is no need to go to an ad gency But we went Then we found out more about ads, types, why, how, elements, about what etc ……… And about copy, brand, design,…

  • Peer learning

    A 16 yr old from nerby village came to me “aunty I want to learn English”. Another 5yr came to me “I am reading book, I want to work on my reading”. I asked “how about both of you working together?” They read together, Later they wrote together.

  • Own Tracking

    Four kids were working on tree house. Everyday they were doing something, and they did not need my help (intervention). I asked “how are you tracking your progress?” They said “we did not think about this”. This started a new chapter in their life. First they guessed how many day, how much time everyday and…

  • What all can be resource?

    One of the value faculty adds up in Aaorhi is different resources in different ways. The resources can be – visual, tactile (kinaesthetic) and auditory. Some samples from one week – this is excluding designed activities, stimulation, bioscope, stimulation, flocci etc. Making Tree house – Introduced tracking and time planning, They choose graph. Introduced the…