Category: Blogs

What is Acceptance??? This word means a lot to me. I started understanding this word three years back when I did TTT. One session on acceptance and I started observing each of my interactions with my daughter. The acceptance which I started exhibiting that time was so superficial……but it was a first step for me.…

I was in reflection with one child. He came to me to share his reflection and I did not accept it. It looked incomplete to me. After sending him back I was just reflecting that I have been using the same style with the child in reflection from last three reflections, something which I really…

New child joined last week. I was totally unsettled. Her continuous demand for mother was making me think. It was totally new experience for me. I was not unsettled because I wanted her to settle in my session but the unsettlement was due to my approaches. All of my approaches were mainly verbal. I was…

New child from nearby village has joined “Aarohi”. I was very cautious. I was not sure whether I will be able to treat him the same way like other children or not? Here the point in my mind was sympathy. I did not want to facilitate him keeping in my mind his background. He was…

I started my journey as facilitator in Aarohi two years back. When I joined, every single day I used to ask other faculty: Is everything ok? What else I need to do? How am I doing? Etc….I was not getting any answers to these questions. Yes I was getting SUPPORT. In my journey I am…

Some thoughts from the sessions as kids shared in reflection This week I learnt, ‘things break for good, so we can make again like my bed curtain. In my life I will come acroos gross things like cat eating dead rat or vomit with blood”. I know now, that writing is not just handwriting but…

The day is filled with variety at Aarohi I can hear some sound……..thunnn thunn. One child in the kitchen lab is pounding something to cook. I can hear two kids discussing vehemently on sizes of bamboo for the tree house, they have to estimate the number and sizes of bamboos required to make tree house.…

One child want to learn English, He thinks “we can teach him, he does not know” He waits for us to teach him, rest of the time he has accepted that he cannot do anything else as he does not know English. So my task is not to teach him English, but to teach him…

In security lab, One child is working on understanding wild life and other insect at the campus to be able to protect us and know what do in case of insect bites, snake bites etc. This week he was clicking photographs of the various insects at the campus to find more about them. He shared…

What is literature – poems and prose What is prose – which is not verse What is verse – A number of lines of poetry A nice puzzle to solve. Specially for people like me who are trying to work on their vocabulary, this is helping me to work on logic intelligence.

Every Monday, we all plan for the week, we all plan together. While planning I prompted kids to fly kite whole day, but they were not much interested and they kept only evening time for kite flying. Well, next day when all were sharing our planning, one person announced “I am flying kits whoel day…

On Monday we entered a crowded train, we normally get the space to sit, but this time did not even get space to stand. As we moved ahead, more and more people keep on adding and at Hosur it was jammed packed – next was our station. This was a tensed situation, easily justifiable to…

One day as I sat looking through magic hive fb page, I saw Pika Nani. The name itself caught my attention. On further going through it I realized she was an author. Her first book was published and she was interacting with different children. Zooooooom the mail went to her to invite her to Aarohi.…

As part of exploring writing as the weekly objective each one had to write what does writing mean to you. This is what the mixed age response was- One 5 year old had to say- Take a nice paper. Write on that lines -like any lines. If somebody tells me something I should write that.…

Hi, Meet Vaishali who came to our live station. She has done her TTT and she had come to meet our Amable team. She mentioned was learning Mandrian. As you know for us evey person/situation is a learning opprotunity and we immediately latched on to her and asked her she could come for a live…

We added one more chapter in making of Aarohi government. First we understood about Monarchy in open house – we watched a video of Mughal-e-Azam, read history books on kings and rulers, we also read Amar Chitra Katha as resource. While kids were sharing about their understanding of Monarchy – one child shared “Once you…

We recently visited Sardar Sarovar dam. During project we were discussing about how even one person can move ahead with the project. One child shared “it is not possible, for example how can the project of Sardar Sarovar can be done with one person..many many people have to work in a team”.

The session began with exploring “what is composition?”. Can a photograph be composed, a painting be composed, thought be composed or expression be composed? One child shared “Photographs are not com[posed, you click what you see”

During water lab we were tracing paths of water lines and water sources at the campus. While our exploration we identified a cellular mark on the ground, Paramesh with confidence announced this is elephant’s foot mark. This brought a sensation in our exploration. We began to exploring other three foot marks, we could not. Some…

When Raghunandan Uncle was sharing his passion for cycling, we were all transported into the adventurous world of cycling. Raghunandan Uncle told about his 1st long distance cycling experience to Nandi Hills in 1989 and then his subsequent expeditions to the Western Ghats and to Sikkim. He told us the nitty gritty of cycling- how…

Last week we explored our music genie objective of Rhythms & Instruments. Children’s experiences and expressions were reflecting their own journey into the world of Rhythms & Instruments. So they shared with each other… What is Rhythm? it is a pattern it is repetitive when heard it sounds like a song rhythm makes music music…

As I was waiting for the children to get ready to go to the ground on Wednesday morning, I saw one Aarohi child in a car which slowed down at the building gate…but did not stop and no body alighted. The car went further and turned. After 2-3 minutes, mother and the child were seen…

In OPEN HOUSE – we explored – Monarchy, Autocracy, Dictatorship and Democracy. We reflected and worked on “coming and going out” process at Aarohi. This all began with “can a child by birth inherit faculty role like in Monarchy ?”. COMING IN Criteria – All to understand Aarohi. FACULTY – If you are joining as…

How does one make a zero budget, eco friendly toilet. Simple: Dig a deep hole for the pot, hoist four sticks, wrap some old old curtains around it for toilet walls, collect some ash / saw dust for flushing (rather covering the poop) and you are ready to meditate below the clouds with soothing breeze…

I came back from my lunch and expected a usual noise around computer terminals. In free-time, Aarohi children spend their time at terminals playing various games. Their euphoria is something that is heard and felt by the whole building and neighbours too. Today there were soundsof excitement, discussions, demand and instructions. Aarohi team was busy…

I went trhough a small pahse of “withdrawl” – I love TTT, I attended almost all the sessions, i prepared thoroughly, yet I’d try to back off as we get closer and quite willing if ratnesh or anyone else takes the session. Ratnesh was there in my mind as a back up, so would wish…

During one of the open house, one child shared thoughts on kissing, “how do I know that any boy will not take advantage of me, will that be good touch or bad touch?”……….I do not exactly remember your words………….. Well, I shared my thoughts – You never know who will be honest to you or…

I have been reading a novel, called “Daddy’s long legs”. The novel is based on letters written by a (college) girl to her adopted father. I am inspired to write letters – I am beginning with writing a mail, soon will write letters. So here I go, It has been very pleasant at the campus.…

After reflecting in this Manthan, we would be continuing different groups and one concluding session for next Manthan. 1 Know Aarohi – Find information related to working of aarohi. 2 Understand Aarohi – Share your thoughts, concerns, doubts, ideas related to learning at Aarohi etc. 3 Parent.in – Meet parent, understand parents and connect with…

Parmesh writes Telgu and can speak Kannda, Tamil and Telgu. He is wanting to learn english AND I can only read and write Hindi and English, I can only speak Hindi and English, I am not too keen on learning other languages, though I love listening different languages. So what happens when me and Paramesh…