Category: Blogs

Last to last friday (24th May 2013), we installed the cute looking Shurflo dc pump which we had got from US through Prakash’s friend. The pump was placed at around 130 feet below ground level. – pump is hanging on two thin clamps placed at the top of the borewell cap. It’s hanging there through…

What is literature? Few children have picked this up as their goal. They chose the goal based on the name that they read in the content guide. Eager to explore what it is, this group of enthusiastic learners went ahead to find out from few people. They came back it is something related to writing.…

One day in the ,,,, oh, aunty what a boring song. We do not like this song. Aunty moved ahead humming; one said let us listen to the song at least. Yes, yes let us. As the song played children took time to listen to the song, the music and the words. Listening to the…

There is something happening everyday at home and at the center and I want to share it with everyone. However I am not getting opportunity to do that. I am doing it today Anagha (7 year old), from Aarohi, wrote a poem and recorded it on mobile in her own tune. Poem is titled Oomp…

This learning saturday, lets take a morning train to kelmangala for learning journey. Bangalore-Nagor passgengar express from Byappanhalli (Bangalore) at 7.30 am on 29th June. Along with eatables and necessary things, carry your open mind bag. Empty all those “I cann’t, will not, impossible”. O-campus openly invites you for doing things. You could be making…

Event@Aarohi, Saturday 25th Jan 2014 from 11 am to 1 pm at I-Campus of Aarohi (Geniekids Learing Space, 3023rd house on the 8th Cross besides the 13th main in HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar) Forum to meet ex-students of alternate education.

It was one of the lovely morning at aarohi, O-campus. 16 kids, went for rock climbing – all at different level and had different goals for self. All I had to do was to watch them and be there with them. One master code was decide before we started “go one by one and wait…

I am working on “five senses”. This is the one of the topic for next year sessions. I only knew “senses as see, hear, touch, smella and taste”. While digging deep in the topic I came to know about the sense of pain, temeprature, balance……………………. Working more on the topic through multiple intelligence, I came…

Our family is shifting home, so we all are involved in packing. Yesterday Dhrupad was given the responsibility to “empty the bean bag and give for wash”. First he took 20 minutes to figure out how and where to open bean bag. Then we took 10 different types of scoops to scoop out the beans…

Today I had fever, so Dhup found me doing nothing and found this as an opportunity to catch without any distractions. We read a book together and after that he wanted me to dictate the story so he could write. We explored so many things while writing When and where commas come? (Fullstop is traffic…

Journey of self assessments at Aarohi Self assessment began with kids setting up their own goal in the second year of Aarohi. Initially the assessment was “I wrote a story”. It was more of information or a report of what one did. There was no assessment of “how I did, what all I included in…

Every Manthan has been a great discovery for us to know parent’s perspective and we re-work on our beliefs. Some thoughts like “every parent has their own journey” has been a very valuable inputs for us. We want to start the initiative of “synchronizing” with parents. You as parents have your own sets of beliefs…

A day before ManthanGracy found that the Jungle toilet flush “float valve” was broken and we needed the toilet working for Manthan. Selvi was surprised to know that we can just buy the valve from the market and fix it ourselves – me too 🙂 I do not know what happened after that. Today I…

Yesterday, while doing analysis about animals, Asawari came across “the weight is 60 to 70 kg”. She needed AVERAGE weight for calculations, so she asked me “what is average”.I thoughts for some time and shared “I know the process, I do not know how to explain the concept”. We played around with data on average,…

One child was taking attendance of other chidlren who are going for KAA to match with our list. He said a – he is here b – he is here c – she is here d – she is not here, she is there outsdie somewhere, so she is present.

The case put up on children by other children in open house in Aarohi. “Hurting by pushing and hitting hard on private parts especial chest and bumps comes near the ears and shouts “you cry baby”. Scratchesand pinches me, says fuck, threatens me and hits me especially on private parts, falling on me. Telling “Oh…

When space to learn and when the need to learn is there, the learning willdefinitelybe there and as a child I find a lot of meaning to the learning. We went to the sports ground to play cricket and after all excitement we settled in our teams. 1st ball, 1st show daphaak there goes the…

One child wanted to know how manychildrenI had? I said two. Others said we are not your children. I said I have 14 children. One caught her head and said so many cuts in your stomach. I said na only one cut, anothersaid imagine Girija Aunty giving birth t0 14 children. One came and said…

I used to express in my interaction with parents (in workshops) “we are some of the fortunate ones, who have luxury of money………….”. One of the child in my session asked me “aunty, why people who have money are fortunate? I think the people who do not money are equally fortunate. I see people in…

Dear Parents, Many of our children are reading, and they read a lot, they are read a lot by, peers, parents etc. Many of our children write “wrong” – they really write phonetically and hence it appear wrong. While it is not wrong to ask for a correct spelling, it is also not right to…

Someoen shared “during live station kids wanted to show “how is my drawing”.I experienced the same sometime inside me when kids show competition, eagerness to be praised In my workshops also people ask “I do not do, but my child compares”. Well,At Aarohi the child is experiencing “self praise, cooperation etc”.Outside child may be experiencing…

Me and one of the child – together committed to work one hour during learning time “exclusively on reading and writing”. We do work one hour, Monday to Wednesday. We work in the evenijg, noon – any time of the day. He does some from his side at home, we sometimes do in the train,…

What a way to start a Monday morning welcome … by receiving aParkerpen as gift to match the welcome objective of Writing. Screams of wow and ahs was followed by admiring the pen and the pad. Thanks to BritishEmbassyand our own Nayana aunty,childrenin Aarohi got a pen and a note pad as a gift. The…

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Girija Nairwrote: Everyopportunityis a learningopportunityfor all adults and kids. Would anybody have thought that cleaning the entire resource room would be a learning opportunity? Well, in AArohi it is and all adults and children were involved in it. I am not sure why am I writing adults…

Often people wonder “what about big labs and other resources when a child grows?” Possibly often one’s sense of learning begins with controlled structures called “science lab”. While we ourselves have got very less form these labs at schools, we are still caught up with those structure called labs. Can the whole world be LAB…

We gave a WRITING KIT all at O-campus in the beginning of writing week. It had One Parker pen 1/3 paper pad 1/3 post-it-pad One pouch to keep all the stationery One pencil and one sharpener (whole week restriction of no eraser and scale). For Samarth we had put crayons instead of Parker pen One…

Sharing our journey at O-campus of “sense of belongingness”. First month was to just know our needs and soon the pink house became a place of dumped things. The house did not have any shelves, cupboard or any racks. The house has two small bedrooms (smaller than spring) and one hall as big as jungle.…

I have learnt from two kids in my session. One child 14yrs old had Jaundice and she took complete care of herself. Her entire treatment was based on food restriction to care for Liver and she did all by self – visiting doctors, understanding form them why I need to eat certain food and certain…

I have learnt from two kids in my session. One child 14yrs old had Jaundice and she took complete care of herself. Her entire treatment was based on food restriction to care for Liver and she did all by self – visiting doctors, understanding form them why I need to eat certain food and certain…

Our life at O-campus. We get up at 6:30am – none wakes us up, we get with some music. We get up because we know the importance of sports in our development. We fold our beds and no one tells us to fold our beds or go for sports. We are AMABLE! We play games,…