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Sharing my musings about my journey with “Socio-Emotional Responses” ( our weekly objective ) During my preparation for the week, I experienced this objective at many different levels. Like A.Rehman’s music, it grew on me. As I was reading about emotions, responses, responses in various different environments, I felt like I was diving into deep…

When we decided to explore Dictatorship in open house, my first feeling was “cruelty, ruling…………….As we explored more about the Democracy, we identified the characteristic of a leader. I have started looking at Dictators from different perspective, I can learn from them and here is what kids identified skills of a leader, we saw “gold”…

This is the 11 minute TED talk on youtube, this reminded, many kids at Aarohi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY About the video – A teenager was pulled out of school at the age of 9 by his parents, they thought school is blocking creativity. When asked what he want to be when he grows up, his reply is…

Leaders role is to take responsibility of their task. A leader role is to set goals for the responsibility and have confidence in what they are doing. A leader can demand, rely, communicate, listen and take inputs from others. A leader should be open for feedback and open to change the decision. Leader can be…

I was working in kitchen lab this week. Every meal we were using 2-3 tubs full of utensils for cooking. At the end of the day the child who was working with me shared with exclamation “Manji akka washes so many vessels in a day, me washing only my plate after meal does not feel…

One child came with a complaining tone to me “aunty they all are breaking the coconut” I asked her “what do you want to do?” With a smile she said “I want to break and eat it”.

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…

Few days back my phone broke and I was showing to kids. One child shared “I also dropped binocculars one day. And I am feeling bad about it. I am asking my mama to buy it, she is not”. I could resonate the feeling with this child:)

Today we were reading book called “all by myself” and kids were hooked in to it. The story revolves around a boy who is scared and still dives from the diving board all by himself. Nobody pushes him, nobody compells him. One child said, “beacuse he wanted to do it!”. So true when I want…

Just saw “Music and lyrics”, on Romedy Now. While I was watching it, Anagha was working on her Music and Lyrics.This year, Anagha is proactively involved in gathering resources for weekly music of Aarohi. She has been actively looking for songs, googling for lyrics, singing, downloading, etc. It is her turn next week and she…

This week in session one child took literature as the content. I was happy yeah, I had done little work on this and was already to share my gyan. I started with listening to the child and as I became aware I realized I was not listening to the child. At every sentence internally I…

This week we were working on Writing. writing does not mean good handwriting – Some. expressed, they do not write because it is not good :-). Some expressed in reflection – it is surprising to know writing is not about only spellings and good handwriting, one said,“this left me thinking”. I shared. for me it…

When I was talking about literature with kids, I realized that I still a child, I have not grown in reading – I have not read many of the children’s literature. I want to catch up with all that fun of reading. I want to grow up reading.

Two kids in session were exploring new words. They read, found the remaining, used in different places and in different ways. While I was interacting, I also realized that me too needs to work on new words. I too use very limited vocabulary – I do not use much of math vocabulary or scientific vocabulary…

One child went for buying chicken for the pets. We both observed the shopkeeper cutting and cleaning the chicken. On the way back he shared “I wonder what motivates the shopkeeper to be in this business, is it money or what? I also want to ask the shopkeeper “how does he feels in this business?,…

In the morning on Friday Ratnesh with Irritation in his voice showed my son the food fallen on the floor. With anger and anxiety in my voice I asked Ratnesh to check his images, if his response would be same If he was meeting our son for the first time? I realized I was talking…

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…

I feel static, when I am stuck with one approach, one thought, one style in my facilitation. Every interaction brings a different kind of challenge for me, demands variety in my facilitation and a new approach from me. One child at campus, in session was screaming for two days. We listened, acknowledged needs, but did…

What is literature? How do we decide what is literature? Are stories literature? Why jokes and cartoon books are not literature? We began introduction of literature with some of these questions. We explored that there is much more literature available than just Harry potter. Many of the kids are reading Harry potter at Aarohi, kids…

Two kids were observing “dogs behavior and body language”. They recorded She was active? She was playing more She liked it? So, how do we decide “like, active, more”? After this question, they recorded data , this tiem they recorded with- time, before the action, during the action, after the action, duration, response…………….and so on.…

This week, during session I was conscious to not to decide the end goal for any child as per my needs or expectations. I gave inputs to all, but did not decide end results. Gave picture to one child, when she was stuck with drawing, gave her idea to cut the picture in shapes and…

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…