Monday, 15 October 2012

Viva the girl child!!


It’s popular nowadays to declare certain days in the year, as dedicated to a movement or entities. Last week it was the turn of the girl child to be feted.
In a playschool where we celebrate the child every day, we draw no lines to distinguish the girl or boy child. They have no inhibitions during play, which is really their main activity in preschool, and they choose the activity that they want to explore further.  
 Today 3 girls decide they want to join in the football game. On another day a boy rushes through his snack, and busies himself with the kitchen toys. Sometimes it’s a boy who’ll take time to set up the books and pencils for the writing time. Maybe it’s a girl who throws out a dare to the rest -See what I can do!
I couldn’t help feeling we’re on the right track when, during the Onam celebration the girls performed the rehearsed dance with elan, watched the boys do their bit in a raucous boat race and then hijacked the stage saying they wanted to row a race themselves!
Way to go, girls!

Friday, 5 October 2012

small change is important!

A  unique initiative was launched in Kozhikode on Gandhi Jayanthi this year..a "chillara vandi" that distributes coins because small change is so hard to come by. Nowadays everybody has big note(book) s, or big ideas, or big dreams.....but in kindergartens we know to value "small " too.
When children join a kindergarten as excitable 2 yr olds, they seem like "loose change ". happy to skitter around the playroom in no particular order , disappear into corners and keep us guessing as to where they will turn up next! ...and what joy when we do find them!
Slowly, by the time they are three and four, you can see an order creep into their day. They are ready to sit and listen,  or follow an instruction or play with abandon. So in LKG, they've undergone a "small change".
 Graduate to UKG, and it's time to lose their cute baby faces and pudgy fingers. They grow faster, learn quicker...all round they are in the "big change" phase of their kindergarten life!
A nice logical progression - loose change>small change> big change!