Writing Patterns

If you think there is beauty in the above pictures, with numbers typed out in kind of predictable pattern, then hold on! A child sees beauty even in the picture below.

And only if the child was allowed to meddle with not-so-beautiful patterns (according to the adult), can she come up with more patterns in her journey.

Let the child play.
Let the child explore.
Let us not judge every act of our children.

#RethinkParenting
#PlayingisLearning

The Khoji Kids - E2

1. Draw any items that come up in mind. Children preferred to walk around. Others guess what one person drew. The owner tells out story with the items he chose to draw.

2. Meditation. Children chose 1 minute as starting duration. Hope it goes up. 🙂

3. Stanza from rudram namakam-
Namaste astu bhagavanh vishveshvaraya mahadevaya tryambakaya tripurantakaya trikagni kalaya kalagnirudraya nilakanthaya mrutyunjayaya sarveshvaraya sadashivaya shrimanmahadevaya namah

4. Video on how crayons are made, how sprinkles are made.

5. Zumba dance

6. Make chocolate balls. Children chose quantity of biscuits, cocoa, sugar and milk by tasting and adjusting measures.

The Khoji Kids - E1

Walk around home, sit, draw items that come to your mind

Draw item that you see outdoor not in home now

Others guessed what each one drew...Some guesses were tough, some guess were easy.

Person starts with story that others dont know. After 2 lines of saying, another person should continue the story according to his imagination.

What gods do each one prays at home

Is god real? Can the god talk? Two persons will pray for same item to god, who does god listen to??

No conclusion yet.

To be continued next week.......

Fine Motor Skill and Hand Eye Coordination

Are you looking to buy some toys for fine motor and hand eye coordination????

Look around your home and you would find many, even gives lot of sense of achievement for the child, much better than the store bought fancy toys.

Couldn't click many pics but there were many variations of the play, almost for 30 mins!

#children
#playing
#learning
#naturalplay
#playingislearning

Give them time!!

This red thread. DD1 picked up this thread and wanted to tie around my wrist. She asked me to sit beside her so she could tie. It was sleep time, I was making bed. I said 'Yes' and sat by her side.

She attempts to knot the thread around my wrist. This is not the first time that she is doing it, she often tries to knot some band that she finds, around my wrist. May be, if I am not wrong, she has done it a little less than 10 times?

She went around my wrist with the thread in her little fingers and intertwined the two loose edges. She understood that something was not right and that she needed some time. She said 'naku ravatledu, but try chesthunna, konsepu undava' (I am not able to but I am trying, can you stay for a while please?). This. This statement. This feeling of hers. This clarity. This perseverance to try. This sense of achievement. This is what I fall for, in any child, here, in specific, DD1.

And, she knotted it. Finished it with two knots. Nothing can beat the feeling of contentment of a child after solving a problem.

There might be a hundred activity books that have knotting, lacing, zipping as a part of them. But nothing beats this emotional satisfaction that the child gets upon solving a real life activity(problem of knotting, in this case).

What more!! Activity kits are being advertised as saying that they would keep the child enganged and seated at a single place so that mothers get the time to go out for shopping. The same child, when really trying to solve a real life problem would be shooed away or hurried up for his task-to-be-done at that moment by the same adult.

What was more important for the child? What was more important for the mother? What was more important for holistic development of the child? What was more important for the mother-child relation in long run?

Keeping the kids engaged with tight schedules and activity books OR respecting their choice of finishing the task that they chose at the moment?

If we notice, there are umpteen number of instances in everyday life where children, from as young as infants, are continuously exploring, trying out new stuff, solving problems, building things but are often discouraged in order to get back to what is 'supposed' to be done according to the elders at that moment.

#RethinkParenting
#Children
#Parents
#NaturalParenting
#IntuitiveParenting
#ListenToYourIntuition

Children on your back?

Me hungry and having dinner.

On my side is DD1, asking for something that is not reachable at the moment.

DD2 passing by, stops there and asks yet another item that I don't even seem to understand (she speaks ,not very clearly, 22 months ).

In that mental state, I tend to get irritated , to quote there may be many reasons like hunger, I'm eating, ppl are disturbing, constantly asking for something....But all these don't give any solution.

I get back to my child...I point to various objects lying on the dining table asking her if it was that which she wanted, she says no to all. She keeps making the same sound in an act to name that object. I ask DD1 what she thinks it is. DD1 says, she is asking for phone (her pretend phone, a small non working remote). And when I look for it, I notice that it is in my blind spot. I could not spot it. Because it was under my plate, at the other end, towards the right side which DD2 could see but I could not.

This. This very tiny thing. This very minute response of ours determines how our day would be and how the child's day would be and how our temperament towards parenting is.

Reacting without realising the situation may even impact how we perceive the child and how the child perceives us.

#listentoyourinstinct
#naturalparenting
#parenting
#children
#joy

What is the child capable of?

A child is capable of anything and everything. It depends on what environment is provided.

If you wish the child should be good to memorise and point at so as to validate her results, so be it - we can show flash cards repeatedly for 10 days and the child does it.

If you think the child should listen to rhymes, and sing aloud as an achievement, so be it, the child will be capable.

If you think the child should memorise all her tables and you make her do, so be it, it will be done.

If you think your child should recite A for apple to Z for zebra so be it she is capable of doing. if you think your child should tell recite (recite, not count) numbers from 1 to 100 as a sign of an early achievement, so be it she is capable.

You provide the resources the child is capable of doing it. But was that important for the whole well - being of the child at THAT age is the question?

What else could be done(more appropriately) at that age is a curious question?

How else the world could be explored by the child's instincts is a serious question.

What if the child cannot say A for apple(at 2 yr age or any age), I never insisted my daughter said it, i never taught it, I never asked for it. Can't the child make new words with the alphabet A in it? Yes, she can, only if the other side of the ratta maaro world was opened up to her. DD1 herself frames questions like 'Shall we tell some words with Y? and says some words with Y, most of them are real words, some are imaginary words. For a child, everything is valid because it is creation using one's own thoughts.

Likewise, animals, birds, plants, sight words, many many more that are marketed to be introduced in way of flash cards for memory improvement could be lead by the child in his/her own way to the surprise of the parent's thoughts and capabilities.

Children are much more capable than us. Let us accept it.