Question and Investigate to Learn

2yo: what is there "inside" cotton? Why is it bumpy? (while touching and poking it)
2yo: why is our body moving downwards when we sit in a moving auto?

5yo: (mixing some murmur chat) Why do we add lemon juice?
Me: Maybe to get some of its taste and also to act as adhesive for the murmur and salt. salt is all separated from dry murmur as we can see here.
5yo: If it is just to make salt and Mirchi powder to stick to the murmur, we can as well add water, why should we add lemon juice?
Me: Sure, we could try and taste. Maybe for those who like the sour taste can add lemon juice and those who do not can sprinkle some water and mix?
5yo: But, I even want the sour taste, I prefer it with lemon juice only.

So much of thinking goes into children's brains. Is the child being provided with an environment that encourages questions? Or just an environment where the child is asked to do what is asked to be done? Let the child question and learn.

When an adult is shown a photo album, the adult looks at just the photo and maybe recalls his memory.
When a child is shown a photo album, the child thinks of how the photo actually went into the transparent cover, try to move it with fingers, open it, take the photo out and insert it again.

When an adult shows a rattle to a child, the adult may focus on the sound that the rattle makes or how the child is amused with the sound and movement.
When a child is shown a rattle, the child actually questions how the smaller balls that create sound went into the rattle in the first place, may even try to break it open to see how the rattle works.

When an adult gifts a child with a ball that glows when it is hit to the ground, the adult may just focus on how the child would play with it in a bouncy fashion.
When a child gets a ball that glows when it is hit to the ground, the child actually, squeezes the balls, pushes, presses, tries to touch the smaller ball that contains light (that glows upon hitting), hits the ball while pressing the smaller ball and do many more things.

If in all the above and similar other scenarios, the adult has hushed the child away in order to not tamper with the photo album, rattle, toy, ball, or whatever,
 Congratulations! You have just managed to get the child to do what you want him to do. Congratulations! You have just managed to make the child follow 'your' thoughts rather than his own thoughts.
Congratulations! You have just stopped the child from thinking further 'on his own' and even achieved to make him believe that what he has just thought about and tried exploring was redundant and unnecessary.
Congratulations! You have just managed to make the child believe that thinking unique or exploring is not needed to quench his curiosity, just being with the crowd around is sufficient in life.
Congratulations! You have managed to keep the child away from his own curiosity.

-Sujaya | https://www.facebook.com/embodimentoflove/ | www.www.nurturinglove.in

#RethinkParenting #RethinkEducation #children #learning #playing #playingislearning

Making Mazes

Making mazes with pillows.

Children make the best use of what is available. Adults who know little about them try to get them to do what is asked rather than what is thought of.

#homeschooling #homeschoolinglife #homeschoolingkids#homeschoolingindia #childrenplay #children #hyderabad#hyderabadparents #hyderabadchildren #unschooling #unschoolingindia#noschoollearning #noschool

Another Free Play

Children need no external curriculum, children need no external directions, children need no external initiators, children need no external motivation.

2y4m picks various items to experiment on filtering(sieving), and, that's not all, she puts all the stuff that she had picked, back in their places from where she picked.

She had picked up three kinds of strainers, some glasses, filled a glass with water herself, she sets the right amount of flow from tap so that water does not overflow the glass, settles down to explore. 

After all her play, she put back all the items in their places!

To put it in terms of labels - free play is an opportunity where children are the initiators, directors of their learning, responsible for the learning starting from collection of raw materials to putting them back in their places, accepting to fail in their experiment, trusting that they succeed even after a failure and many more. 

Giving labels to a child's activity or learning only limits their ability to the language of that label. 

Let's just let the kids be!

#learningwithoutschool 
#playingislearning
#kidsplay
#kidslearning
#freethekids
#freeplay 

Pretend Phones - Various Versions

I had made many pretend phones when DD1 was younger. Using various papers, cardboards, hard paper.












And now, DD1 herself makes various kinds of phones using thermocol, plain paper, wedding invite card, cardboard piece.



Sometimes, when she has an idea to make a specific type, she takes my help. Today's project was one of such kind. She wanted to have an openable phone(tab phone). She showed me how the two pieces need to be joined in order to be opened to operate. Following her instructions, I sewed two cardboard pieces along the longer edge. Made two for the two little ones.
















In the below pic, she explains, the left side top part has some options for videos and the lower part is the screen on which the video can be watched. Right side has enter buttons, send buttons, buttons for numbers, call and other functions.

Playing is learning

                                (Image Source: dreamstime.com)

Kids love to be busy, kids love to do messy things. kids love playing, kids love learning, kids love experimenting things, kids love imitating, kids love getting dirty.

Remember, exposure and the freedom to experiment are two most important things that a child can be provided. Those who can afford to provide good exposure and are tolerable enough to bear the consequences of freedom given to a child to experiment can be deemed as a valuable asset in the journey of learning of a child.

Why not think of something that combines all that kids love and offer as a play? In our daily life, every activity has a purpose. There will be some reason for doing what we are doing.

In the same way, try creating fun activities for kids that they not only enjoy playing but learn something new in every play.

Remember, it is only that the toddler cannot reciprocate all that she is learning by speaking out but the world's smartest storage device is in that little head of theirs and whatever you speak or teach makes it's way to their brain and stays there. Always keep talking about what the child is doing, what the purpose of any general item lying in the room is and this list of what you can talk to your child goes on. I will write another post on key things to be learnt during our interaction with child sometime soon.

Following is one such list where the child not only enjoys playing but gradually learns how things work in this world. I will keep updating this post with more activities as time goes on.

There will be few activities that the child clings on for reasonably longer time and few that the child gets bored of very easily. Make sure you always keep your child engaged in a joyful manner. Watch out for boredom signals and quickly turn the environment cheerful with quirky talks or funny faces. 

1. Miraculous Magnets
2. Aim it - Throw it
3. Ringa Ringa
4. Coins in Kiddy Bank
5. Bowls and Stands
6. Drop it down the bin
7. Tearing activity
8. The idea of floating
9. Matching the shoe pair
10. Cloth Hanger
11. Making water bubbles
12. Scoop out
13. Writing on a balloon
14. Pass it down the pipe
15. Mess around with paper
16. Matching the shoe pair
17. Hook it up
18. Playing with play dough
19. Touch and Texture Activities
20. Stacking cups
21. Free hand sewing
22. Moving beads
23. Stacking blocks
24. Scoop out - 2 
25. Wall painting
26. Play with wool
27. Play with foam
28. Play with water
29. Play with cotton balls
30. Play with dal seeds
31. Toy-free games to play with 1 yr old
32. Experimenting with dropper
33. Segregating activity
34. Making rainfall
35. Gardening with toddler
36. Stamping with paint
37. Screw - Unscrew
38. In and Out
39. Pushing
40. Move it - Count it
41. Fun observing ants
42. Fun with Shadow
43. Playing with seeds
44. Carrom game with toddler
45. Concept of rolling
46. Dropping seeds in pores
47. Toddler and Physics
48. Toddler and Maths
49. Playing with seeds
50. Train with empty tins
51. Spot On
52. Stacking Spoons
53. Ice Painting
54. Art of Cutting
55. Crawl - Jump - Bend
56. Stick them all
57. Roll the die and clap
58. Depicting rhymes and stories on paper
59. Stamping activity
60. Tracing with paint brush
61. Fun with flour
62. Clipping on Clothes pegs
63. Pricking
64. Colour the shapes
65. Finger painting
66. Numbers - Tracing and Colouring
67. Vegetable Art
68. Filling up water bottle
69. Introducing fractions - Explaining Half
70. Finger Figures
71. Empty foil roll
72. Playing with magnets
73. Dropping Toothpicks
74. Alphabet Stamping
75. Plastic Cover - Mirror Image
76. Explaining Transparence
77. Coloring on Seeds
78. Making Shapes with Rubber Bands
79. Sticking Activity
80. Counting and Reverse Counting
81. Play washing machine
82. Play Elevator
83. Making Shapes - Circle
84. Counting while sticking
85. Making Alphabets and Numbers
86. Revealing figures/stories in parts
87. Race track for cars, balls
88. Pick up the card
89. What's in the bag?
90. Infant Stimulation - Texture cards
91. Paper Stencils - Painting
92. Ice Cubes - Painting
93. Drop it down the cone
94. Paints and Ear Buds
95. X Mas Tree Hand Prints
96. Pouring Water
97. Sponge Painting
98. Sponge and Water
99. Water Balloon
100. Icecream parlour
101. Paint with Talcum Powder
102. Texture Play
103. Sandwich, anyone?
104. Counting and Fractions
105. Understanding Soaking
106. Simple play with stone
107. Containers and Play
108. Play with Ice
109. Paper Mache
110. Hurdle Run
111. Water Paint on Wall
112. Pass it down - 2
113. Hidden Treasures in Ice
114. Peek-a-Boo
115. Basic Arithmetic
116. Pouring
117. Pouring - 2

What is music for kids?

In case of singers during ancient days, first, there was devotion to the spiritual energy(called god) and in the process of union with the energy, originated songs which took the tune of various raagas that came to be listed to this day in the form of notes and tunes.

In the present age, children as young as 2.5 or 3 are being sent for music classes where the learning starts with instructions on raagas and then rote learning of the song with beating of cane stick on the floor in the background.(Yes, I've seen it)

Where is the devotion? Young children hardly understand the words that form the song. More than letting them enjoy the words or the song or the tune or letting them hum to their own tune, all that is being focussed by adults is whether the child has learnt a specific song in a specific tune.

Obviously, the teacher is focussed on getting more and more children to sing as she directs and the parent is focussed on how many songs her child can learn in a short duration, whether the child can sing in front of guests or whether the child could sing on the stage when as young as 3 or 4.

I wonder if anyone really cares about how the child feels in this chaos. Young children who spend time in hearing the hymn, understanding and repeating it often by themselves have numerous questions regarding what that word  means, why that word was used in that line, and many more whys that follow.

Wonder if any parent can find a true guru for a child in this fast paced comparison oriented world. Or wonder if any parent can try being the child's guru by giving ample time to ponder on the new words, hymns that child comes across,  encourage the child to question and just facilitate the child's understanding of the hymn.

Let the young be curious. If learning was only about instructions, it would have long died.

Where there is devotion, the disciple, her voice and her raaga become union with god.

Mountains, Grass, Shiva and Brahmalokam

There are two mountains green shaded. Zig zag. Another two mountains red and violet.

Top two mountains tell zigzag to take away bottom two mountains somewhere. So, the grass goes on to search for them. Grass goes to shiva to ask where the mountains are. Then the mountains take the form of venkateswara swamy and go to brahmalokam. Everyone meet at brahmalokam and go back to their places.

This is how the imagination of a 4 year old unfolds. I feel happy for her that her time is being utilised for creative things rather than calling repeatedly to finish off the homework. Seriously.

And this she did, just when it was time for us to sleep. She said she would just do some drawing / colouring and get back.  Then she told this story.

Give them time and let their creativity be churned out. Not in tight schedules of class work, home work, tuitions, drawing classes, extra classes.