August 5th week

Sita School


On Monday after our usual run through the new found scenic route, we did our stretches and foot drills. I have realized that for a couple of kids the canvas shoes was not doing any good. We have to replace the shoes with a wider better make. We later did the computer classes with the children. I introduced a new activity, going outdoors. I asked them to map the path from the computer lab to Sita School's kitchen. They used the compass to get directions and counted steps in each direction to arrive at a sequence of instructions to get from one point to the other. For one of the groups, I also introduced a variation in the activity, with one person closing her eyes (or blindfolded) and the others giving directions to help the person arrive at a point in the shortest time possible. We later played a few games that helped improve their typing speeds and also their vocalbulary.


On Friday after our run, we spent almost all the day in helping with the printing of the calendars. Meanwhile, Preeti and Kamala had a discussion to review kamala's write-up in Kannada to be sent to the organization supporting a fellowship for her. They also discussed the plan going forwards and what has been achieved so far etc. The calendar work was quite exhausting and involves all the elder children. Sita school helps the children write the 7th standard open exams and helps to mainstream them in the 8th or provide vocational skills to help children become socio-economically independent. The money to support children in their further education or vocational skills after sita school is raised from selling these calendars. They have been doing calendars for more than 30 years now. Asha has partenered recently to help create awareness about Asha through Sita School calendars and also better sell the calendars. The printing is a manual process and required a lot of skill. One person had to swipe the ink through the screen on to the handmade paper and only Anjali could do it properly. The rest of us (childrem, teachers and volunteers) had different roles in the pipeline as we placed, dried and checked for smudges etc.

More photos here- Sita_school_calendars_teamasha_trip

On Saturday, we had organized a team asha run at Sita School. We all got together at Cubbon park and car pooled from there. It was a lot of fun and all the runners got a chance to learn more about an Asha supported effort. The children did a great job running with the gang and also helping them out. We had a tasty breakfast and got a tour around the school. There is a more detailed report in my post in the team asha blog

More photos here- Sita_school_calendars_teamasha_trip

Ananya


We did a speed workout with the kids and did the train workout with two trains. The train workout is a very good team building exercise as it keeps the really fast ones patient and encourages the runners who are slower. The focus is not as much on the individual going fast as its not easy to draw a comparision, but on the team together moving at a faster pace. But, there are also some disadvantages if not monitored appropriately. If one kid goes too fast and breaks the train, it can disintegrate! We learned that with the Ananya kids! After the stretches and foot drills, we did the geometry class with the children. I had prepared worksheets for the kids and Preeti helped make a lot of copies as well. I explored the material available in the cupboard of resource material in Ananya. I found a lot of tangram sets and decided to use them. While one group worked on the worksheets, I went over some reiteration of concepts and helped the other group through questions from earlier. Then I introduced the tangram sets and asked them to identify various shapes and types of triangles. Then we did a few puzzles from the tangram set. This way, all children were occupied and in the end the worksheets (this was quite long than the usual 4-5 questions I give) were done by all children.

More photos here- Ananya_geometry_class

August 4th week

Sita School

On Monday we had no running or the computer classes as I was busy with the Calendar work. There is a lot of behind the scenes work with the calendar and I realized it was not an easy task! While we got the dates for the calendars done as screens for printing, we still had to assemble the images made by the children to make the other screens. This involved a lot of work after the images are done by the children. Anjali, Jane's daughter spent considerable amount of time from her schedule in doing this. It took me almost the whole day to just do some clean up on a few images (after the images are put together on a sheet to create  a theme, they are traced and then scanned. Once, scanned the dirt and spots etc. have to be cleaned up minutely in photoshop)

On Friday, Preeti could not make it to the session because of an emergency. So, it was Imo, Kamala and me. We had to work on the Skeletal system. Kamala did a good job of the introduction to the skeletal system in Kannada and had very nice interactive session with the kids. Later, we went outside the classroom to do an activity. While standing in a circle, the children had to identify the joints in the body from top to bottom. Every time they identified a joint, they would move it to ascertain the range of motion, the directions in which it can move and also relate it to the type of joint. We also discussed interesting factoids like how does a python's jaw open up to swallow animals as big as a calf, how many bones are there in the little toe of our feet etc. After the activity outside, we went inside the class room to watch a video on the skeletal system. There the children learned other interesting facts like the number of bones in the human body, what they are made of etc. At the end of the session, as a kind of immediate assessment, we played a game. I would whisper a kind of daily activity in one of the child's ears and the child would do a mime of the activity. The other children had to identify the activity and also name the joints involved in that activity. We asked the children to write down their understanding of the skeletal system at the end of the class.

More photos here- Sita_school_skeletal_system_joints_bones

Ananya


The children had dispersed for vacation the whole of this week and there was an ongoing workshop in Ananaya for teachers. I attended the whole of Thursday's session at the workshop. Prakriya school had its exams and holidays for the next few weeks and hence no games was allowed in the school. The teacher training workshop in Ananya was a lot of fun and I learned quite a few things. The session I attended was more on organizational skills and motivating oneself as an organization. It helped to build a collective vision for Ananya and define your role in it. We also came up with a plan to contribute more to Ananya in our respective roles.

August 3rd Week

 Sita School

On Monday we did our run and also did a speed workout in the open fields. we did a fast loop and a slow loop to get interval training for the children. Some of the kids were getting quite comfortable with the runs and given the right guidance can surely do longer runs. After the runs, stretching and foot drills, we all moved in the class room for a project. Marco was back from his trip to humpi and this was his last day at Sita School before he leaves. So, we canceled the computer classes for the session on Sun dials. He went through a step-by-step procedure to make a rudimentary equatorial sun dial. It was quite an experience and I joined the kids in doing it from scratch. It touched upon various concepts - geometry, trigonometry, science and geography. I made copies of the write-ups he made so that I could use it in my interaction with children of other schools. I was thinking of getting the Ananya kids excited about a real life application of geometry.

More photos here- Sita_school_sundial_session

On Wednesday, we came to know that the Team Asha 4K/8K run was cancelled. We had to make the decision because of the unprecedented fear in the city and the reluctance of the schools. Moreover, in a grand event with many kids paricipating we would be putting everybody at risk. Once, we indefinitely postponed the event, we had to inform the children who had been preparing for many weeks for this event. We had a discussion with the kids about the swine flu and the event cancellation. They all took it in the right spirit. On Friday, at Sita School they had their independence day celebration as well. It was not an over the top nationalistic festival, rather it was more reflective. In the morning, during prayer time, the children had decorated with the tricolor flags and many kids even dressed up in the tricolor theme! After the run and prayers, we had a session on the heart with the elder children. Imo had built a model and had a few videos that we had to show the children. The kid who was absent in the previous class first described her understanding of the double circulatory system and she got it right. Preeti went over the structure and functionality of the heart. She discussed the four chambers, the arteries and veins that connect to the heart and the function of valves. Imo had built a cardboard model to show how valves work (by rolling a marble through the chambers, you can show that there are only particular paths that the marble can take, with the valves opening in one direction only). We also used the paper cutout to introduce the various terms and the children went through the exercise of naming and describing the functionalities. We did lots of repition to get an assessment of their understanding. Later, a more descriptive video with special animation was screened to further the understanding of the children. We had a general question and answer session and the kids had to write down their understanding of the session to be reviewed later by me.

More photos here- Sita_school_hear_ind_day

I also got a chance to observe the kids drawing images for the Sita School and Asha calendars for 2010. The theme for this year was health and physical activity in the school. It was really heart warming and amazing to see how the kids put in pictures what we do at the school.

More photos here- Sita_school_hear_ind_day

Ananya

On Thursday, I informed the children about the Team Asha 4K/8K event cancellation. It would be tougher for the Ananya kids because this is the second time their karate demo got cancelled - The first time, Valley school refused to host the kids for a demo during the Team Asha 4K/8K running event. Amazingly, the kids were full of high spirits and comforted us in return! I promised them that we still would get an audience on Saturday and the kids can put up a show for us. We did a run to the temple and back and all the kids did stretching as well. As the days went by more and more kids are taking the stretching routines seriously. With some sort of competition introduced - for e.g. holding a brace and doing the abdominal strenthening routines to a count, helped get more kids attempt it.

On wednesday, the kids requested that the geometry class leave early as they had to practice dance for a performance. We decided to not do the geometry class and watched the kids rehearse. While, most of the dance moves were observed from movies or self taught, their enthusiasm was electric and there definitely was an interest to learn dance. A few volunteers living nearby had helped them choreograph and prepare for the performance. They have not had consistent training in dance and this is something that can be addressed.

More photos here- Ananya_run_dance

On thursday we split the class into two groups. One group used the compass to map the route from the classroom (computer lab) to the kitchen, while the other group did a worksheet on geometry. Without one of us going with the kids, some kids didn't take the activity seriously. But, they did plot the path and the idea was to get them to think of angles and geometry in map making as well.

On Saturday, we got all the runners training with Runner's High and Team Asha to run at Ananya. It was quite a day with heavy rains and blocked roads in the morning. But, we all finally did make it to Ananya. We did a 4K run to the main road and back. Many kids kept pace with the rather fast runners and ran 8K as well!

More photos here- Ananya_ind_day_run

After the run, the kids put up a karate demo show for an audience of about 40 odd people. The concentration and organized effort of the kids was amazing! Everyone were impressed by their skills and appreciated the effort. Then we had some tea , bananas and biscuits.

More photos here- Ananya_ind_day_run

Later, the kids put up a small puppet show to present what Ananya was about. The kids had come up with the dialogues and the whole plot for the puppet play!

More photos here- Ananya_ind_day_run

Many of us stayed back to play more games and had lunch at Ananya. It was a lot of fun and the kids got to present their skills and learning to an enthusiastic audience!

More photos here- Ananya_ind_day_run

Balu, an Asha volunteer wrote more about the events of the day in his post in the team asha blog 

August 2nd Week

Sita School

We found a new scenic route through the back side of the school for the Monday run. It was a very nice route that went through grass lands and eucalyptus groves. There was a big bund running across the flat lands and the kids got on top of it during the run and we all ran down the bund in full speed! The kids also jumped to get minsenkai (raw tamarind) from the tree. It was really nice to see every kid come and share her bounty with the teachers and me :) - This route was much better than the road to the school as there was a lot of open space and I also found an unused field (left barren in the off season of farming) where we could do the speed workouts. Zona and Koyla (The Sahi family dogs at Sita School) also started coming along with us for the runs! After the run and prayers, I did computer classes for the children. I wanted to introduce the concept of algorithms or programming, but without the fancy words and terminologies. We started with a discussion on cooking and I enquired if they knew how to make tea. Then I requested them to give me a description of the step by step process. As they gave me the steps in a sequence, I wrote them down on a black board. Later, we discussed other aspects of daily life that could be broken down into a sequence of steps. We also did decision making - when the sequence could take two different paths based on a decision - for e.g. Taking a bus from Silvepura to the city - We could take the Shivaji nagar bus or the market bus. Then we played a few games that could improve their typing skills and improve the ease at which they could handle the mouse or keyboard. I did similar exercises with all the three groups with variations and used a lot of english than Kannada in my interaction. Jane mentioned that if I plan the class ahead, we could introduce the words in the english classes before the computer sessions on Mondays.

More photos here- Sita_school_blood_circulation

On Friday, we did an easy run along the new route and later had a class with the elder children on 'Blood circulation'. Imo had prepared nice cutouts and props for the class. Preeti briefed the children about the concepts to be addressed in the class and the premise of double circulation in the body. She did a great job in keeping the whole discussion simple and to the point. This was a difficult concept to explain and required a lot of clarification and repition. The children used the props to explain the circulatory system. We laid down the cut outs for the heart, lungs and muscles on the ground. The children had to use the various arrow mark cutouts to show the interaction between the organs. Then, they used blue and red colored paper strips to indicate - oxygenated blood and blood carrying Carbon-di-oxide. As they described the circulatory system, they placed the appropriate paper strips to trace the path of the blood stream. We did these 3-4 times and then each child demonstrated their understanding by going through the routine for all of us. This was an example of immediate assessment on the child's understanding. We also gave them a homework for the week, asking them to do the explanation for the child who was not present for the session. The next week she would present it to the rest of the class. This would give us a good understanding of how well the children who explained it to her understood the concepts and also how well she understood the concepts.

More photos here- Sita_school_blood_circulation

Ananya

We did geometry with the kids on Wednesday and Thursday. I first brushed topics we covered in the past with a few problems I gave them. To understand angles, I brought in the concept of angles between the hands on a clock. So, starting from easier ones like 3'o'clock to tougher ones like 10:10 we gave different problems to solve for the kids. I also organized the class into informal groups. I started giving activities that kept some of the children occupied while, I helped the other children in more detailed explanation of concepts. So, I gave a few problems and an activity to do different kind of shapes with match sticks (we made it challenging by posing rules - no. of match sticks, different shapes etc.) - for e.g. I asked them to do an isosceles triangle with the least no. of sticks as possible etc. We introduced a new term - 'rhombus' and I went over different types of quadrilaterals. As homework, I asked them to create any shape or design they wanted with matchsticks and stick it on their notebooks or paper. They were also supposed to count the no. of triangles in each of the shapes.

We went on the temple route for the run - its a nice scenic route and the children prefer this route to the other ones as it has less traffic and has lot more trees along the way. There is a pond near the temple where we turn around and all kids like to get the colorful fishes there in plastic covers. They would bring it back to school and put it in the tank where they keep fishes! I suspect that the fishes motivate the children to prefer this longer route for the Thursday morning runs :)


Prakriya

On thursday afternoon, we went a little earlier to meet up with the teachers and the founder-trustee of the school, Seetha. We discussed the possibility of providing a completely organic breakfast for the Independence day run - the Team Asha 4K/8K at Prakriya. The teachers were worried about the reaction of the parents and how best to create awareness about organic food to draw a connection to ecological sensitivity. Later, I had separate discussions with the main coordination team, running through the plan for the different aspects of the run. We finally had go ahead for the younger kids to cheer all the runners! But, they would not do any posters etc. as they had no time for that. Later, I had a discussion with all teachers and encouraged them strongly to also take part in the run - It was important for teachers to be part of the run as a team - The children would love to see thier teachers interact with them in a different context - I spoke to them about Jane and how inspiring it was to see her participate in the run with the other children. We did get a few teachers who wanted to take part. But, we also had a few teachers who were not convinced about it :)

Then we did the run with the kids. The talk about the race in Prakriya excited the kids and many of them wanted to do the 4K course that day. While, there was still the kids who wanted to do their usual games and not take part in the running at all. Many kids also got to see a GPS for the first time. I explained what it does and how we use it for measuring distance. We had a fun run that day. A few kids went out too fast and struggled a bit at the turnaround point. I ran back with them and explained how to pace themselves for the run. We also discussed about nutrition, hydration etc. on the run.

More photos here- Prakriya_run

August 1st Week

Sita School

On Monday we did a short run. We also changed the schedule a bit. Instead of doing the prayer and then the run, Jane suggested that we do the run first and then the prayer gathering. This helped calm the kids down and ready for their classes in the day. In the computer classes we did a graph plot of the results from the experiments we did last friday on lung capacities. We also spent some time in reviewing the homework from last time. The children do see the use of a computer for recording and presenting data now. The next plan was to use it as a 'programming' interface. Vanya (Jane's daughter who teaches Math in the school) suggested the use of 'Scratch'. I have come across 'Scratch' in thulir and found it as a simple and very interesting way to learn programming. It's an easy to use, understand and interpret interface that lets you design your own games, stories, plays etc. I was a bit worried if the kids would be ready for programming. I was finally settled with the time intervals. I understood the time-table better and could finish classes in time :)


I had noticed that all kids (both boys and girls) have stitching classes on Friday after our sessions with them. Here is a photo of what Naina (Jane's grand daughter) did in her class with waste cloth



On Friday, our team met again - Imo, Preeti, Kamala and me. Marco a visitor to Sita School also joined in for the fun :) . Marco is a scientist and visits IISC, Bangalore. He designed the whole Sundial systems in Sita School. Over the years many schools and children have visited Sita School to just learn about the Sun dials. We did our running workout and the younger kids dispersed for their regular classes. The elder kids - Nandana and Chetana groups joined us for the class on health after the run. Preeti explained the concept of pulse rate and how we measure pulse rate in Kannada. Many interesting aspects where discussed - which arm, why near the wrist and where else can we sense the pulse rate easily? etc. We did the experiment in two groups. Firstly, we measure the resting pulse rate (by counting pulse for a minute) and then do a fast speed workout to get our heartrates up. Then the pulse rate is measured in 1 minute intervals for a min each. We all joined the kids to measure our pulse rates as well. The pulse rates were all recorded and we could see the change in pulse rate between the different stages - Resting, After activity (at different time intervals) and Recovery. We then watched a video that depicted a teadmill test which was quite similar to what we did, but had electrodes connected to the runner's body to measure the heart rate. It showed a smilar curve in terms of numbers. We then discussed how the pulse rate is connected with the heart rate. At the end of the day, we asked the children to write down their understanding and learning. I was assigned to review it on the next Monday. After the pulse rate experiment, Preeti, a few teachers from Indus International (they were trainees who had come for an educational trip) and I got a session on Sun dials by Marco. It was quite amazing to learn that the sun dials were quite accurate and that it involved a lot of skills and concepts from various fields - science, astronomy, geometry, trigonometry etc.

More photos here- Sita_school_pulse_rate_sundials

Ananya

 My geometry classes had become two in a week at Ananya. Many kids were interested and became regulars for the class. A lot of things changed as I made the class more interactive and fun. I had a long chat with Poonam (the science teacher at Ananya who has been there from the beginning) - She suggested that I break down the group and give various activities and interact with one group at a time. Meanwhile, Vanya, Jane and Gautham gave me wonderful resource material and suggestions to help make math interesting and easier to understand. We used scrap paper to do different kinds of folds to understand angles. Later, I added a paper - flapper toy (thanks to Arvind gupta's website on toys) to make it more fun.We did a few fun games and activities to learn about acute, obtuse and right angles. We also used graph paper and mirrors to understand congruency of shapes. I tried introudcing the concept of directions and using angles in depicting directions (for e.g 3 deg east off North etc - to do this activity, we used a compass and the kids tried mapping their path from the computer lab to the kitchen :) - The material I used a lot was SMP (a british program to make math more interesting) used by CFL and Sita school at times. I got the material copied for my future reference :)

Running in Ananya was also getting a bit more organized. I told the kids that there is no compulsion for them to join, but they need to get a bit more serious if they do join. We did the drills on Thursday and later we did a new kind of workout. We did some speed drills (interval training). We organized the kids into four groups and kicked off a relay. But, based on my instructions, the team kept changing (so fast that the kids could hardly owe allegiance to a single team easily :)) - This was a hard workout because, even as the kid finished her leg she would join the group by moving to the last position and the person in the first position starts as she gets the key from the runner. By the end of the run the kids were all tired and for the first time the Ananya kids had spent their energy :) - The kids had got very strong with the distances and a 4Km run was a breeze, so we decided to concentrate more on interval training. It was anyways only a week away for the Team Asha run. Many kids had already started enquiring about it :)

Prakriya

We did longer than usual distance at Prakriya. The Team asha run had a minimum of 4kms and the kids were not used to a real long run. So, we decided to do a long run on that day. After the run, I went out with Somu to figure out the course for the Team Asha run. The kids had a good time and went back to playing their games after the run. They did their stretches and drills as well before their run. I still stick to giving the option to kids to play games and not run. We have a steady group of people who do prefer to run and then play. After the run we had discussions with student group leaders and the teachers to organize the run for Team Asha on August 15th. There were multiple aspects that needed consideration - the plan was to involve the middle school also to cheer the runners and provide AID station support.  It would have been really nice to have all the kids do their own posters, beat drums, yell, scream or whistle for the runners :) - It could have brough the adrenaline levels and ethusiasm for running up. I laid down the plan for the teacher co-ordinators and discussed various aspects of organizing the run - food, course, AID station support, medics, parking, stalls etc. We even planned to have a karate demo by the Ananya kids for all the runners!