Aayi Diwali Aayi...

“A lamp emits such a light
That makes the paths bright
Dispelling the darkness around
Lamp illumines every sight.”

Diwali, The Festival of Lights is certainly the biggest and the brightest of all the festivals celebrated in India. Celebrations, festivities and happiness engulfed the entire school premises in Salwan Junior School.Our young Salwanians celebrated the festival post the Diwali break in the school with great zeal and enthusiasm starting from Kindergarten to Class V.

Diwali activities like 3D-Diya making, card making, lantern decoration, rangoli making followed by class cleanliness were to name a few from KG class. Children came dressed in their best attires for the Special Diwali Assembly to spread the message of ‘Say No to Crackers’ by KG class and ‘Clean Diwali -Green Diwali’ by Class IV. 

NIE workshops were also conducted for children of classes IV and V on ‘Thali decoration’ and ‘Toran making’. 

Various other craft activities were also done in the classes which included wall hangings, diya decoration etc. Classes were well- decorated with hand-made décor exclusively made by children. The story of Ramayana was showed to children to highlight the importance of goodness. The victory of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance aptly signifies the thought through Ramayana, thereby followed by the vast scale celebrations and hence, the festival of Diwali. 

I fantasize…

“A child‘s eyes holds thousands of dreams. He can imagine things which so not exist and may never exist.”

However, it is the imagination of a child which holds innovations and inventions of future. The project, “I Fantasize” was a spark introduced to ignite children’s creativity and help them produced it in concrete from a painting a sketch , a poem, Anything which could express their abstract thoughts.

We were able to encourage the children to:

·       Think out of the box.

·       Convert abstract thoughts into concrete creations.

·       Help sharpen their critical thinking abilities.

·       Open avenues for generating ideas without fear of rejection.

Subsequently, the children were asked to “Dream- Imagine-Create” for all creative writing activities and thus they were able to write the auto-biography of a laptop, a T.V, a mobile phone. They could imagine themselves to be the character from a story of their text book and write a firsthand account of an incident in the story. All very impressive!!!

“All they need is a gentle nudge, we may never fathom where their spirit-will take them’’

Instilling Life-Skills through Projects

“Learning to learn and being rooted to one’s roots; Learning to live with elan while you acquire skills for a life-time is the real essence of education.”

To establish the bond of the children with their parents and also to put them on the learning spiral; of sharpening their creativity; improving on their elocution skills; Life- skills; skills of asking questions etc, Desi Sports Festival was observed in the school during the month of January, 2014.

The “Desi-Games Festival”, spread across the span of a fortnight, was aimed at apprising the children about the long forgotten games of India, which their parents played as a child. “Pithoo”, “Kabaddi” and “Kho-kho”, to name a few.

The children learnt about these games and went on to discuss the same with their parents at home. This discussion brought the children even closer to their parents because now, crossing the boundaries of time, they were on the same page, sharing their experiences and the joys of their respective childhoods.

The important features of the project were:

•   It was “Inter-disciplinary” in nature, crossing the boundaries of different disciplines like

•  “Language for elocution”- During the language classes, the students shared their learning about different games and sports through Advertisement, role-play, Group  Discussion and elocution.

•   “Critical Thinking for research work” ; “Social Science” for study of National Sports of different countries”- . The children  researched and enlisted National Sports of different countries; found about unique and distinct Sports and styles and participated in Group discussions about the same.  They also used the gears related to different sports while bringing spotlight on the techniques and rules for the same.

•   “Physical Education for understanding the importance of physical activities in our lives.” The project wove and spun together different subjects to involve the students and instill in them skills like critical thinking, logical reasoning, decision making, team spirit, leadership qualities and skill of asking questions.

The festival was an amalgamation of thorough understanding of Sports, games, fitness, research, language skills and presentation skills.