Reading is a powerful medium of early literacy for children and especially important for children from challenging backgrounds. As part of a volunteering effort for Vidyamritam, Schoolkutti.com team conducted an interactive story reading session at Govt. LP School Kuryathi, Manacaud on November 25, Saturday.

The story we chose was ‘The Magic Umbrellas’ by Theertha Raj and Nancy Raj. Kids really enjoyed the suspense in the story and were quite interactive. It is a lovely book from Ms Moochie with a nice message that the children could actually relate to.

Vidyamritam group is doing a great job in encouraging under-privileged children to enter the enchanting world of books through a wide range of workshops including reading and storytelling. To feed into students’ eagerness and curiosity, Vidyamritam has also set up a nice little library for the children. Thanks to Vidyamritam for the wonderful experience. Looking forward to many more such fulfilling sessions!

Blog by George Mathew
Founder & CEO, The Wonder Years Primary Schools

The Home School Collective of Trivandrum group held a meeting at the Wonder Years Preschool on Nov 19, 2017. In the meeting it was decided to start meeting every week or once in 2 weeks at a common location with our children. During the meetings children can play and interact with each other through free or directed activities. To start with, it can be free play and then once all of us are comfortable with the concept and the kids get to know their friends, we can move to directed activities.

Directed activities are fun open activities that teach children, through fun games, stories, drama and other aids, about certain concepts. The directed activities should be taken in such a way that it keeps the inquisitiveness of children alive while not forcing a response from them. They should come for the activity on their own because they feel it is interesting.

A person who knows the subject and can articulate it in a way so as to keep children engaged should take the directed activities. If needed, we can bring in professionals in the field, the cost of which can be shared by the participating parents on a pro rata basis

Apart from the weekly meetings, other activities can be planed:
1) Field Trips
2) Charity Work
3) Farming
4) Heritage Walk
5) Creative Arts (Choir, Theater, Art & Crafts etc)
6) Workshops (Science, Robotics, Art, life skills, magic etc)

For these efforts to succeed, we need individuals who are dedicated to the cause and are willing to spend time and effort on this.

We would want to form a core group of people who will drive this forward and who can be responsible for coordinating the activities.

The ‘Toddler Story Time’ program conducted by Bina Maria Mathews at the schoolkutti.com Childen’s Library was a huge hit with both parents and the young listeners who attended the session on November 17. The book we chose this time is the all-time-favorite – ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. This unique picture book with its cute illustrations and plenty of intrigue discusses the evolution of a butterfly. The plight of the adorable caterpillar was presented with lovely props, movements and interesting expressions. Kids and parents also enjoyed singing a bunch of nursery rhymes after reading the book together.

This weekend, our young readers at Schoolkutti.com Children’s Library had a lovely time taking turns to read from the book ‘Aditi Zoo’, authored by Amrut and beautifully illustrated by Kruttika as part of the Book Lover’s Program for Schools. The children could relate to the delightful story of the little girl who desperately wants a younger sibling and the interesting animals she brings home to handle the challenges her father sets for her. Then we had fun playing word games based on circus jobs and listening to the adventures of Minny the elephant who escapes from the circus. As always, we simply loved all the excitement and the happy buzz among the kids.

For our Word Play session this week, the theme was ‘Sea Life’. Stories about life in and around the sea are always exciting for children.

In our weekend program this week, the aim was to learn about some of the animals that live under the sea. Kids enjoyed talking about sea animals (big, small, long, colours, it has / hasn’t got legs etc).

This time, the listening practise was with an ocean themed fun song ‘Everything beneath the sea’. Kids were introduced to different sea animals through stories,games and songs. It was fun describing sea animals for children to guess.

The worksheet from British Council was full of interesting activities.

Young writer and artist Malavika Thampi conducted a super fun story session at the library . She narrated the stories to the young children in such an interesting way, that all the children were charmed by her almost right away.

The thing about reading aloud to kids is that it goes so far beyond comprehension, it can be life-changing. They may forget the spelling tests and worksheets at schools, but they will remember the stories, the songs and the role plays forever.
The best part was watching the kids’ faces as they listened and interacted with our super-talented Malavika Thampi.

Our tiny tots had a great time with young and vibrant Malavika Thampi, who is doing her high school at Christ Nagar CBSE School. Thanks to her for accepting our invitation, preparing with enthusiasm and delivering a wonderfully engaging session at the library today.

Children were taught the basics of Public Speaking in a fun and relaxed manner by Renjitha Rajan, (active member of Nirbhaya Debating Society and Inter-college Debate Champ) at Session 2 of the Speak Out (Communication Development Workshop) at the Schoolkutti.com Children’s Library. Her abundant energy, passion for the subject, encouragement, effective opportunities to practice and excellent feedback tips were appreciated by the children.

Learning to read isn’t all about phonics and literacy but also about exploring, delighting and laughing. As always, we at schoolkutti strive to make children fall in love with reading. Last saturday, we captivated our little Word Play participants with another magical story – A Tiger in the House,’ which was written by Indian author Ruskin Bond. The story centers around a tiger cub Timothy who was raised as a pet, but later taken to the zoo after he started acting more like a tiger. All the children agreed that it would be awesome to have a real tiger cub as a pet.

Role plays are the most preferred part of all our Word Play sessions. Kids really enjoyed pretending and acting out as the characters in the Little Red Riding Hood. At the end, we also had some fun vocabulary challenges and animal quizzes for each age group that motivated them to ponder over words and facts.

It was an awesome Saturday morning at schoolkutti.com Children’s Library. This week, we read a story about a child experiencing the joy of finding a bird’s nest in her garden and excitedly following every development till the young birds soar into the sky. It was narrated with a touch of fun, holding the attention of the children up till the end.

After the story time, we had a vocabulary game where each and every participant won a small prize for successfully guessing the word based on the clue provided. A worksheet on birthday theme for the little ones and a story writing exercise and comprehension for the seniors followed.

Finally, we discussed the life cycle of a butterfly and explored it through an informative song based video. Our bunch of lively kids made the session special and very interactive. Looking forward to next Saturday.

Children should read for the sheer pleasure of reading and not for any other reason. How do you foster a love of reading for pleasure? At Schoolkutti.com Children’s library, there are a lot of reasons for children to fall in love with books. Every Saturday, kids have fun reading stories, singing songs, doing role plays and honing their writing skills. This weekend, a sleepy and dull morning was transformed into a bright and cheerful morning for the children listening to the magical adventures of a little boy who went through troublesome times initially, but then had a happy life with his doting father.

Role playing helps to build up confidence in speaking, while having fun. This week, we had a great time acting out the ‘Chicken Licken’ Play Script. The book about Robots generated a lot of interest and sharing of facts. In between all this, kids also enthusiastically completed worksheets and word identifying activities.