Quotes and children?

genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration

By Thomas Alva Edison

This quote has impressed on me the most of all the other quotes that I have read. Every now and then when I am reminded of my limitations, I take solace into this quote -- in some sense this quote acts as a guiding light to work hard, to achieve one's goals and not be lured by shortcuts in life.

Can these knowledge nuggets help us in knocking down our internal demons? I wanted to see if quotes should also become a part of child's learning process. Let me know what you think about this in the comments below?

What makes a parachute to float in the air?

While thinking about the experiential curriculum for these young ones, one exciting project that came to my mind was the idea of a parachute.

I am aware of the concept of parachutes and how it works -- however, am confused how would a 7 year old would understand it? If you have any suggestions please write back.

Rain Water Harvesting?

So a follow-up to the yesterday's post:

How would you teach the concept of rain water harvesting to a 7 year old? or do you need to teach this concept to the child's parents?

Let's see if the viewers have an interesting take on this. BTW, these are few of the concepts that would be part of our soon to be launched block Classes -- so let's brainstorm so that the children of tomorrow are the most enlightened, courageous and thoughtful that India has ever produced :).

Children need to know!

While working at the activity aspects of our experiential curriculum, I came up with an idea for theSchoolBlog. Our focus for block Classes (an afterschool product by buildingBlocks) is absolutely on stress free, experiential based learning. So, we are innovating on how we can excite children to understand/engage with day to day scientific phenomenon.

I thought -- may be we can use this incredible power of internet to come up with innovative ways to think about how can we introduce these concepts in the blockClasses?

The first in the series of the several concepts is why can't humans fly? In case if you have an answer which can be understood by 6 year old -- please post it on the comments section. It will be interesting to see how the top-notch schools (DPS, Modern, SPV etc) introduce this concept -- in case if you have an idea.

How Delhites curse the blessings in their life?

After r2i'ing last year, my most precious moments using public services are very few -- actually only two. One when I am walking on the inner circle of Cannaught Place and the second one when I am travelling on Delhi Metro. Both the interactions have something levelling or equitable about them. While walking in the inner circle in CP, I for one time feel that a chaotic city like Delhi can also provide that equitable ambience to its citizens - where one is not rudely reminded of the various classes that exist in Delhi (rich -- people who have big cars and the poor pedestrian).

A similar actually much more deeper feeling of equity can be experienced when one travels in Delhi Metro. It's for the first time in Delhi that one gets a feeling of being equal. No body is rich, poor, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian for one time -- we are all travellers wanting to reach our destinations and enjoying the mode of travel. We are very proud of this mode -- it has inculcated in us the culture of standing in queues, the culture of being respectable to our elders, the culture of compassion towards other travellers, it has saved so much creative energy in us -- some economist can compute the productivity, it has provided much needed freedom for our women. All in all, I think Metro has done something that hundreds of temples, yagnas and political speeches have not been able to achieve for Delhi -- its contribution is incredible and we should be thankful to all those who were involved in the making of the METRO.

So, when I saw this article a desperate plea from a man whom many of us respect from bottom of our heart, I could not wait but promote the plea on this blog -- so I would request all the readers of this blog to contribute in their own way to eliminate the curse looming large on our blessing. May be you can talk about the ways in which we can improve our Metro as well.

Note: The above pic has been taken from the website of Hindustan Times (www.hindustantimes.com).

Very first Holi Celebrations

We had our first Holi celebration at buildingBlocks. The team was presence in full strength and was equal to the challenges thrown at them.

As an organization, we take pride in our collective creativity and our diversity of experiences. So, Holi was a great time for us to see how we can apply our diverse and creative minds to come up with something which has nothing to do with software, websites, educational materials (the usual stuff we produce).

We decided to throw ourselves into the rings of collage making. There were two teams: circle blocks (the communicators: Bharti and Aditya) and triangle blocks (the softies: Yogita and Vinod).

The theme was simple Holi and buildingBlocks/imom. We got some expert judges also involved in the whole process: Upma (Designer of paridhan fame) and our very own Dr. Neha Gupta. The competition was intense and victor decisive – overall we had a lot of fun with some colors, gujia, wonderful salad and incredibly creative collages. Here’s thanking all the members of buildingBlocks team a big thank you for their incredible camaraderie and initiative.