Topi-logy!

02/05/10: Topii making. Made a lot of topiis! 8-9 different kinds with paper! Then solved some puzzles on demand! That's the first thing they asked for! Pooja, Priti, Mahesh, Irfan, Tushar, Akshay, - attendance in photos! Will upload soon!

I loved this class!

05 - Jul - 2009 (Sun)
A long standing problem was addressed in this class. A lot of kids do a lot of things in class, many a times! Today, kids were asked to interview themselves and people from their area on "How a class should be"! The interviews + kids' thoughts were put together and the kids themselves made rules on how they should behave in the class. These rules are now stuck on the classroom door and kids seem to follow them so far! :) This class was a long one and describing it in words is something I won't be able to so I won't even attempt!

Next class:

Played a lot at BC. Didii was late and hence, according to the rules made by the kids, she was to be punished. They unanimously agreed upon no-studies-only-play punishment for Didii! :) 2 new volunteers Deepika and Ranjini had come to the class, and playing a game together helped in better bonding of new Didiis and the kids.

Sagar!

Ajay says:
Hi everyone.
Here is the update for the session on 22/01/2012.

Ruby didi brought her friend Sagar to class. The kids were really excited to meet him. They gathered round him and started talking with him. Sagar shared a lot of jokes with the kids. Sagar also imitated various filmstars. The kids found this highly entertaining. Sameer in particular jelled well with Sagar.

Later, Sagar showed the kids his watch. The kids were amazed at his ability to read time from a braille watch. He later took out his stick. Sachin Bhaiyya and I asked the kids if they remembered the basic features of the stick. To our delight, most of them did.

Sagar later told the children about himself about his passion for music and how he copes and manages daily. Sagar also explained to the children the concept of braille. Then the class recited the song, "Little drops of water and sand make the ocean and the great land."

Phir, Sagar ne hamari shyam aur bhi haseen bana di. Ek badhiya raag gaa kar unhone hamara man jeet liya.

We then concluded the session.

This brilliant entertainer Sagar sure was a treat to all! Hope he returns!

Ayub Irani is a sick man!

13/02/10: This is the day when German Bakery is blasted. This is the day when I watch probably the greatest movie ever made in Marathi- Harishchandraachii Factory. This is the day I get to know about the rape of young girl from Patil Estate by Ayub Irani of the Irani basti.

22/02/10: Big event by KKPKP outside Patil Estate. Great posters they had brought. Anu Aga of Thermax had come in person! Met them all. They had displayed eve-teasing posters too. Saddest part- event attended by ladies mostly. When will our men learn???
All I wanted to do is, go to Irani bastii, scream out the name of Ayub Irani, paint his door, make a big scene in front of his family and the bastii about what a useless life he is leading. Krunal stops me!

Mathematical thinking and Sagar Chopde Patil!

9th and 10th Jan: Me, Hemant, Asim; all at Chopda! No class. :(
16/01/10: Only Sham and Akshay studied. Rest kept running around. Quite demoralizing! But are we not used to it? :D

17/01/10: Well, I had office so went an hour late. And guess what?! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Asim and Hemant - new teachers at Pankhudi! These two were continuing the topics from last class so beutifully! I was stunned! Fractions and their arithmatic was the topic of study. And I saw kids painting chess board squares to denote 2/3rd, 1/10th, and so on! These are the concepts that really really need to be understood well. And the kids are really not good at these basic things still. Anyway. They could do it within a sqaure. What about dividing a circle?

23/01/10: Zarna. She continued the topic. Circle!

24/01/10: Chopda's here! Zarna's birthday. No class!

26/01/10: Empress Garden for ever! Lovely lovely day! Still, point to be noted is that these kids don't like common picnics! They want exclusively their batch picnics only!

30/01/10: Asim, Hemant, Sumeet and me! Naseer and one more new kid joins us. This is Sumeet's first class. We are still getting the area concepts right through the Indian map. Kids have been given the problem of making the Indian flag. They're to calculate how much each colour cloth will be required, how much total cloth will be required, and so on. The idea is that they learn areas through this activity. Sumeet and Naseer instantly pair up! Naseer = sincerety personified! Amazing guy! He just wants to work hard! I wish the others learn from him! Sumeet starts off with some combinatorics problems. Sham's full of creative thinking. Irfan and Akshay are number too. Naseer too, picks up. Pooja and Naseer stay back longer, solving the problem of finding the sum of first 72 numbers!


31/01/10: Hemant alone! All sitting near the river. They studied for some time. They all enjoyed the formations of boats in the river. Kids clicked a lot of photos through Hemant's phone. Then Hemant asked them to draw pictures of the river scene. Pooja drew beautifully. Some others were also not too bad. This is a good exercise. Can be extended in some other class full time.

06/02/10: Sagar Chopde Patil- the guy who's cycling the whole of India planting trees, was invited to the class. Kids interacted with him. It was an effort towards making them understand environmental issues. Sumeet's M.Prakash coaching officially started from this day. He was all set with all the textbooks.  Till post 8pm. Textbooks already with Sumeet.

07/02/10: Sham's creative intelligence marked the day! He solved Sumeet's questions amazingly. Others do not possess this ability. Only if Sham could concentrate better! Need to work on this. Class went on till post 5pm at BC, by the river. Till the time it was dark enough to not be able to read/write.

13/02/10: Class goes on from 5 to 8! Pooja and Nasir are the main culprits. These kids don't just stop studying! We're following their textbooks and studying everything chaper by chapter. Making them prove things. Of course, all this, under the able guidance of Sumeet. He's taking care of Pooja and I'm trying to keep the remaining junta occupied!

14/02/10: Record! 2pm to 7:30pm! Pooja's Maths textbook is nearly accomplished! Competition means a lot to her. She always peeps into Nasir's book to make sure that she's ahead of him. Nasir is least bothered about others. Completely concentrating on his work. Just that he's too weak in some basic concepts. He's done everything till date through the most used method so far: pattern matching. Hmmm... Let's see. Others couldn't keep up their patience beyond 1.5hrs.