Lilchatterboxes

No matter how dark it is, no matter how hard it looks, believe in yourself and keep looking for sunshine ☀️ 🌱
Woke up this morning to see a pin head size radish seed moving mountains 🏔️ 🪴

With the festival of lights vibe still lingering in the air, I decided to tell my children a story about little dots of fire. This beautifully illustrated picture book ‘Basava and the dots of fire’ by is about a village boy and his interaction with dots of fire. Kids were intrigued. What are these dots?

The story is very simple but it opened the window for many meaningful discussions. For one, I got to know about their fears. Getting lost, fear of swimming pool, fear of injection, fear of tigers, being some of them.

Since the book is set in the night, I also noticed that these young children perceived a lot of things that were black or dark brown as dirty. Children's perceptions of color, associating brown and black with dirtiness, can be pretty straightforward - because dirt is in fact brown or black. But, what if they are exposed to stereotypes that link certain colors to negative connotations?

I made a mental note. I must read more books to children that promote and celebrate the beauty of all colors to help children develop a positive and unbiased perspective. Two very recent books that immediately come to my mind are Beauty is missing .books and I’m so much more than the color of my skin

Do you have any more book suggestions for us? Pls share!

History and its incidents are usually just boring facts for children told by adults as seen by adults. I say boring because I feel most of the times kids are not able to relate to the events or the stories of the past.

‘My Father’s Courage’ by is set in the time when British imposed Salt tax on Indians and Gandhiji protested against it through his famous Dandi March.

The book is told from the perspective of a ten year old boy who gets caught in the flux when British took his father away for harvesting salt. The book wonderfully projects his feelings of sadness and confusion and his attempts to make sense of everything. It shows how his life gets affected in his fathers absence.
And how eventually when Gandhiji passes his village he feels hopeful that his father might be freed.

When I read it, kids related to all the emotions the boy felt. And the discussions lead to children self discovering the facts about Gandhiji’s famous Dandi March. That I think is a win!

Also while the story tries to deliver a difficult idea, the illustrations are very bright and colourful and makes one feel upbeat from the beginning.

Just the perfect book to be read to kids on Gandhiji’s birthday!

Sometimes even I get confused between my babies while going through their baby pictures! They are but they have so much resemblance that it amazes me! Don’t miss that curly tuft of hair at the exact same spot!!!

👫

I asked kids to express the story we did in class through a drawing. Most of them found it hard and initially asked me to draw or have an image to color. Today’s kids live in a very simulated environment. So, to pause and think to create something original, felt hard. But I was very sure that I wanted them all to express the story uniquely through their lens.
I knew they could do it. Kids have terrific imagination there’s no way they couldn’t do it. They just needed a kick start! Look what lovely presentations they came up with. I feel so proud!

A part of a majestic banyan tree fell down in the neighbourhood and I found this bunch of kids extremely concerned about the how and why of it. Even more heartwarming, they were all talking about the plight of their beloved tree and contemplating what should they do next.

When discussions come out of the classrooms and happen real time, that’s true learning!

Children’s interpretation of the rainbow fish! A wonderful story by Marcus Pfister that my class loved!