Global Pledge

It was our read aloud time and I was reading ‘Krishnavtar’. After fun filled reading about Krishna’s wonderful childhood, it was romantic story of Radha and Krishna. Children were so absorbed into story that they feel connected with Krishna and his bonding with Radha. When Radha’s father closed her into the room –children were sad and when Krishna enters from roof and take Radha to play ‘Ras’ it brought sign of relief and happiness. Again Krishna’s talk with his elders about his marriage with Radha again made them tense!

There was three problems- Radha was from lower cast, She was elder than Krishna and She was already engaged with Ayyan. Why Krishna can’t marry to Radha? – difficult to accept and more difficult to understand reasons behind. Megh was asking me again and again Why? It was something very new for him. After long discussion asking same questions again and again and getting explanations from different ways he was at least OK with age difference and what’s engaged means and what it makes difference. But cast problem kept him asking longer and by now Ashna was already sleeping – only me and Megh into conversation.

Conversation went longer, don’t remember exactly what I was sleepy but last words from Megh’s mouth I will never forget. “Then it should be like ‘Earth is my country . All humans are my brothers and sisters’ instead 'India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters'”.

Nanu-nuk!

A 14 pages story book by us. Story by Megh, drawing and written by me, colouring by Ashna.


Nanu-nuk is a baby fish. It has shiny red colour and it is always smiling. It likes to swim and play too. It has many colourful friends.


It plays hide and seek with it's friends sometimes. And sometimes plays chasing each other. A boy came with fishing net one day. Nanu-nuk stuck in it.


Boy thought oh! this is little baby. He left it in water. Nanu-nuk got happy and thanked that boy in it's heart. Another day that boy again came to swim in the river. Again he met Nanu-nuk and Nanu-nuk slightly bitten on his nose.


The boy smiled and swam chasing behind Nanu-nuk . That day Nanu-nuk found a new friend and then they all friends played lot together.

Writing

Spirit – stallion of the Cimarron is his most favourite movie since long and his love for horses developed by watching this movie. He see dreams of horse, draws pictures of horses, sometimes enjoys rides, makes stories and sometimes visits stables near our home with Nikhil. We have books about different horses and horse care which are his favourite too. He wanted to write about horse and needs lines on bond paper, so I have given him this page and like it was difficult to control enthusiasm he wrote whole page within few minutes. That’s magic of passion.

I like horse. I like horse since I have seen movie ‘Stallion’. It is so loyal and strong. I love it’s loyalty and for that I see that movie again and again. I’m thinking about having one horse and it will be like stallion. My horse will be white & black. I have seen horse eating grass. I want Kathiyawadi horse and I will have. Horse knows swimming since birth. I will never use bridle with my horse.

Writing is a skill which requires practice but practice with and without will is totally different. When we started homeschooling Ashna was a reluctant writer, how can 3-4 yr old child in close classroom would like repetitive writing? At least not easy for my free spirited daughter. Classroom environment was suffocating for her. It took longer to remove her mental blocks against writing but today I can see ‘I love writing’ in almost all her books.

Megh loves to make books. He often writes his magazine ‘Ravi’ and give us for reading on Sunday but not regularly. Ravi might contains 2-3 pages and some writings, drawings, games or whatever comes to his mind. Sometimes back he had written a recipe book….Khao,Pio, Jalsa Karo! In this 3 recipes book he has shared items he can prepare independently and really tasty!

Creative writing comes from within. Language readiness for writing comes with reading and practice but development of fine motor skill is required for writing skill. Megh is a child who loves activity and you can find him busy with his own carpentry, gardening, machine designing, knowing things ….means one or other way always using his hands so even I know Montessori methods and have many equipments ,I have hardly used them with Megh….but yes, sandpaper letters found effective to know curves of letters by fingers.

Reading

Our Doodhwala asked to Megh “Hey, you are not going to school…do you know reading?” He just smiled and nodded.

Learning language starts with the birth. Child listens so much around and starts picking up words and speaks. Then learn alphabets and start reading…I think that’s common in almost everybody’s learning. But there is difference…in reading. More you absorb life more meaningful will be your reading. And that meaningful reading keeps child interested in reading further. So, according to me this ‘Absorbing Life’ is very important in reading and it requires freely explore the world around. The more a child know things, people, plants, animals, fragrances, feelings etc. with his all senses the more powerful will be his understanding about world and more he connect himself with it. When such real life experiences he reads in books it instantly connects him to reading. So roots of reading are deeper than people guess. Early reading starts from lots of talk, exploring world around, introducing picture books, storytelling and read-aloud routine….and it’s not tough but fun in fact!

So, all this is preparing soil and sowing seed which is most important…now how we did daily watering.

I’m very poor in keeping records, … but my blogpost dated January, 2009 says I have introduced sandpaper letters to Megh at 3 and ½ year of his age…it was wonderful experience as he loves touch experiences and same time developed interests in Gujarati alphabets. I have made sandpaper letters using 0 no. sandpaper and waste card boards collected from a friend and kept reachable to Megh. Whenever he wished he bring that bag to me and we start moving fingers on letters and slowly started identifying them. Then started identifying letters from real life print world and within no time 34 letters were known to him! It was achievement for me after facing reading reluctance with Ashna after 4 years of schooling.

After alphabets I have started making cards of his favourite things and characters. Pooh, Eva, Almond, Carrot etc. and loved connecting picture cards with respective word cards. When need of more difficult words arise I made a Toran of Gujarati vowels and it was more effective with song k,ka,ki,kee,ku,koo….. Now no need of any more cards and he started reading from wherever he can. Once he read a scheme at Amul’s counter which was out of my sight and we took advantage , such experiences show him advantage of reading and encouraged to read more.

Along with all this we have regular routine of storytelling and read aloud. Early reading book from NBT,CBT and Pratham were good at building confidence that ‘I can read book’.

All these knowing alphabets, connecting cards or reading books activity never extended more than 10-15 minutes a day and that too not regular only when he wished. We have early reading books in hindi too and he picked it up himself and without I know how, he learnt reading Hindi!

English is not our day to day language. Megh liked exploring starfall.com and thus developed knowledge of phonics, started reading K&Y’s books and simple words from around. Building confidence reading early reading books in English now.

This is ‘reading’…part of our learning and here is a conversation between me and Megh y'day.....

For what this 'Boring' sticker?
Do you have any book that you don't like?
No, but I can stick 'boring' to all my favourite books!
Why?????!!!!!!!!!!!
I like to read them so much that I wish they never end but they ends and I don't like that!