Name: Dharmangi Shukla Grade: Play House Topic: Illustrating Agenda on board……..

WHAT HAPPENED? : On our campus, the concept of discussing the agenda of the dayand designing a day, from Pre K to K2 is always done through discussion betweenteachers and students and is been listed down on the board for ready reference. But forPlayhouse children discussing the things abstractly to make them visualize their day atschool is truly difficult.

WHAT DID I DO?: I had learnt from my mentor Bella Ma’am that visuals work as a greatlearning support for the children at this tender age of 2 and half. While discussing theabove mentioned struggle with one of my colleagues, it clicked my mind and I decidedto illustrate the agenda of the day on board.

PROCESS :

I started with illustrating different animals and character of the stories on the board toattract students’ attention towards it at the beginning of the year.

Slowly gradually they got habituated towards it and started pointing and naming theillustrations “Didi, jo kana bhagwan, hathi/elephant…”.

Next step was to illustrate different pictures of particular day’s activities like bat andball, cycles, etc., to show the real objects and match it with the illustrations to give ashape and concretize their imagination. Sometimes asking them to guess when theydemonstrated their curiosity about what next…..for the day?

Thus, everyday illustrating all the designed activities for the day and discussing agendaof the day with support of those illustrations in the morning.

Thus, this routine forever became a part of my classroom practices. I even shared thisidea with my team and many of them adopted it and yield good results.

STUDENTS’ RESPONSE: At the starting of the year, students just loved to watch illustrations of different

characters of story on board and they got so habituated with it that as soon as theyenter the class, they used to go and observe the picture illustrated on board.

After practicing the idea of discussing agenda of the day through illustrations on boardconsistently for about 3-4 months, children started talking about the agenda of the daylooking just through the pictures without any support from didi. They could also talkabout the sequence of the activities i.e. what next?

They developed the habit to reflect, recollect and ask their didis to tick right mark on theactivities explored already and put a cross against the activities those remainedunexplored anyhow. They also started inquiring and giving reminders for their favouriteleft out activities to didi, just by looking at the illustrations.

By the end of the year, Students are able to reflect upon their whole day activities andexploration on basis of those illustrations at the end of the day as reflection of the day.And many of them recall and try to name the activities abstractly in sequence withouttaking support of illustrations, answering the word “then”.

They are so much fascinated and habituated to it, that if we keep our board blanksometimes due to some reasons, 1st thing they inquire about as soon as they enter theclass is: “Didi aaje kem kai nathi draw karyu? Aaje aapne aakho divas su karvanu che?”

Many of our children try to copy/illustrate the pictures of the activities in agenda likeslate and chalk, fruits, bat and ball… on the slates/floor while scribbling with chalk.

MY PARTNER’S RESPONSE:

My Partner takes up this routine as completely new learning from me to her that catersthe needs of children at playhouse level. She practices it regularly, even in my absence.She feels that it keeps us as well as children focused and serves many purpose i.e fulfillsfew criteria of our report card, like checking the memory of children at regular intervals,to know whether they can understand meaning of next/then, informal sequencing,encourages thinking, etc. She was the one who motivated me to take up this topic as myWalo 2, because she finds it new as well as completely age appropriate for Playhousekids.

My Partner Discussing Agenda of the day…………. MY COLLEGUEAS’ RESPONSE: Along with others, one of my colleagues is also trying to

practice the idea consistently in her class from the beginning. She shared that it’s reallyhelpful at this age level and is serving many purpose related to report card even, as Imentioned above. Her students are so much hooked with it that now by the end of theyear, they are able to visualize the activities, even if it’s not illustrated properlysometimes. They also counter question the teacher, if there is some last momentchange in sequence or activity than the ones illustrated on board. They do talk aboutthe next activity too.