Summer Camp has begun !
Here's what we did in Week 1 :
Day 1 :
Level 1:
Session1 was Magic Ball - a show and tell session that involved creative visualisation. Anuradha Vinod kicked off the ball with various visualisation exercises where the children themselves became the magic ball , they played a pass the magic ball game where each had to look into the ball and "see" the future. They had a show and tell session on "If I had a magic ball..." - they came up with innovative answers and some interesting problems too...like the problem of "power cuts" , the problem of " waking up early " ,the problem of "no junk food in summer camp" !
Session 2 was a voice training session with Ms Gurpreet Ghosh . The children went through a set of read out loud exercises on vowel sounds and diction exercises
Level 2:
Ms Gurpreet Ghosh had a voice expression session with the seniors which was basically an exercise on expressing emotions through the voice. The children had to read passages with incongruous emotions for e.g happy passages in a sad voice, an exciting piece of news in a dead pan voice etc .There was a lot of laughter that broke the ice and brought together this group of preteens and teens into a team
Session 2 was on creative visualisation with the magic ball with Ms Anuradha Vinod where the children played a game on " How to solve the issues that plague the world around us with a Magic Ball ". Solutions to poverty, world peace ,war etc was proposed by our creative thinkers .There was an attempt at "fortunetelling " where some creative children started peering into the ball to see the future . The children were made into two groups that scripted and enacted a small play around the magic ball
Day 2:
Level 1
The children were completely in the land of make believe today . They had come dressed as princes/princesses to attend a royal ball .Session 1 with Ms Sujatha Ashwin started with the Cinderella storytime and the children enacted the whole story after hearing it .
There was an impromptu royal ball where the children did a bit of lighthearted ballroom dancing .
Session 2 was a Royal Fashion show. Each prince/princess was bestowed with a magic wand . Brandishing the wand , each child enthusiastically declared what His/Her Royal Highness wanted. If I were a Prince/Princess ....they launched off into wanting " Good Handwriting", "To be able to speak to animals" ,"To become invisible", "To banish breakfast" ,"to be able to sleep whenever they wanted " and so on..
Level 2
While the juniors were having fun the seniors were hard at work with intensive script reading and dialogue delivery sessions in theatre with Ms Gurpreet Ghosh. The children read and enacted from the script of "Goopy Gaine Baagha Baaine" directed by Ms Ghosh at our theatre workshop . We unearthed a lot of acting talent that day during the play reading session
Day 3
Level 1:
Ms Gurpreet Ghosh started off Session 1 with "Babel Fish" where the children learnt to say - Hello, Thank You , How are You ?, I want to play with you , I am from Hyderabad , Good Bye etc in 10 languages including Spanish , German, French etc .The objective was to sensitise them to different cultures and languages.
Session 2 with Ms Anuradha Vinod was all about creating awareness about nature. There was a simple presentation which she made on a big screen TV , followed by a Quiz and a few simple games like "Tiger Tickles " etc
Level 2:
Ms Anuradha started the day with "Nature Friends Forever " - a GK session on animals and living close to nature . This was followed by a nature quiz.The children all received copies of "Pala Pitta" - the newsletter issued by the Wildlife Education Wing of the Forest Dept , AP
Session 2 was Babel Fish with Ms Gurpreet Ghosh - the same as above - with the only difference that the children being older could actually try and hold a conversation in different languages
Day 4:
Level 1:
Ms Ayushi Sanghi took the first session on General Knowledge for the Juniors with facts about the country , festivals , important events , people and places which were taught through a game and also with appropriate songs.
The second session was Block Printing with Ms Ayushi and Ms Keerthika .Here the children learnt how to make the paint for the blocks and to design their own block printed hand made paper folders.
Level 2 :
Glass Painting was taught in a double session by Ms Indra Linga. Since we had overshot the time budgeted because Glass Painting took a long time, we compensated for the GK on Environmental Awareness which was planned for Day 4 as the second session , by combining it with Session1 on Day 5
Day 5 :
Level 1:
The first session for the young children with Ms Revathi Sridhar was on Carnatic Music appreciation and awareness - they learnt the seven Swaras ., a simple Ganesh Mantra and a simple Ganesha song.
The second session Table Manners and Etiquette with Ms Ayushi Sanghi was an intensive role play session where dos and don'ts were enacted and discussed. We had a proper table setting and the children were also taught the right way to sit , to eat , to use a knife and fork , how to ask for food , how to chew etc ..The handout given to the children can be laminated into a place mat for them.
Level 2:
The first session on table manners had practical demonstration and hands on training with Ms Ayushi Sanghi on the right way to behave at a table.The handout given to the children can be laminated into a place mat for them.
We also ate into a bit of our break time and finished the EV Quiz that we had planned for the children yesterday. Right from the Greenhouse effect to the Top pollutants the young quizzers were upto speed on whatever questions we were throwing at them . The Quiz was tied , but fun was had .
The second session was a very involved Carnatic Music Introduction session with Ms Revathi Sridhar , where children who had not ever sung Carnatic songs before where gently introduced into the ocean with a few easy songs while the experienced ones where given a more challenging Nama Ramayana and a few simple krithis to swim wth.
Day 6 :
Level 1:
The first session was the "Music Competiton " with the very young children who sang/recited "Ganga Jatadhara", "Janta Varisai","Sarali Varisai" , "Hanuman Chalisa","Lambodara",Vakra Thunda","Gayathri Mantra","Do Re Mi "etc(the last by the way was sung with great vim and vigour by a little boy with an adorable lisp". All won prizes awarded by theJudge of Day and also our Guest of the Day , Ms Sowmya Sridhar , an accomplished Carnatic Musician and AIR artiste .
The second session was "Art for Life"- Art with Sponge by Ms Indra Linga where the children were encouraged to come up with their own art work with different pre cut sponge pieces
Level 2:
Mathletes was the first session . The children pitted their problem solving and speed math skills against each other . Each group had children of mixed ages to level the playing field . There was hot competition for the top slots and we had a very close finish .
Session 2 was the eagerly awaited one with our Special Guest of the day Ms Sowmya Sridhar who took the children through a very well planned and well delivered dialogue on Carnatic Music. She kept the tone light , the music fun and best of all she made it very relevant to the children by drawing paralells between Bollywood music and Carnatic Music and by discussing raga origins of popular songs with the children. The children also had prepared well for this interaction with a set of questions that they wanted to ask her and hopefully they took home some knowledge and a lot of inspiration after this interaction .
We loved the first week and can't wait for the second !
Second week's schedule is
here
The photos of the first week can be found
here