August 5th week

Sita School


On Monday after our usual run through the new found scenic route, we did our stretches and foot drills. I have realized that for a couple of kids the canvas shoes was not doing any good. We have to replace the shoes with a wider better make. We later did the computer classes with the children. I introduced a new activity, going outdoors. I asked them to map the path from the computer lab to Sita School's kitchen. They used the compass to get directions and counted steps in each direction to arrive at a sequence of instructions to get from one point to the other. For one of the groups, I also introduced a variation in the activity, with one person closing her eyes (or blindfolded) and the others giving directions to help the person arrive at a point in the shortest time possible. We later played a few games that helped improve their typing speeds and also their vocalbulary.


On Friday after our run, we spent almost all the day in helping with the printing of the calendars. Meanwhile, Preeti and Kamala had a discussion to review kamala's write-up in Kannada to be sent to the organization supporting a fellowship for her. They also discussed the plan going forwards and what has been achieved so far etc. The calendar work was quite exhausting and involves all the elder children. Sita school helps the children write the 7th standard open exams and helps to mainstream them in the 8th or provide vocational skills to help children become socio-economically independent. The money to support children in their further education or vocational skills after sita school is raised from selling these calendars. They have been doing calendars for more than 30 years now. Asha has partenered recently to help create awareness about Asha through Sita School calendars and also better sell the calendars. The printing is a manual process and required a lot of skill. One person had to swipe the ink through the screen on to the handmade paper and only Anjali could do it properly. The rest of us (childrem, teachers and volunteers) had different roles in the pipeline as we placed, dried and checked for smudges etc.

More photos here- Sita_school_calendars_teamasha_trip

On Saturday, we had organized a team asha run at Sita School. We all got together at Cubbon park and car pooled from there. It was a lot of fun and all the runners got a chance to learn more about an Asha supported effort. The children did a great job running with the gang and also helping them out. We had a tasty breakfast and got a tour around the school. There is a more detailed report in my post in the team asha blog

More photos here- Sita_school_calendars_teamasha_trip

Ananya


We did a speed workout with the kids and did the train workout with two trains. The train workout is a very good team building exercise as it keeps the really fast ones patient and encourages the runners who are slower. The focus is not as much on the individual going fast as its not easy to draw a comparision, but on the team together moving at a faster pace. But, there are also some disadvantages if not monitored appropriately. If one kid goes too fast and breaks the train, it can disintegrate! We learned that with the Ananya kids! After the stretches and foot drills, we did the geometry class with the children. I had prepared worksheets for the kids and Preeti helped make a lot of copies as well. I explored the material available in the cupboard of resource material in Ananya. I found a lot of tangram sets and decided to use them. While one group worked on the worksheets, I went over some reiteration of concepts and helped the other group through questions from earlier. Then I introduced the tangram sets and asked them to identify various shapes and types of triangles. Then we did a few puzzles from the tangram set. This way, all children were occupied and in the end the worksheets (this was quite long than the usual 4-5 questions I give) were done by all children.

More photos here- Ananya_geometry_class