SAIIER 2020:Nandanam Kindergarten
Nandanam Kindergarten is a space for experiencing Integral Education in the practical, psychological and other levels of being for the children, teachers and parents. Children from 2½ to 6½ and up to 7 years blossom in this beautiful, precious space, the Nandanam Kindergarten.
We begin with the understanding that “The first principle of true teaching is that nothing can be taught” and that “The teacher is not an instructor or a task master but a helper and a guide”. We frequently work through projects because it is a very effective and holistic educational tool, starting with topics that children are interested in and then widening the learning horizons each time. We essentially and strongly feel that the children need to have the freedom to explore the world within and around them and to grow at their own pace and in their own way, trying always to come in contact with their psychic being and being guided by it.
We therefore try to balance between these two ways of working (planned activities and freedom/free play) as we also try to balance between group activities, where children learn to coordinate with their friends and develop social qualities, and individual activities where they have the freedom to do things in their own way.
There are 4 groups (Jalam, Prithvi, Vayu and Agni) in Nandanam Kindergarten. Below, a report of an all-school collective project is followed by a report from each group.
An all school project – Celebrating the Auroville Birthday Week:
This project was offered to about 50 children ages 3 to 6 years and involved 15 teachers. In short, it was a collective project in which all the groups took part and several activities were done in a mixed-age group.
The 21st of February is the birthday of Mirra Alfassa, The Mother, who is the founder of Auroville; and the 28th of February is Auroville’s birthday. During this week all schools are closed and the community celebrates the Birthday week collectively, through many nurturing events. To stay in tune with this and to prepare the children for the birthday week, we ran a project at school for the first three weeks of February 2020.
First week:
In general the children are quite familiar with each other as all the classes have occasion to play freely together during recess, in the playground or when we have a special collective celebration for Diwali, Christmas, Pongal etc. We also hold a weekly ‘Big Circle’ where all the classes come together to sing and play some circle games. Yet, for this project, we wanted to go deeper and wider. As one of the key aspirations of Auroville is ‘Human Unity’, by holding a collective sports week we felt that the children would not only get more aligned and grounded in their bodies, but also learn to connect with each other in a caring, trusting and joyful manner.
Thus during that week every morning we played various sports activities in mixed-age groups, where often the older children supported the younger ones, accepting their limited capacities with generosity, while the younger ones learnt to open up and trust the older children. Both the teachers and the children connected more deeply with each other during this week, leading towards the first small steps of the ‘Human Unity’ we aspire towards.
Second week:
During the second week we decided to go wider and explore Auroville Township. The two older classes went to the Visitor’s Centre to view the permanent exhibition on Auroville, explore the model of the Auroville Town Plan displayed there, and watch short documentaries both on Auroville and Matrimandir. Many questions arose and interesting discussions took place. They got a glimpse into the real raison d’être of Auroville and Matrimandir. Though children go regularly to Matrimandir, during the project we made special visits to observe and understand it more in detail, particularly related to the twelve qualities and their colours. All the classes did related activities in the classrooms by drawing the Auroville communities where children lived, building roadmaps, making houses etc., each according to their age groups.
Third week:
With the help of an Architect parent, on the floor of the assembly hall we drew a big map of Auroville. In the classes children made models of their houses, made trees and plants in the craft corner and even sprouted grains to create natural greenery. Class by class children placed their houses, trees etc. in the appropriate locations in the big map, and a rich and vibrant model of the Auroville Township emerged.
In order to focus on the multicultural aspect of Auroville and to help children effectively realize that they actually lived in an international community striving towards the ‘Human Unity’, we invited all the parents of the sixty children to a potluck lunch, requesting them to cook something typical from their culture. This led to a grand finale where parents served the children, describing to them the dishes they had prepared, the sheer variety of which was an amazing sensory exploration for the children.
Outcomes:
Through this project children learnt to open up to their immediate community – the Nandanam family – and to be confident, responsible and caring. They gained a better understanding of the township where they live and the true purpose and aim of life. All this was experienced at their own levels, through simple but relevant activities that the children enjoyed thoroughly.
Parents were very happy to contribute through the potluck and really appreciated the project.
To share deep inner values in a simple direct and non-pedantic manner is not always so evident, especially to small children. That through the project this was achieved was a very gratifying and big learning experience for all the teachers.
Reflections:
We realized that the collective sports week in mixed-age groups was very beneficial for the children. Thus we would like to do it more frequently, incorporating it in our regular program. As this was our first attempt, we learnt a lot from it and have many ideas on how to improve it.
Conclusion:
We plan to take up the project next year again, with fresh inspiration and more ideas as we found it to be very beneficial for the children.
Jalam Group (2 ½ to 3 ½ years):
This year Jalam was a full group of 16 children (7 boys and 9 girls), with predominantly Indian nationality. At the very beginning our aim was to establish a pleasant relationship with children so that they can leave their parents to get back to their work in school without crying. We started to build a relationship based on love and mutual trust. For that we had to create the space for mingling since there were small groups playing naturally. In the beginning we were 3 main teachers with different helpers which helped in the group to settle in faster.
Our aims this year were
- To create a harmonious, loving and nurturing environment for children to trust and settle in.
- To help children socialize from parallel play to interacting with each other. It is important to develop this over time by creating spaces for the children to interact within free play, structured activities and arts and crafts.
- Towards integral growth through a variety of sensorial experiences, to help children develop their faculties for overall personal growth.
- To make children familiar and comfortable with English, the main language of instruction for their future education. We were committed to talk in English with the children so that they can interact with peers in another language that rarely is their mother tongue. This helps them make an effort to get out of their comfort zone of the language and explore new areas of knowledge and experience.
- To have a good communicative rapport with the parents so that together we create a beautiful understanding for the integral growth and development of our children.
Our class was set up as corners like sand, lego, play dough, puzzles and crafts for the children. They could move freely from one place to another. The facilitators flowed with the needs of the children. We created the space to explore sensorial and social skills, so that the mingling happened naturally which helped us to move forward towards group activities.
We tried to speak in simple small sentences in English and repeated them several times till the children were familiar with them. Circle time, snacks and lunch table, these were the places where children practiced speaking the English language.
We shared a lot of information with the parents every day to understand the needs of the children. Besides all the normal daily activities, from the interest of the children a project on growing plants which we called “Garden” emerged.
Garden project:
We took up a garden project to create a garden from the activity of playing with soil which is natural amongst the children of this age. Through this project the children could satisfy their need to work and play with the soil; digging, making it wet, smelling the soil, seeing what is in the soil, feeling the texture of the soil, sand and grass and planting saplings and sowing seeds.
When our garden emerged the children enjoyed the blossoming of flowers a lot and eating the self-grown vegetables. This extreme joy led them to repeat the same activity with parents at home and be very proud of it. Through constant updates (pictures) whic were put on the WhatsApp group by the parents, their work at home was shared by everybody.
Outcomes:
Children learned to connect with nature, taking care of the plants, trees and the environment. They observed insects and learnt not to fear them or hurt them. Also by trying to be in nature to develop in such a way so as to not to fear what surrounds them, being responsible for themselves and for the environment.
During the year, children picked up the English language and were able to communicate very well and to express their needs among themselves and also to us.
The everyday exploration with corners, activities, swimming each week, all the art and craft activities helped the overall growth of the children in a very nurturing way.
Reflections:
We encouraged parents to connect their children in common spaces like Certitude playground or at their houses, inviting friends to play together and mix different nationalities. This helped families to open up to each other beyond language and cultural barriers, allowing children to open as well. These were baby steps towards unity.
We encouraged the children to taste new varieties of food like varagu, brown rice instead of white rice and also salads. After several attempts trust was established and it made it possible for them to taste what was proposed. This is a growing experience for the child. Also children learnt to request their food needs and thus to self regulate and increase their self esteem.
Conclusion:
From past experience, we learnt to balance the structured activities with free play, which the children enjoyed a lot. We did our best and fulfilled the aims that were set for the year. This was a good year of learning and growing with the children.
Prithvi group (3½ to 4 ½ years old):
Prithvi group had 15 children: 7 girls and 8 boys. This year we started our classroom set up with lots of creative corners for our children to self-explore and discover things joyfully. Our aim was to provide such a safe and joyful environment for their self growth, to focus on the children’s physical and sensorial development and to have good communication channels between the parents and teachers to create a nurturing environment of understanding and holding for all the children of the group.
The creative corners set up were storybook corner, cooking corner, doll corner, games and puzzles corner, craft corner, play dough corner, sand-pit corner with easy access to water and nature, outdoor painting corner and outdoor games corner.
In the morning, free play was very important as it is an important aspect of the growth of the children. They could happily explore in the safe and interesting environment an activity which engrossed them and where they were in flow of different routines as per their temperament.
Circle time was utilized to bring the children together to explore songs in different languages, action games, group conversations, sensorial activities enhancing taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing, creating mandalas of various types with different materials. Candle passing was one of the meditative activities in the circle.
Every day we had different kinds of physical activities and games organized for the children like running, jumping, high jump, long jump, fun relay races, different kinds of rope games, ball games, circle games, movements of different animals, yoga for kids, Awareness Through the Body, swimming, going for long walks. We went on many outings to widen the awareness of our children to the following places: Aurodam, Solar Kitchen, Matrimandir, PTDC, Svaram, Windarra Farm, spirulina farm, Botanical Gardens – Auroville as well as Pondicherry, Mahalakshmi Park, Arka, and Ashram farms. As per the interests of the children we also engaged in projects.
Farm Animals project, followed by a children’s play:
By nature children love animals. So we took up this project and visited many farms, observed the animals in the farms very closely by touching and feeling them. We fed some animals also and understood what the different animals like to eat, learnt what sounds each type of animal makes, the type of movement of a particular animal, the bond between the mama and baby animals, used flashcards for learning names and recognizing the animals, created farms with animals in the sand box, made animal masks and worked on presenting a beautiful play on animals by the children.
Butterfly project:
Children were very keen to see the butterflies and caterpillars on our weekly walks to the Matrimandir, and they would often talk about the butterflies, and so this project was born. It involved a lot of colourful craft work as well as their enquiry which led to an understanding of the life of a butterfly. Through stories, observation in nature they learnt about the entire life cycle of the butterfly and created it with various materials at their own level. We made clay caterpillars, cut and stitched butterflies in their various stages of growth with cloth and paper, painted cocoons, made a paper collage as well as butterfly masks.
Other projects like Number books, Colour, Shapes and Language through stories were also done.
Outcomes:
A year full of experiences for growth and learning in a safe and nurturing environment was the outcome for the children, teachers and parents of the Prithvi group.
Reflections:
The play on animals was very beautiful and engrossing as it was based on the interests of our children. They identified with the animals and learnt a lot intuitively. Children were happy and very keen to perform it for their parents. The classroom setup of different corners fulfilled the needs of the children and helped them gain confidence on an individual as well as on a collective level.
Though we did not manage to have a final potluck with our children and parents to say goodbye because of the lockdown, nevertheless we had many new experiences this year which have helped us to support each other and support the growth of our children.
Conclusion:
We had a balanced group in terms of gender this year. Children had enough space to explore and learn as per their own nature. The facilitators were happy with the classroom set-up and learnt how to enrich the learning environment for the children, both in terms of activities as well as as materials.
Vayu group (4½ to 5½ years old):
This year Vayu group had 13 children. In the first term we focused on ‘Myself’ leading to topics such as: myself, my friends and my family; my body, senses, emotions and mind.
‘Myself’ project:
Myself and my friends: To begin with, we invited children to draw themselves on the playground floor and decorate the drawing with Kolam powder. On another day they drew each other on a paper. They drew their faces by looking into a mirror, and one day they lay down on a big paper while we drew their silhouette which later they coloured and decorated with collage materials. While doing these activities we always engaged in meaningful conversations about ourselves, our friends, the commonalities and differences in our appearance and of course we talked about the different world population and races. Auroville, being an international community, striving towards human unity, this becomes particularly real and relevant for our children.
Family: Children did several drawings of their family, their pets along with house, garden and the community. We shared the drawings and talked about the families.
Body parts: We identified our main body parts and explored them by playing many physical games. In order to understand their functions we did many fun exercises, like eating without using the hand, looking around without turning the head etc…
We also talked about our organs and their functions, about our digestive systems and the importance of health and hygiene and the need of eating healthy food. In this relation we went to the Auroville Health Centre and had a session with a nurse there, regarding human anatomy by looking at a segmented model. We also did ears and eye check up for everyone. We went for a home visit of one of our teachers to see a three month old baby.
Senses: We did many activities to explore all the senses in the classroom. We also did cooking, we went to Svaram (a unit of Auroville) to explore many musical instruments and got a wonderful session of Sound Bath. We went to a farm and flower garden to observe nature.
Emotions: We read many stories and talked about the feelings of the characters in them. We talked about different feelings we have at different times. We played games where we acted out our emotions. We always talk about our emotions in real situations as we always try to create space where children can express their feelings, and we encourage everyone to understand and respect them.
Mind: We talked about our thoughts and the connection between thoughts and feelings. Here we were surprised to hear some children share that they constantly talk to themselves and all the other children acknowledged that. The project on ‘Myself’ lasted for two months as we covered many areas and quite in detail.
Animals project:
In the classroom: In the second term we focused on animals, touching upon different categories of animals, their habitat and their survival skills etc. We made many animals through various crafts, created landscapes of farms, forests, deserts, water animals... We saw many documentaries on animals and had rich conversations around them. We read books on pet animals and children shared about the pets they had at home or wished to have one day.
Field Trips: We went on many field trips to farms, where children had the possibility to take care of horses and ride them, feed the cows, pigeons, ducks, turkeys, geese, rabbits, donkeys, turtles and even an emu. We went to the Pitchandikulam forest where we saw many drawings and sculptures of wild animals, insects and reptiles set in very stunning and natural environments. We went to the beach to collect shells and explore the ocean and to the Pondicherry botanical garden to see their rich aquarium section covering an entire room full of a variety of fishes.
Animal play: We read many animal stories and enacted some of them. Seeing that children were really enjoying role-play and it was really bringing them very creatively together, we decided to attempt making our own story and enact it. We simply offered the opening sentence and children took turns to add on and build the story. The very same day we made the required accessories in our craft section and we started the role play. We practiced everyday and gradually the classroom started turning into a stage with children creating and gathering material for the set design. The story too developed more and before finally choosing their role, the children took turns to enact different characters. According to the mood and inspiration of the children, every day we practiced a different version of the same story as everyday they created their own dialogue. Finally we asked them if they wanted to share it with the parents. As the response was an overwhelming “yes” we invited the eager parents to our magical performance. In order to accommodate everyone in the classroom, children helped us move the furniture and create a comfortable space for their parents. Thus they were involved at every stage and had an integral experience through the project.
One thing very interesting and significant that we observed was, that as the story took its full form over the weeks, in a very spontaneous manner, some of the key elements that held it together were: the nest or family, catching game and facing the monster, the hiding and the safe place leading to healing and harmony. It made us realize how very archetypal they are and that it would be interesting to explore them further.
The project on animals, again being wide ranging, took us two months to complete.
Academics
In the last term we focused on academics: mainly letters and numbers that we had been already exploring directly and indirectly throughout the year. This was mainly to consolidate what they had otherwise touched upon in passing.
The projects above took place along with the regular weekly activities, like Awareness Through the Body (ATB), Play of Painting, Write Dance, swimming, Children’s Corner, blocks, outings and visits to Matrimandir and lots of free choice time for the children.
Research highlights:
Some teachers have been participating in the Neuro-Dramatic Play workshop, where we explored many things. Some key take-away lessons have been that drama, mirroring, communication, imaginative and symbolic play is intrinsic to human nature and this is particularly strong in babies, toddlers and small children, as their key source of integral growth, expression and development. We also discovered how drama and ‘messy play’ can build attachment, be therapeutic, enhance the brain development, nourish the emotions and specially ground the children and help the sensory motor development.
Inspired by the workshop, this year we felt a strong need to create a doll house that would be open all day long (contrary to a makeshift setup of the past) where children could go alone, in small groups and at times almost the whole class, to play freely. As we didn’t have enough space in the classroom itself, we created it in the corridor just outside, finding a cozy corner for it. This worked out even better, as it allowed varied group dynamics in a harmonious manner.
The results were amazing, as all children loved the doll house and it being an open ended and flexible play, it created an intense interaction between children, developing creativity and adaptability. Left alone, it was amazing to see how resourcefully and with humanity they resolved their social problem, as after a bit of a struggle they almost always found an amicable solution. The doll house shifted the energy of the class, as after children finished any activity that was proposed, instead of spinning around they naturally transited to the dollhouse and were engrossed there with all their attention.
This also eased our work, helping us to focus where the real need was. As we had more time to observe them in play, the themes of the play, how they organized themselves, how creatively they used the diverse material, buttons seed, cloth, sticks, shell etc as symbolic play, revealed to us much about the children, both individually and as a group. Things that were happening in their personal life were often processed through the role play or their wishes and dreams lived and enjoyed in sheer fantasy, opening doors to many future possibilities.
One of the key learnings is that we often think we have to be hectically engaged in order to be good, responsible and attentive teachers. But what I realized was that stepping back, while being fully present is beneficial and accelerates learning for all. A permanent drama corner was a great catalyst for the children’s overall development and helped us facilitate and support them better.
Though this may not be research in the strict sense of the word, it was still something new that we tried and observed many benefits from it.
Outcomes:
Through all the projects and a variety of weekly activities and ample free play time, children learnt to become independent, articulate and resourceful. They developed good social skills and became more caring and respectful towards each other. While learning to follow instructions during group activities they also had the space and found ways to express their individuality.
They improved their language and the ability to express their feelings, thought, ideas and reasoning with more precision. They developed fine and gross motor skills and enhanced their sensory development. Through varied experiences they widened their horizon and formed richer personalities.
Volunteers: As we had constant requests from many volunteers and interns who wanted to discover Auroville schools from within (this is a request constantly growing), we had some ten volunteers that passed through our class this year, staying for a minimum of one week to a month. In the past we never opened our door for such short visits, but feeling the sincerity and enthusiasm of the volunteers we opened our doors this year. This was an enriching and gratifying experience both for the volunteers and us. Through this exchange we discovered our own strengths and discovered many areas where we could improve. The volunteers too felt very nourished and inspired and ready to take their learning to new horizons.
Parents: Parents' support and collaboration throughout the year built a happy community.
Teachers: As learning never ends, every year we teachers grow through our work.
Reflections and Conclusion:
Moving towards a more open ended and flexible learning environment is what we aspire for. Some steps have been taken this year and we will continue exploring further in this direction.
Mentoring volunteers and engaging them in a meaningful manner has been a rich learning experience; but the learning is long and as the need for this sharing is growing we will focus on how to structure it better so that it may be meaningful for all involved.
Agni group (5 ½ to 6 ½ years old):
This year Agni group had 15 children: 10 boys and 5 girls. With this group we focused on creating a learning atmosphere where each child could find his/her own area of interest and express his/her uniqueness in work and grow integrally.
The children participated in regular activities like learning the English alphabet, phonics, words, rhymes, numbers, quantities, simple additions as well as basic letters of Tamil language. As regular weekly programmes, they took part in Awareness Through the Body (ATB), Blocks, Play of Painting, Write Dance, swimming and role-play in class. They also enjoyed the Children’s House where they experienced the dollhouse and many Montessori sensorial and practical life games. Music was also explored. Visiting different places and nature walks were part of the program.
We worked on two projects:
1) Transport project:
We started the project with a discussion, story-telling, games and talked about their favourite vehicle. All children brought a photograph of themselves with their favourite vehicle and shared it with others. The children enjoyed seeing each other’s favourite vehicles. It gave them an exposure to the different kinds of transport.
The children got some practical experience by visiting some units in Auroville. At Auroville Transport Service they had great fun cleaning the bus with water and going under the bus to see the different parts and understand how they work. The bus driver showed how to start it. It was exciting for them to see the machinery which makes the bus run. On the way, they visited Auroville Road Service and Auroville’s Unity Transport Service (UTS), to see the different kinds of equipment, machinery and vehicles.
We then walked to the Cycle Kiosk where we demonstrated to the children about how to take care of the cycles, including oiling and fixing a puncture.
We had another exciting outing to the Pondicherry Railway Station. It was amazing for them to see a real train, railway tracks, platforms and the area around the station, and to see the stationary trains. Children went inside an empty train, climbed up the berths and played a lot inside the compartments.
Children made their favourite vehicles by using the skills of stitching, cutting and pasting and making use of waste-boxes. They also got to experience how to use hammers and nails to make their transport with wooden pieces. They had fun playing with self-made toy transports, using different materials like wooden pieces, cardboard boxes, bamboo sticks and metallic lids etc. One of their favourite activities was creating cities and its roads with blocks, Lego and other building materials. They used the whole space in the classroom.
2) House project:
Sensing the children’s interest and energy in making things by hand and in order to explore more physically, we asked them what they would like to take up as their next project. Almost all of them said “House”. Initially, we spent time discussing the usefulness of different types of houses. Children shared details about their own house and its physical structure. They sketched their own house on paper and drew them on the floor with chalk and explained about it in detail.
Through the story of “Three Little Pigs”, an idea came about to provide them a practical experience of building different kinds of houses and to enact the story. The children built three different kinds of houses in the classroom, using class furniture, fabric, cardboard boxes etc. They enjoyed playing the different characters and acting them out with their own dialogues. When we moved on to prepare the play, we changed the name of the story from “Three Little Pigs” to “Nine Little Pigs” because many children wanted to be the little pigs.
To use in the play, we built a strong house (the size of a small hut) using mud and bricks. Children participated whole-heartedly preparing the mud, carrying bricks and soil in a wheelbarrow. It was a wonderful messy play for some of them, while others took time to get involved. They participated with enthusiasm in the whole process – fixing the bricks with sticky mud, filling the gaps in the wall with clay and putting up the roof with coconut leaves. Children painted the house with white and then made drawings with liquid-clay. They made different paper hangings to decorate the house.
At the end, the children happily presented their play to their parents and friends, wearing costumes and using the masks that they had prepared earlier. They used the brick-house they had built, to symbolize the strong house of the play. As the house is quite big, they still continue to play in it during break time. Children from other groups also had a lot of fun in it.
The children also explored other craft work as part of this project. They designed their own houses with boxes and pieces of wood. Children made pig and wolf masks with paper for their characters in the play. Free-drawing, painting, cutting and pasting, paper-folding work was done on houses.
We rounded-up by connecting the two projects. The children created a city using blocks of different sizes, and placed inside it all the transport and the houses they had made.
Outcomes:
The Transport project introduced the children to various modes of transport and their usefulness in daily life. Visiting the Cycle Kiosk, Auroville Transport Service and going to the Pondicherry railway station gave them a hands-on experience and widened their horizons. They learnt how to take care of their own cycles.
The project on houses provided the children basic understanding about different kinds of houses and their uses in our day-to-day life. They got practical experience of making a mud house. The play “Nine Little Pigs” helped them improve their language skills and develop self-confidence as they performed it.
In general, throughout the year, the children improved their language, fine & gross motor skills, observation and reasoning. It was amazing to see their creativity, imagination and clarity of expression. The projects helped each one of them to become more independent in his/her learning process and more skillful in his/her work. They also learnt how to work in groups and improved their social skills.
Reflections:
This year the group was a bit challenging at the physical, mental and emotional levels. Two children needed very special attention at different levels and some of them were in need of more individual attention and care. At the beginning it was a little difficult to do any group activity. But slowly, through observation and understanding of their needs, we somehow managed to bring them together so that they could blossom as a group and enhance their personalities. Patience and reflection were the keys to understanding and facilitating their growth.
Conclusion:
As facilitators, we feel that the field trips and the physical activities added much value to the learning experience and we will concentrate more on these in the coming years. Our prime emphasis will be both to address the needs of the group and the children individually, and to be creative and flexible in determining strategies to meet these needs.
Overall reflections:
The work of helping each child develop individually according to his/her own temperament as well as work together collectively in a balanced and harmonious way was most meaningful this year. The Auroville birthday week celebration was very beautiful and meaningful for children, teachers and parents. This year we also started a weekly “big circle time” where all four groups sat together, for about twenty minutes, to sing songs and play simple games. This short but sweet shared moment created a stronger bonding amongst all and we plan to continue it next year too.
It was very challenging to stop work abruptly because of the lockdown and not bring a closure of the academic year for the children, teachers and parents. We also did not have any summer program where the children could connect to school and bring closure to whatever it is that they were doing in their groups. It is especially challenging for the Agni group where the children are going to take a big step of going to a new school from Nandanam.
Conclusion:
We had a beautiful year at Nandanam despite the unprecedented situation of the lockdown towards the end of the academic year. The teachers are looking into how to bring closure and bring in the new year of learning for the children. It has been a year full of experiences, explorations, growth and learning for all. We end this report with gratitude to The Mother, to our children and to our community for helping us create this beautiful space of learning and growing in Auroville.