A few of the kishores have been helping out with Bal 1 lately. It has been working out quite well. We made a conscious effort to give them latitude to try out different ideas even if they seemed misguided. One idea they had was to have the kids play checkers on the iPad as a reward for paying attention during a prasang. We held our breathes and decided to see what would happen.
Playing checkers on the iPad caused some commotion. Every kids wanted to see so they crowded around the iPad. It got loud and unruly. But the real downfall was that neither kid who was chosen really understood how to play checkers and the ones that did not really pay great attention during prasang varan really did know how to play checkers. We stepped in and said we would rethink this idea and did another quick activity (we had the kids try and jump up and reach the ceiling, to segue into never giving up).
During review we discussed some of the things that did not go so well with the kishores. To their credit they came this week with a similar but revamped idea - each kid would play tic tac toe on a custom made board. This worked out much better. The kids understood the game at least to the first degree. It was much faster so all the kids got a chance to play. They timed each game so it was speed tic tac toe. The kids overall enjoyed the activity as you can make out in these pictures.
Playing checkers on the iPad caused some commotion. Every kids wanted to see so they crowded around the iPad. It got loud and unruly. But the real downfall was that neither kid who was chosen really understood how to play checkers and the ones that did not really pay great attention during prasang varan really did know how to play checkers. We stepped in and said we would rethink this idea and did another quick activity (we had the kids try and jump up and reach the ceiling, to segue into never giving up).
During review we discussed some of the things that did not go so well with the kishores. To their credit they came this week with a similar but revamped idea - each kid would play tic tac toe on a custom made board. This worked out much better. The kids understood the game at least to the first degree. It was much faster so all the kids got a chance to play. They timed each game so it was speed tic tac toe. The kids overall enjoyed the activity as you can make out in these pictures.
During review (which occurred while we put away the trash after dinner due to lack of time) we talked about how to take this activity to the next level. This time it was just a reward for listening. What if we use it as a tool for comprehension. We could have each child say one line of the story before making a move - if they don't know what happened they cannot place their piece. We are also focusing on the kids be very familiar (to the point of memorization) two dhoon, two prarthan, and two kirtan before leaving Bal 1. So another idea would be to have them sing one line before playing their piece. In the first round we can help the ones who don't know their lines, and in the second see how they do. Any other ideas?
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