How old is old?

I have always seen kids intrigued by adults. Boys behave like their fathers on the laptop and over the cell phone, little girls dress up like their teachers and at times scream/scold like their mothers. Boys love to be WWE champions who can box, kick and do multiple summersaults. They love being BIG, but don't know how big, big really is.

Sitting in a class filled with 4 & 5 year olds, we were talking about introductions and ages. After telling me their ages, they were curious to know mine!! One of the girls asked me my age and when I let her guess, she made me the happiest girl on earth...heheheh!!!After serious thought and pondering over her arithmetic and understanding of age, she said, "You are 9 years old!!!" She had an exasperated look on her face while uttering that number thinking she had nailed the answer. When I shook my head in denial, another boy stepped in with a response he believed cannot be wrong - you are 13 years old. After a denial yet again, they decided to give up and asked me how old I was.

On hearing 28!!! They almost fell off their chairs!

Their perception of age - 28 phew!! is ancient. I saw a changed sense of respect in their eye for me from that day on. They were now in the midst of a species surviving from the yester-years.

Three Idiots & the pig

Here I am, sitting in a classroom filled with mischievous seven year olds, cracking up at the smallest word uttered while reading Fantastic Daisy Artichoke.

I was reading to them and talking of all her pets. The one that amused my kids the most is her "pig that never woke" They listened for a while when out of the blue, this little boy asks me, "Miss, did her pig sleep always?" I said, "We'll have to ask her that, but by the look of it, it seems it is one sleepy pig" Then came the next question, "Didn't it cry while being born?" But before his question ended, another boy responded...and may I tell you, what he said was PRICELESS!!

"Miss, if the pig didn't cry while being born, we should pat it and say All Izz Well, then it will start crying!"

Well, all sure is well :) Thanks, to our very own Aamir Khan

The flying pie

Cat, bat, mat, sat are so typical and remind us of Jr Kg Rapid Reading, like one of my students mentioned last time!

How about taking simple rhyming words and converting them into out of this world work of poetry?! Poetry, created impromptu by a group of seven year olds sitting in a circle and adding lines, one after another. These children read the ever so funny, Fantastic Daisy Artichoke at our reading program and later sat down with one word; PIE. They had to create a rhyming poetry...

Here goes -

Once I had a pie,

it was very high.

It would fly high,

up in the sky,

but I don't know why?

To catch it I would try,

but it would always fly.

And then, it would die,

and that is such a lie!

It would also cry,

because it was a baby pie.

And why would it cry?

I have no idea, let me try!

- Aditya Birla World Academy Grade II

Kudos to this wonderful creation. Little seven year olds making poetry in less than 10 min.

We are here..keep pace

The experience at the Aditya Birla World Academy [ABWA] introduces me to the Gen Nex kids on the block. They are THERE, waiting for you to present them with challenges which they face head on :)

One might wonder what might be the challenges for 6, 7 & 8 year olds! Well, its writing poetry, making stories using their sensibilities and having apt endings to what they write and picking an author they like and reading all by themselves.

Not that self reading is tough, but the accompanied activities is what makes the children special, the associated relevant questions is what makes them the GenNex!

I recall a 7 year year old telling me that rhyming pattern is so Jr Kg and that he would love to do something done at university level. Thats when we made our own story titled Unconscious Dreams.

The latest challenges for parents, teachers, facilitators etc today is, to gear up to the speed of our little ones and pace ourselves to walk their walk.