Monday, 15 October 2012



PRIOR KNOWLEDGE - ARTICLES
To assess the students' prior knowledge on Articles, a paragraph was given to them with articles wrongly placed or completely removed from certain parts. The students had to brainstorm in groups what was wrong with the paragraph and correct the paragraph too. 
By the end of the lesson, the students were able to come up with the word 'Articles', the three articles as well as their usage. I then introduced them to the definite and indefinite articles. 
The class was fun and the students also used their understanding of Common and Proper Nouns and Punctuation to correct the passage with logical reasoning!


Sunday, 14 October 2012


Somehow lost the enthusiasm towards updating the blog last week.
Realised I missed on updating on a lot of fun stuff in school. 

Won't let the laziness bug(towards blog) affect me again!


Friday, 5 October 2012



              Summarization Relay 


The students had finished reading the text ‘Dan tries to help’ and I thought a normal reflection or review would be really boring to do. So I decided to make the students participate in a Summary Relay wherein they had to summarize the book in groups through a relay. Students were divided into teams of four. A blank sheet was kept outside the classroom and the first student in each team had to run out and write one sentence describing anything they liked from the book. They could describe the characters, plot, scenarios, etc.  He or she then ran back to the classroom so that the next group member could go out and continue the same.  While one was writing the others used the time to think about what they will write next. They did this continuously for 15 to 20 minutes. In the end, all the groups had written lovely summaries and I had to decide which group was the best based on the content written in the given span of time. I was so pleased with the performance, dedication and enthusiasm of the students that I awarded them an Edmodo badge each. For the best group, I found it too hard to decide. So, I roped in Ms. Jasminder, the art teacher, to do the task for me. I asked her to read all the summaries and decide the best one. She chose the one which helped her understand the story best as she hadn't read the story. The winners are- Tejasveer Doyle, Samarth Chopra, Aditya Sagar and Shreya Rana. These kids won an extra Edmodo badge and a mark of appreciation each.









'PURR'FECT SQUARES 

'In Numeracy, a square number, also called a perfect square, is an integer that is the square of an integer; in other words, it is the product of some integer with itself. So, for example, 9 is a square number, since it can be written as 3×3. The usual notation for the formula for the square of a number n is not the product  n × n, but the equivalent exponentiation n2, usually pronounced as "n squared". The name square number comes from the name of the shape. This is because a square with side length n has area n2.'
Source- Wikipedia.

Difficult to understand? Of course!

Square numbers were introduced to the students this week through an activity which made them understand the concept as they were able to visualize the perfect square numbers, literally. Square paper tiles were cut and arranged from 1 to 9. The students were then asked to guess which ones were perfect squares. They could easily identify 1, 4, and 9. Further prodding led them to come up with the fact that there were equal numbers of tiles vertically and horizontally. I then asked them to represent the perfect squares using a mathematical operation and they were quick to deduce that we need to multiply a digit by itself to get a square number. I then introduced them to the way a square number sum is represented –32   = 3 x 3. The students were able to understand this easily and I was very pleased with the class. We then moved on to doing a few sums on the same. 



Thursday, 4 October 2012


All we are saying is give peace a chance’- John Lennon
Day 1- 3rd October’12-  Peace is the basic requirement for our existence. Keeping with the spirit of Peace Day and Gandhi Jayanti, the Primary school students kicked off the Joy of Giving Week in the school premises with an assembly on 3rd October. Early Years students in Nile displayed their own meaning of peaceful existence such as being non-violent, being tolerant, holding moderate views, and celebrating wondrous-life. At Panini the function was compeered by Aditya Sagar and Vaanya Sharma from our class. The event started with a Tabla performance by Chandan from Grade 5, an inspirational song by 2nd Graders followed by the message of peace and non-violence by the 5th Graders. We also got to see a unique dance as 3rdGraders brought to life the Father of the Nation and his famous televised character through Lage Raho Munnabhai’s song on stage. A PowerPoint presentation shared by few students reiterated that if there is peace the world actually becomes a better place to live in. The message sent was very clear and crisp. These are not just lessons for the classroom but lessons for life of immediate relevance, empowering individuals to achieve a just society in which all human rights of all persons are valued and respected.
















Day 2- 4th October’12- The students had the privilege to meet four UN Peacekeepers. They came and interacted with the students and gave them information about the UN and it’s various activities towards peace and conflict resolution. Grade 4 is currently inquiring into the unit ‘Sharing the planet’ and one of the strands of the TD theme talks about peace and conflict resolution, thus they were able to relate to this week as well as today’s interaction. The Primary students have written their peace messages on charts which have been put together to create a peace scroll. This Peace Scroll was presented to the Peacekeepers today and it will be sent to the UN Headquarters in India for display to share our peace messages. 














Lunch was a very exciting event for the students as they had a ‘sit down lunch’ which was organized and served to them by the Middle School students. The middle school students were very hospitable and humble and made us all feel very comfortable and I really appreciate their efforts. The students enjoyed the lunch and also the many stalls outside the lunch hall which were showcasing the local culture, cuisine and traditions of Haryana. There were local dancers and the students merrily joined in the frolic. Goats were tethered to a post and the students were fascinated with them. The didis who work for us in school were dressed in their finery and traditional clothes and were busy making butter and grinding bajra for the ‘Bajre ki roti’ and serving the same to us with spicy chutney. There was a stall selling beautiful anklets, bangles and other traditional accessories. It was difficult to pull the students away from all this excitement.  The entire experience was beautiful and the students spent a happy day in school.


















 Day 3- 5th October’12- The students were asked to bring gifts worth Rs. 50 as presents for the children from a village school. These gifts will be given to them during the festival of Diwali next month. A Giving Tree was placed in the atrium at Panini and the students went down this morning and placed their gifts around the tree. The sheer joy of giving was seen in every child as some of them sacrificed their pocket money to buy the gifts for the village children.






Monday, 1 October 2012

Gandhi Jayanti

'Live as if you were to die tomorrow. 
Learn as if you were to live forever.' 




Illustration Credit- Alicia Souza