Geetha Nathan & Uma Venkatachalam
A great opportunity of walking through a meadow of flowers has been granted to us, the fortunate ones. This year (2017-18) we are experiencing spring time. Yes, our little ones are in their final stages of being buds – Grade 1. What kind of spectacular, colorful, fragrant flowers they will open up to, is yet to be seen!!!
Every Balavihar working Sunday morning begins with great expectations and ends with even greater anecdotes and episodes.
The class has 18 children and every week usually lands up with at least 12 to 14 of them. The assembly line up usually is not the sure sign of the final attendance, about a next half definitely appear by the end of the class. Kudos to the children who wake up, get dressed and show up on time for the class as this is a huge sacrifice and discipline on their part.
We wondered if they sometimes had gummy worms for breakfast – their postures and listening capacity spoke of it surely. Then there are some who pose thoughtful questions and others who couldn’t wait to speak their minds out. All interesting things that happened through the week were also shared but had to be cut short sometimes due to lack of time to cover the syllabus that has about 40 chapters. We tried hard to do as much justice as possible to the book and most importantly to their questions.
The best part of the year was when it was announced that we were going to do a summarized play of our topic of the year ‘Bala Ramayanam’. The children were accommodating of their roles, no arguments and some even memorized their parts so well that they could recall it after a break of about three weeks – amazing!!! So, there was no doubt that what was being talked about in class was reaching their little hearts. Yay! We’ll take that as a feather in our hats!!! But there was one child, who having practiced her role so well, had to suddenly move to India for good.
Nevertheless, this has been a great experience for us and hope it was for them too. Thankful to the parents who made this possible. Looking forward to another great year!!!