Rock climbing story -And she touches the peak!

   

The struggle to climb

Hanging in middle of no where 

Anddd at the top! 

   Prisha never had a great PE teacher all her school years. As a family, I do yoga and that also takes a break now and then. The rest in the family never take exercise as part of life actively. So I never expected much in that area for her as well.
    Moving to NJIS just changed that! Mr. Rusty is her PE teacher who inspires, motivates and pushes kids to do their best! I have yet to find a PE teacher who can stand by his kids from early morning to late evening....watching with eagle eyes! His energy and involvment is truly visible in the way he knows each kid and I saw Prisha change immensely under him! She found it very hard initially to do the pull ups, push ups, crunches, skipping etc! I had a word with him too telling him about our struggle in this area as she had no great teacher who would work on the kids! 

    As the months flew by, I saw Prisha taking pride in her aches and pains, her bruises were her medals she boasted about and each challenge was a motivation itself to perform better! These were real! She pushed herself to run around the field 5 times, do push ups upto 100 and counting and showing off her muscles. We are so grateful to have a teacher who watches her every move and knows her each push closely! She has played basket ball, soccer, badminton, running, etc....name it and Mr. R has done it all with her and I was overwhelmed to see her do each PE lesson with excitement and enthusiasm. 

     Her biggest challenge was rock climbing! It needs the core to push her up. She knew she doesn’t have the power to do it.Yet in the 1.5 years here...3 times a week of PE, she didn’t want to miss it even once. so I knew I should not expect much in this either. I also never really gave it a deep thought as I knew her well. The first day she complained about the pain and challenge and felt bad that she climb on to the top. I spoke with Mr. R and he said he had stuck paper on the top and anyone who pulled it down would get 3 drinks from him! I don’t think it was the drink but just his motivation and involvement is enough to push the kids. And guess what!! She did it!! She pushed her limits and did it! The entire family applauded as she is probably the first to do this! It made me feel so proud as I know this meant a lot to her. Early years truly matter as her early years were under a teacher who helped her push herself and she learnt to be self motivated always! 

    Thank you Mr. R for this! I don’t know if we would ever get a teacher like you! I hope the kids realize how lucky they are to have you. You truly are an inspiration. 

Early intervention supports academics

  

Digestive system in clay

   Can’t stress more on early intervention! Working with Prisha in the first 5 years was very enriching as well as exhausting, yet I see the benefits of it over the years. Talking to her in rich language while showing her things around me, bringing in details, stressing on important parts of speech etc and also always pushing her to think and make a decision, helped us a lot in her skills she has developed today. One such example is in the picture below.

    For biology, she needed to make a 3D model of the digestive system in clay. Now I have always encouraged my kids to use the resources around instead of rushing to shop which is an easy option but it saves money, time and is easy on the environment. She looked into the deep well of her resources in the cupboard and found some left over clay from her previous school( 2.5 years old now, yet good once soaked 😉) and a bag of red wax clay( again 2.5 years old left unused). She rattled off on the phone about it while I did my groceries. I don’t give suggestions anymore as I believe in self empowerment and self help. Due to intense hands on work all these years, she found solutions to problems like...lack of enough raw material, alternatives, finding ways to work with old resources as they were dry, finding the right material that’s plastic coated to avoid sticking, etc. The red wax was new material she worked with and instructions were in Bahasa. So she found ways to work on it. By the time I returned and did the rest of my work through the day...she worked behind closed doors(to avoid me walking into a messy room and blowing my top off) and by night she presented the model to me! Look at the details... the way the organs are piled up like they do in our bodies and then color difference that served two purposes...avoid buying another pack of clay and then shows the difference between organs and the intestines. Bonus... looks beautiful and above all...she learnt about the digestive system in a very creative way! True work of art! 

     Now tell me why art isn’t important....why creativity is for selected few and only academics are important.  We are born creative and art should come naturally. It brings extra zest to learn the subject besides relaxing the mind from the learning pressures. Encourage kids to self learn, take away the pressures of learning by helping them develop their creative sides and help them become problem solvers through this journey. They also feel more pride as it’s their work of art. They also feel good that their parents trust them with their skills and get more confident about themselves. They learn to take failures better and through small victories learn to be self motivated as they grow. Never ever too late....resist spoon feeding, instead let them experiment, fail and find their path to success!! I shall be uploading the project once completed. Hope this post helps someone to see how early intervention supports kids life long.