This morning Pranita, Tanvi and myself celebrated Teachers Day at the Government Middle School, Hasapur, Pernem. It was the first time we would be visiting the school and we were excited as we began preparing for our plan at the school.
We arrived at the school and Teacher Rajani was waiting for us as we got there. The school has a beautiful garden and the teachers and students have a small vegetable patch which has different types of vegetables grown in this space.
We put our bags down and shared breakfast with some of the teachers. We spoke to the teachers about the school. They mentioned that they have a strength of 98 students from Standard 1 – 7 and 25 students in the pre-primary section. Students and parents come on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month to take home worksheets. A library book is issued once a month to the children. Their mode of teaching is through videos which are sent via mobile, worksheets and some online classes for the higher standards.
The Teachers Day celebration began with each teacher and the Bookworm team receiving a paper flower as a welcome. There was a short introduction of Bookworm by Rajani Teacher. She mentioned that it was her wish to have Bookworm conduct a session at the school from the time she met us two years ago. Pranita then gave a brief summary of the programs conducted by Bookworm and we then began our session. There were 16 teachers present.
We first introduced ourselves with the name and action song. There were smiles and laughter as each one introduced themselves. The teachers said that they had not experienced this way of introduction before and thought it was a great idea especially with children.
We then requested the teachers to stay in a circle and started with our next game. Teachers had to go around in a circle and when the music stopped, each teacher had to pick a balloon which was placed in the middle. They then burst the balloon to reveal a colour. We had three groups in all. Our next game was based on clues placed in a picture / poetry book. We had seven books in all and the teams picked the following :
Recite the poem in the form of a song in different voices (Bebeanchem Kazar) . The team members choose a poem and sang the poem in different voices and tones. It was so lovely to hear them, especially one of the teachers who had special effects along with the song.
Draw a picture from the book (From Head to Toe). The team drew a picture from the story and also explained what the book was about.
Paper craft – make two different paper hats and read a few lines from the book (This is Not My Hat). The teachers kept trying and said they had made hats long ago and that they had forgotten how to craft them. They made two paper hats, one of newspaper and a tiny one of origami paper and read a lines from the book.
At the beginning of the activity we requested that when the groups came up to present they show their book to the other group, name the author and illustrator and mention in brief what the book was about. We felt that we could have made at least two more groups as there were four books left with clues and the teachers would have got to do the other activities based on the clues in the book.
Our next activity was Build A Story. The teachers enjoyed this game. Each teacher added something different to the story and connected to the last picture card. There were twists and turns, voices to characters and a title – Animal School (as there were a few cards of animal characters).
The game enjoyed the most was the relay game. We played the game slightly differently. We placed one object which corresponded to alphabets from A-Z on a mat. The teachers formed two rows and as an alphabet was called, they ran up and tried to find the same. The teacher who found it first, won a point for her/his team. There was cheering, prodding, oh no’s!, look, look the object is there and all round excitement.
We then presented the gift bag to Teacher Rajani on behalf of the Bookworm to the school. We thanked the teachers for having us as part of the celebration and invited them to visit Bookworm. The teachers mentioned that they enjoyed the session with Bookworm. Each teacher and the Bookworm team received a gift of a towel from the school.
The team had a good session and were happy to be a part of the Teachers Day celebration at the school.
