We were away in the forest of Angadibail for ten days with our youngest group of children. Fourteen young minds between the ages of 5 and 9 were off on this little adventure together . We reached Angadibail. It was a forest. There were farms surrounding this area. There was a stream nearby. It was soooooooooo amazing. In the forest we saw Malabar giant squirrel, Panther poo, languor and many birds. Do you know that langoors kill the Malabar giant squirrel and just leave them there?  At  night it was dark, little fire flys would come out and there would be a little sparkling glow in the trees. We could see many stars at night without the city  light and noise. In the morning the forest was full of chirping sounds. It was beautiful to live there. - Vibha (9) We were greeted in the forest by Savita's amazing team. Ishwar Anna, who is full of the most amazing forest stories. Kafeel , who was our guardian angel. Baby akka, who ...

The beginning of this academic year has been wonderful for us all. Interactions with our new campus have begun.  The Ketaki and Tulsi groups (our littlest ones) have been spending three mornings a week at the 'new land'. It was wonderful to watch and learn with the children. Being outdoors, participating in the construction process, mingling with the civil workers, cleaning the land, tractor rides, quiet observation activities, cooking and nature walks have all added a wonderful flavour to the learning for the last two months.  This frequent contact with nature has brought about sensitivity which is not measurable. It also naturally created lots space in our rhythm to be alone and quiet.   Helping with the brick making. Activity Time for all. The games field is almost ready :) Discovering some natural colours Half an hour of Shibumi care at the New Land. Walks on a hillock close to the New land During Quiet Observation,...

Mahiti (Age 8) has been facinated with horses. Wanting to draw horses, paint them, stitch them. Last year for our Poetry mela she chose a poem about how to love a horse  to illustrate and share with others. The other day , she was swinging on the tyre swing and walked up to me with a smile on her face. When she was sure I  was listening to her she shared ....  'I have an idea! I want to make a horse I can ride. See , I will explain.... --looks around... finds a cardboard box.... gets into it...-- so, I want the horse around me , so I can ride it. and we can use some boxes for the neck and head.' Our learning space for the young children is consciously stocked with a variety open-ended material. For the children to easily access, use, play and learn with. Cardboard boxes are a open-ended resource material that lends itself to versatile unstructured play/learning beautifully. It takes the children on an adventure and helps them explore the imaginary places in...

The darlings of Shibumi! They bear all the scratching, squeezing, lifting, rough-play and baby-talk they are subjected to without complaint. Many morning assembly announcements have had to do with them -- their recent sterilisation after which they were treated with extreme care, other small injuries they have sustained, building a house for them, feeding during the holidays. I can't think of a child who does not interact with them. We hadn't planned to have dogs at Shibumi -- we were worried about long holidays when nobody would be at the house. We started feeding these dogs (and their sister, Rosebud) when we noticed how thin and starved they were. Pingu and Butty followed us home and refused to go back. I suppose that was partly because none of children wanted them to go back! We have, so far, been able to work things out in holidays. And the dogs are, we think, still capable of finding their own food. These are Adi's drawings of the dogs:

On one of our trips to the stream, many months back in the first term of school, we came across a calf who looked very badly injured. We were walking along the forested path to Sliding Rock (the flat open bed of rock which is usually our centre of activity or non-activity by the stream) and he was standing very still by himself amongst the trees. Being injured, he was nervous and scared, and tried to move away as we passed. So we continued to Sliding Rock and spent the hour in silence. Thursday afternoon stream-times are generally quiet: we have about an hour there and the children are asked to spend that time observing or resting rather than playing and doing things in groups. Sangeetha and Vijaya had stayed behind with the calf to see what they could do to help. There are usually large herds of cows grazing along the stream bank, and I think they were there this afternoon too, but the calf had obviously separated himself completely from the rest of the cattle. One of his legs had b...