Volume 3 Issue2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

Math activities grade 1

Concept: more or less using Jodo Blocks

A visit to the Industrial Home for the Blind A delighted group of over 150 students of grades 1-5 marched into their buses with hopes, aspirations and questions racing through their mind as they geared up for their much awaited field trip to the industrial home for the blind at Andheri. The excited lot got off their respective buses and walked into a homely building. The students learnt there that the institute believes in overall development of the visually impaired girls. For this purpose they are given vocational training in various skills that will boost their development and confidence.

The students eagerly watched the visually impaired girls weaving cloth on looms, sewing handkerchiefs, napkins and mops, making hairpins and a few girls making beautiful artificial flowers. The students also visited the Braille room, a tiny library where the girls were reading books embossed with dots. They were reading stories in Hindi and Marathi. The students interacted with all the girls enquiring about what they were doing, how they learnt their skills and so on.

At the end, the students gathered and discussed all that they saw and experienced. The return journey was spent in awe and

Volume 3 issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

appreciation for the blind school as well as the visually impaired girls who lived there.

Our Students were very generous to donate Hand towels and bed sheets to the organization so that they could use them.

Visit to BMC school

Students of grade 8 to 10 visited the BMC school at our neighbor hood and engaged them for couple of hours. They taught them word games for grade 5 and some of them engaged the children in colouring activities. The visit was mainly organized to sensitize the children about the need to give and empathize with the underprivileged.

English and History A good interactive session on writing

instructions was followed by a beautiful group activity on mask making with balloons in the class and a homework project on making a Grass head. These activities helped the students to achieve the goal on writing instructions.

Volume 3 Issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

History has always been fun for children when it comes to hands on activity. We had a detail study on Mesopotamian Civilization

Cuneiform Language followed by a group project presentation on the Civilization.

How effective are our instructions?

Just as it is important for the children to follow instructions, it is equally important for the teachers to give effective, age appropriate and simple instructions. In grade 2 we took up activities which involved following instructions step by step. An example : Preparing a sandwich. Though it might sound very simple, students at this age do not follow

crammed instructions. Since they had to work in groups it was necessary to respect each

Children take time to process the instructions

How about playing Maths? Sounds weird?

and rolled them to create odd and even numbers. They completed their workbook exercise in this way.

Volume 3 Issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

Grade4 .. Fun in the Science Lab.

Made gas and bubbles to understand the properties of a gas.

Compared the volume of water and other liquids using measuring cylinders understand the properties of liquids.

Maths Quiz

Life Skills

The moment students read the title, they know that counselor Ms. Edna has something to do with this. Teachers focus on the three

us on developing in children social skills and good communication skills, through various activities. Are these activities meant only for showing an increased grade in the report card? Sadly, the parents think the cooperative team activities simply keep the students visit

Keeping this in mind, in TIS CIE the activities are partly individual and then jointly combined in the classroom for presentation. Working together involves listening when others speak, proper body language while communicating and open mindedness to

important to lead a stress free journey through the school days. The counselor and the teachers do reprimand the child for

Life skills contd..

expressing anger in a violent way. However it has to be practiced throughout to see proper results. While at home instead of supporting the child on his self pitying and/ dominating attitude, parents need to motivate the child to be independent and improve his self confidence.

Volume 3 Issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

The Foot Prints

A visit to BMC School On the 26th July, the students of grades 8,9 and 10 paid a visit to a BMC school in Kandivali. They taught Math and English to the middle school children. All of them experienced something very special which no school or teacher can ever teach them.

English and Maths groups worked with their respective subject teachers to produce an entertaining lesson plan. We boarded the bus carrying all the stationery we needed. As soon as we arrived everyone had butterflies in their stomach and were trying to take in all they could

to see.

Each one of us had a smile on our faces as they were enjoying the rains under umbrellas and chattering away to each other. As their bell rang we went to our allotted classrooms.

The biggest challenge faced by us was the language barrier. We were told that this school is completely a Marathi medium school until grade 4. They were introduced to English only in grade 5. We had to shift our paradigm and think on our feet about the various strategies of teaching. We had to quickly switch from English to Marathi. We learnt a very important fact about the educational system of our country.

Each grade was given different topics to teach: grade 8 taught Idioms, Grade 9 taught story writing and grade 10 worked on speaking skills. We were asked to handle the class and ensure they learnt as well. We were five in a group and still it was a monstrous task. We developed a new respect for our teachers who handles the class single handed.

Their surroundings made us feel really blessed. The classrooms were too congested, without an AC or cubbies but the students were happy in those conditions too. We were humbled by their zest of life and were more appreciative of the privileges we receive.

Volume 3 Issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

So,all in all it was a pretty amazing experience. Helping others and the community strikes the

Sumana Muralikrishnan, grade 8

My experience with the Math quiz

One of the most exciting events was recently announced making the students astonished and excited at the same time accompanied by the feeling of immense competition. My fellow peers started adding and subtracting members to make the best group possible!

Yes, it was the Math Quiz - the most logical brainteaser event at the TIS camp!

We worked very hard to prepare for the quiz as we were expecting it t be quite challenging- as math quiz generally is.

Finally it was the day of the quiz - 22nd July the day we had all been looking forward to. All the teachers and students were excited for the competition.

There were four houses- Laurel, Maple, Shamrock and Olive participating. I was in Laurel and was scared as some of the rounds had negative markings.

There were four rounds. Round 1 and 2 had fundamental questions for each team with a minute to answer them correctly. Round 3 had puzzle games. Round 4 was a buzzer round.

After a rigorous fight given by all the houses, and some very close calls, it was finally Olive that emerged victorious adding a whopping 10 points to their house followed by Maple at the second position and Shamrock at the third.

--- Anirudh Khaitan Grade VII

Volume 3 Issue 2 July 2016

To provide an inspiring ambience where young minds would be groomed to build a harmonious world and reach the heights of excellence.

Bastille Day On the 14 of July, the students of TIS celebrated the Bastille Day, or La fete nationale, or the French Independence Day. The extravaganza was nothing less than how the French would celebrate this day. There were dances, songs and an amazing compere who told us all about this joyous occasion. First, the students of grade 9 performed a foot tapping, mind boggling, high energy dance that got most of the audience to their feet. This was followed by a French song by the students of grade 4 and 5, who were later joined by the rest of the students to sing the national anthem of France. The celebrations of a foreign national day just go to show how TIS- CIE is an active participant of the rapid Globalisation.

This was one of yet another successful events celebrated by us!

Manav Shahaney (Grade 9)