Newsletter

Introduction

Welcome to a new session at Fountainhead school. While the school is making new strides in its chosen mission of making learning a joyful and meaningful experience to all, this issue brings to you some new activities which we are experimenting with. In addition to this, the issue also attemps to share the way, learning is organised at school, by bringing out the same in the articles written by teachers of different grades.A new place where children are enjoying themselves, is the library. The library has been rejuvinated with children’s art, new display, new books and magazines. Read-a-louds, author studies, organising stories in graphic forms, signing timericks are some of the fun things we do.Look out for an addition of about 10,000 books more in the coming year !!! Enjoy the issue and do send in your comments and queries if any.Anuradha.



Spider men in School

Rappelling facilitates an attitude of overcoming challenges. Rappelling brings a powerful sense of accomplishment and is a vital resource in bringing about the realization that not every perceived risk is insurmountable. Rappelling is also known as abseiling and originated as a means of a quick and safe descent after a climb. The idea was to slide down a rope with sufficient friction provided so as to make the speed of descent controllable. Rappelling is now a full-fledged skill by itself and finds application in various fields example where people work on high vertical faces and need a portable means of descent that is also reasonably quick to set-up. Some such applications can be seen among window-cleaners on high-rise buildings, among fire fighters, film stunt-men and even the armed forces.You are attached to a rope via a harness and some hardware like karabiner and descender. The rope passes through a figure 8 descender. Instruction helps participants learn how to control the friction and slow its movement. Speed of descent can be controlled by simply arresting the movement of the rope, so that it can’t pass through the descender as fast. It is very important to wear gloves with a good grip, while rappelling, as tightening grip on a moving rope causes rope burn, particularly if the rope is moving fast through the descender. As a first time experience most of the children were scared and were unsure if they will be able to perform rappelling, the real difficulty only lies in convincing our minds. But, all of them took the risk and successfully took part in the activity. Most frightening for most of them was the beginning as it seems rather daunting to stand on a school building knowing that we will soon be going down with only a rope for safety. The technique easily feels ‘natural’ after the first couple of steps and then, the feeling of suspension over the expanse below is awesome, their fear was gone and they started to enjoy the activity. Even the smaller children were really excited and encouraged their seniors during the activity. I congratulate these children on the courage and enthusiasm they have shown and hope they maintain this in their lives...
The tremendous sense of achievement that follows makes this activity perfect for boosting confidence, create risk takers and bring about the realization that not every seemingly difficult objective is actually so, and we may even enjoy it enough to wish for a repeat!
Oomer.



Field trip to a pet training institute

Excellence (Grade 6), in their UOI under the TDT – ‘Who we are’ is currently doing the unit ‘Learning is a fundamental characteristic of humans that connects them to the world’. As a part of the study, they are studying how animals learn. In order to get a first hands feel of animal learning, we went to the Rider’s Club and Dog Kennel in Essar Township, Hazira on June 26, 2009. At the Rider’s Club, the instructor, Mr. Bhom Singhgave us aninsight into the training
modules of the camels and horses. He explained the methodologies used to make these animals understand and follow commands. They use a lot of appreciation and other positive reinforce-ments to train these animals. At the Dog Kennel, we saw various breeds of dogs (German shepherds, bull dogs, golden terriers, pomerian, pug, Doberman). These have been trained and are used to guard the Essar premises. The dogs have been trained (conditioned) to follow the commands of their master. Students found the visit extremely enriching and is helping them
understand learning patterns in a new light.
Kavita Verma
Grade 6.


Decision Making

Grade 5 started the academic year with the UOI-Who we are?-’Decision making’. Though the topic was complex, the reason for taking this unit was the fact that there was very little reading & writing and a lot more speaking & listening. It is important to develop these skills first before proceeding to reading & writing. It also involved group discussions, role plays, debates, etc where a lot of interaction within the classroom & outside took place and proved to be "breaking the ice" for the new & old students. Students watched movies, "Hum hain raahi pyaar ke" & "Ek ruka hua faisla", took interviews of school staff, prepared interview reports, debated about "Black melons" & "Junk food" , learned how to overcome poor decisions & how to handle peer pressure. It turned out to be truly an enriching experience for the students & me.
Gowri Murali
Grade 5 - Synergy


Decision Making


Grade 5 started the academic year with the UOI-Who we are?-’Decision making’. Though the topic was complex, the reason for taking this unit was the fact that there was very little reading & writing and a lot more speaking & listening. It is important to develop these skills first before proceeding to reading & writing. It also involved group discussions, role plays, debates, etc where a lot of interation within the classroom & outside took place and proved to be "breaking the ice" for the new & old students. Students watched movies, "Hum hain raahi pyaar ke" & "Ek ruka hua faisla", took interviews of school staff, prepared interview reports, debated about "Black melons" & "Junk food" , learned how to overcome poor decisions & how to handle peer pressure. It turned out to be truly an enriching experience for the students & me.
Gowri Murali
Grade 5 - Synergy




We Celebrate Learning


Welcome to the new session 2009-10. Hope each one of us had a great time last during the last session.Now our little ones are one grade up. Rightnow, they are starting with the last year of their Kindergarten. Let’s see what are our young ones have been doing since the session started from 12th June,2009. We started with the UOI wherein the central idea says –"People celebrate for different reasons in different ways". We are having nice time exploring how, why and when a different festivals in India are celebrated.
Sr KG. teachers ...




Visit to Water Treatment Plants

Grade 3 ( Innovate and Inspire) were touring the city to get a better idea about what happens to the water after we have used it, for their first unit of inquiry about water and its importance.
For this we first visited a color manufacturing unit in Lajjpore, owned by a Fountainhead parent Vaishal Kapadia. There we saw how water is used for making color, drying it and by the people working there. By the time we were out kids were all shades of yellow and red –the two colors which were being manufactured at that time. We all saw how the waste water was treated before disposing it off into the river. The kids impressed Vaishal by answering all the questions about the treatment process—right from coagulation to chlorination and in turn Vaishal answered all their queries to their heart’s content. Next we went to L&T (Sewage Treatment Plant) Paulomi Majumdar was our guide, grade 3 kids did not fail to impress her also. Despite the terrible stench kids were eager to know all about the sewage treatment and they were really amazed by what they learnt about the reuse of waste water. We then visited a Sewage treatment Plant in Bhesan—Yogesh Tailor gave us a tour around the plant, he helped us to understand how water from various parts of the city was brought there for treatment and then released into the river Tapi. The kids felt as if they had entered a mini city of pipes and were very tired from walking around the place but their spirits were still high. At last we got a chance to visit the Rander water works to know how the water from the river is treated before it reaches our homes—Jitendra Patel was our guide for the visit. Once again our kids were full of zest to answer his questions and throw a volley of their questions at him. Through various trips in and around the city kids could get a better and enduring understanding of the treatment process. We all became inquirers and risk takers (entering a world of pipes, slippery roads and looking into deep tanks).
Mariyam Baxamusa.
(Grade 3-Innovate).




Lemonade Day


Children are the happiness of everyone’s life. Specially small ones know how to love and how to gain love. From the beginning of the year( 2009), mother’s pride is seeing interest from Fountainhead School ,where they have found no binding regulations/rules so all through the day they are just enjoying freedom with learning experiences.
Nursery’s 1st UOI is about Senses. So each day they are exploring their senses through different activities. One of them was ‘Lemonade Day’ (as a tasting activity).So first they came to know about ‘what is Lemonade’? Some of them said ‘its just a lemon’ and some one said ‘its yellow in colour’ and someone said ‘don’t wonder’ and someone said ‘think’ and someone else said ‘something to drink’. Kids are great inquirers and reflectors and creative too!! Thereafter the teacher had arrange water, sugar, salt etc and they said , ‘Wow! we love to have ‘Nimbu pani’ .
Then with the help of the teacher(me) they mixed sugar and salt in the water and offcourse they tried to squeeze the lemon, but their tiny hands got tired so I did it, but they
were proud to say that they have made it, as I was. During class discussion they said ‘when I will reach home I will teach mama how to make lemonade.’ I am glad to see such great confidence from those two and half year old kids. And those little ones have become more independent and confident to handle/do any work in all circumstances. We believe that exposure adds to the children’s sociability. And Fountainhead gives them variable exposure to overcome all their life’s blemishes to achieve their goals of life. We all are learners so we have a long path to achieve and I am always there to help my kids( in any difficult situation)to achieve their aims which is to be confident, independent as well as be a good learner.
Runa (Nursery)




Hole in the Wall

A unique computer experiment is transforming the lives of underprivileged children. It was also the real inspiration for the movie "Slumdog Millionaire"
From around the village another 20 children aged between six to
fourteen, run over and crowd , keen to see what this mysterious addition to their remote community can do. Men came from the city the day before, built a brick hut in the middle of the
village and positioned the screen facing out from a window. The children were only told that this new machinery was for them to play with.Within hours , a boy and other children are playing games and looking at Walt Disney websites , despite this being the first time they have encountered a computer.Similar scenes have occurred across India in some 300 places in the last ten years. The kiosks were conceived by Professor Sugata Mishra. The "Hole in the Wall" kiosks have provided thousands of children from impoverished backgrounds with access to the PC. They can be found in public locations all over the country from the Himalayas to Andhra and Trivandrum, but what’s remarkable about them is that, with no adult input whatsoever, children have used it to learn English, maths and in several cases , to escape a future of laboring or farming to study politics, physics or biotechnology at university. Mitra realized that a mixture of group discussion, leaving the children to learn for themselves and a desire to impress their peers and elders was a powerful combination for getting them to study unaided." Teachers ask me, " Is this real education?," says Mitra. " But if you are learning, getting answers right and remembering them, what else wereyou going to do in class."The Hole in the Wall has won Mitra many awards, but he has never made any money from it.Excerpts from an article in Reader’s Digest June -2009—A Hole In the Wall.
Contributed by- Mariyam Baxamusa.





PYP Workshop at Fountainhead School


"How do we implement what we have read and discuss during our trainings?" "What does ........... mean?" "How do we actually make the PYP happen in our classroom / school?" These were some of the questions teachers at Fountainhead had to answer during, a PYP school workshop organised for all the teachers from 16th – 18th July 2009. The Head of the School as well as The PYP Coordinator also attended the workshop along with us. We had two workshop leaders,
Marion Chapman from IB school Singapore and Glenn James from an IB school Thailand. They are teachers with an experience of more than 5 years in PYP.This workshop addressed the needs of the teachers & Coordinators who will be expected to work with a school’s existingprogramme of inquiry and already established units of inquiry. It was also suitable for teachers who have been working since a year with this programme to revisit the basic philosophy and programme framework with a view to improve implementation and development of the units in their classrooms. The overall purpose of the workshop was to explore all the aspects of the PYP curriculum through Making the PYP Happen – A curriculum framework for international primary education. The workshop made us all knowledgeable. We learnt how to analyse, refine and evaluate the school’s programme of inquiry, How to deconstruct a unit planner, How to collaboratively plan a unit of inquiry which increases the effectiveness and coherence of learning, How to work collaboratively with other teachers, Teaching and learning takes place when a range and balance of teaching strategies are selected appropriately to meet learning needs. We also became more familiar with the Making the PYP happen document and the OCC (Online Curriculum Centre).
Apart from the formal sessions we also had planned informal sessions with the workshop leaders where we exchanged a lot of ideas which were very helpful to all of us. In these sessions we discussed our planners and the leader contributed their ideas to make it more happening in the classrooms. The leaders also shared their experiences working in IB schools. The in school workshop was a great success and our understanding of the PYP has increased in leaps and bounds.
By Zahabiyah Shaikhmahmood
Class 1 Teacher.




Night in the morning


Wednesday was the date for the longest solar eclipse, a rare phenomenon and Surat was among the few cites which witnessed this once in a life time view. We at Fountainhead were also all set to view this spectacular event. All prior arrangements were made to view this, glasses were gathered from around the city and all students were excited to come down at 5:30 AND SEE THIS ECLIPSE. But nature had something else in mind, because of incessant rain on Tuesday and layers of clouds in the skies on Wednesday morning it became difficult for gazers to get a view of the total solar eclipse. Students were briefed with the details of the solar eclipse before viewing it by Head Of school. However it did not dampen our spirits, it was a unique experience with morning turning into night for more than three minutes. After the solar eclipse was over students and teachers had a good breakfast and went for a morning walk to Kunkni village, in the way to the village they saw many creepers like dead snakes, snails, frogs etc and creatures also picked up plastic waste lying on the road which was fun, a sort of an adventure walk and learning experience for them. After a walk for an hour they returned back to school and started with their daily classes. Overall the solar eclipse was a life time experience for everyone at Fountainhead school.
Sonam & Falguni




Knowing me, knowing you, knowing all

We have to respect our elders", "We respect God", that was the prior knowledge of grade 1 children at the beginning of the UOI, "Knowing and respecting ourselves helps us develop respect for others". To further build up on their prior knowledge we made a lesson plan to bolster student self-esteem (respect) and to build class pride.
We began by asking students, "Who has something that they really do well?" After a brief discussion about some of those talents, we passed out papers and asked the students to write down 5 things that they do well. The teachers allowed students to come up and select 5 different coloured paper strips. Using markers, we had the students write one talent on each strip of paper. We demonstrated how to create a paper chain with their strips; linking their talents together to create one long class chain. We had students stand and hold the ever-growing chain as we linked it together, until all were linked. Once the entire chain was constructed and linked together, all students were standing holding their portion. We took the inquiry further by asking the class what this chain demonstrates. (The fact that all the students have talents.) The students came up with "We are all similar yet different, and we need to respect others". "We have different talents and we may not be good at the thing which our friend is good at". We hung the chain up in the room as a reminder that the students are all good at something.
This was indeed a great activity to start the school year with.
Grade 1 teachers.




No more running away from numbers

An inquiry begins by building upon prior knowledge and facilitating the students to explore more about it. All the students in grade 1 knew numbers and number names from 1 to 100. This was their prior knowledge. Then we built up on this by letting them explore missing numbers from 1 to 100, working through the concept of greater than and less than numbers and place value through different activities. For this, we used place value cards, judo cubes as well as Montero cubes. The activity in the class with the use of flash cards was very interesting for the students. Two students were asked to hold number flash cards and the class was asked to identify the number name, explain the place value and the expanded form. Through maths we also introduced differentiated learning. We made different stations in the class room. One station had judo cubes; the others had Montero cubes and flash cards. The students were allowed to move from one station to another. They enjoyed it thoroughly. One of them said "we can understand place value with so many different things. This is fun."The students also made their own Montero cubes on the basis of numbers given to them and explained place value by colouring tens and units. One of the students commented "maths is quite interesting. We get so involved that we don’t understand whether we are studying or playing."The greatest satisfaction for us is that the students look forward to the maths period in their class time-table.
Grade 1 teachers




Role play: Resolving conflicts.


Conflicts are a regular part of daily life for school students. It is difficult for young children to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and understand his or her viewpoint, molehills quickly grow into mountains and simple disagreements turn into real fights. In this unit, the students make decisions to solve conflict situations peacefully by doing a Role Play. Through the role play they come to understand other’s perspectives. They then come up with ideas to resolve these conflicts.
Grade 2 Teachers




Young minds at work

fresh academic year has started and the school is already buzzing with the chirping and chattering of children who right from the word go, have engaged themselves in doing some meaningful and challenging activities (at their age-level, of course!)
The children of JKG also did not take much time to settle and thereafter got down to serious work. Defying their age, these children were right there at the centre, not only framing the "Essential Agreements " for their class along with the consequences in case of breaching of the agreements but were also, to our pleasant surprise, steering our first UOI "Family and friends" in the right direction to the right destination. Squashing all our apprehensions,these young ones took the UOI ahead with their valuable inputs,lovely thoughts,presentations, role play, family visits puppet shows and drawings. Lots has been happening in the JKG section, but to sum it all, we would say that our young ones have brought life and colour to all the activities taken up. This is just the start and we together with our children will give it a fantastic finish.
JR Kg Teachers



Professional Development News

1. Juhi Parekh, our drama teacher, conducted a half day workshop on drama with the pre-primary teachers on 4th July 2009.
2. Marion Chapman and Glenn James conducted a 3 day workshop on "Making the PYP Happen" at Fountainhead School from 16-18 July 2009.
3. Janaki Ramani and Kuntala Chanda, our special educators, attended a 5 day workshop on "Learning Disabilities" conducted by Ms. Aparna Kalyanpur of Bangalore.
Ankita