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Aadhaarshila - The Newsletter |
It is that time of the year again and I thought you would like to have a glimpse of our day camp here at ATFS. We will start on 5th July and go on till 26th August. Here’s an effort to describe what all was done last year during the camp. Hopefully this will help you decide if ATFS is the place for your child during the summer.
The academic day starts at 9:00 a.m. but some parents dropped off their kids between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. – on their way to work. Being at home, we have the flexibility of opening up for the convenience of parents and not just the staff. The children were at liberty to utilize this time for the summer reading that they needed to do. The group last year consists of children starting from 5 years of age to 11 years. We started at 9:00 with stretching exercises as a group in the beautiful green lawns outsides. This not only gave an opportunity to appreciate nature and the fresh environment in the morning but also got us all ready for a busy day ahead. Soon after, we all gathered under a tree in a BYOC (Bring Your Own Chair) classroom, to talk about a Math topic such as Geometry, which is understood differently by each age grou
p.“Radius, son of Sir Cumference and Lady Di of Ameter, wants to be a knight more than anything. To earn his knighthood, he needs to venture alone on a heroic quest. With only a family of medallion for luck, Radius dodges dangers and dragons. The ultimate challenge lies in a mysterious castle with a maze of many angles.” As students heard the story of how Radius succeeds, little did they realize that they had learnt some important concepts during the Math story. For little kids it was a story ( Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Anglewood) that introduced the concepts of Circumference, Radius, Angles and Diameter in the form of Characters but for older kids it was an application of how Diameter and Circumference of a circle are related to each other. This was followed by individual worksheets that helped them reinforce concepts learnt. The students had a quiet guided study hour. This led them straight into a Language Arts session where they either wrote their own story or learnt the usage of various parts of speech. That took us right around lunch hour where they enjoyed lunch with their friends and moved on to the playground until it was time to gather once again in the cool classroom indoors to read another story but this time the aim was to build Hindi Vocabulary. All along the story, children were encouraged to ask questions and build their very personal Hindi Dictionary which they shared with others to build a classroom database that they got quizzed on each Friday.
The next hour was a variety in itself. Depending on the day of the week, the kids either learnt Hindustani classical music or Yoga from certified teachers or sat and did some creative crafts or painting with our talented staff. By that time the sun starts to move to the western side of the sky giving us a tempting shade on the eastern side of the house. That’s where our next lesson on Science was. Depending on the theme of the week, the children were researching or documenting or collecting scrap here and there to build a 3 dimensional model of either the Solar System or the Human Respiratory System or even an Electric Circuit to run a mini motor. Science in everyday life and how we utilize basic concepts for our use was the underlying idea for the discovery boxes that the children were building. Each discovery box had activities, books, experimental materials and models related to the Topic. While the children collected all of this information and developed these boxes, they were gathering enormous amounts of Knowledge that will stay with them in years to come.
And before we knew it, the day was over and kids were ready to leave for the day with the goals and imagination of what they will do tomorrow.
While some kids just sit and watch TV in an air conditioned room considering themselves lucky that there is no school or camp during the summer, Others were utilizing their summer hours gaining self confidence, giving shape to their imagination and doing scientific exploration. BTW they were also developing love for nature, art and academics.
Our goal is to provide an environment where children feel at home and be proud of who they are while they do activities that continuously stimulate their minds.
I would be happy to talk to you if you would like to discuss this or need more details.
The intention forms are due May 15th.
These are available on our website
www.atfsonline.com. Camp is filled out on first cum first serve basis. So
please be sure to submit forms sooner rather than later if you plan to send your
kids here.
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My Lucky Day - Summary by Aisha Naseem (8th Grader) |
Summary By: Aisha H.
Naseem
Story by: Keiko Kasza
Title: “My Lucky Day”
This story begins with a vacuous fox getting ready to hunt for his dinner. But he is surprised suddenly when an “innocent” piglet arrives at his door looking for “rabbit”. The fox thinking that he has won himself a “Lucky Day” starts to prepare the utterly perplexed piglet to be his dinner, thinking it has never been easy to get dinner but today it has arrived on his doorstep. So why not take advantage of the opportunity? But is dinner really much smarter than it looks?
As the fox begins to prepare the piglet for dinner the piglet continually makes suggestions on how to make him self more edible and exquisite for the fox, which eventually leads to calamity. The fox, who wants a perfect dinner, is obliged to fulfill the cunning piglets requests. First the fox gives the piglet a luxurious bath, then makes a superb dinner to fatten the petite piglet up, and lastly gives the clever piglet an intensive massage. Then the fox. Out of languorous exhaustion collapses!
In the very end the piglet skips home in pleasure because of his “accidental” “Lucky Day”. The reader then sees the piglet sitting by a warm fireplace with a small plan book in his hands. He schemes to go to either the Bear's House or the wolf's Place. I believe, undoubtedly, that the moral of this story would be that the fox could learn a valuable lesson on how often times taking the easy way out might not be the best way. Maybe, if the fox had gone out to hunt for his dinner he could have had much better luck! So it seems the piglet ended up outsmarting the fox!
Send your entries to gauri@atfsonline.com Subject newsletter entry.
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Math Puzzle |
Lucy Sly, a brilliant detective, has tracked some pirates to their island base. In their secret cave, she finds the pirate chief with three chests of gold, and the third had a mixture. In return for a chance to escape, the pirate chief offers Lucy one chest to take away with her. All three chests are labeled : GOLD, IRON and MIXTURE. But, he warns her, all labels are on the wrong chests.
"Then, I can tell which is which," she replies.
" I will take one object out of any one of these chests, and show it to you -although you may not look inside."
Which chest would you chose to see an object from? And how would you be sure you got the chest of gold.
Please send your answers to gauri@atfsonline.com and don't forget to write your name and age.
ATFS Learning Center is an institute that is building the academic foundation. For details about our various programs, please visit our website www.atfsonline.com or call us at 1-888-atfs-4-me