Providing lifespan services to individuals with special needs...

This was a month of home visits, celebrations and a few special moments.

Home visits:

November brought with it some added confidence and a few more parents ventured to send their children to different programs. One barrier that was broken was with house visits. A few teachers and students met and the students felt totally rejuvenated and emotional and very happy when they were invited to spend some time with their beloved teachers in their homes. Aquila and Niharika went to Usha's home and spent a few hours with her. They did some craft, drew and painted and were very happy to see each other in a place other than their own home. Usha spent some memorable activity filled moments with them.

Chinmayee an ex-student of V Excel met up with Neha, Puja and Gita in Bangalore. Again the delight, the sheer experience of being in familiar land with known faces brought so much joy to the parents, teachers as well as Chinmayee himself. Very sweetly he told us that V Excel had prepared him for his future and that he was ready to embrace it. He was ready to meet the world and was eager to explore, travel and sing. It was a heart touching experience to see the trust of Malathi and Suresh the parents and Chinmayee towards the organisation.

On another occasion Akshay Nathan visited Neha and Puja's home and told them that he was delighted to be seeing them and that he missed coming to school. He was enjoying going to the farm and was happy that the decision to open school was going to be put into practice the coming week.

Celebrations:

Students shared photographs of their Diwali celebrations at home. On November 12th, many parents and teachers along with the children, met on a zoom session. They all lit lamps and candles and brought in Diwali in a beautiful yet sombre manner singing light filled songs in many languages.

This was followed by Karthigai Deepam where again the beauty of the lamps competed with the shining hearts that lit those lamps.

Children have started making Christmas decorations under the supervision of their teachers.

Special moments:

A few extra special moments in KLC. Tabitha our young teacher went out of her way to connect with Bhuvan who has not been well and sang for him exclusively one afternoon.

Niharika made a beautiful card for Shambhavi, Usha's granddaughter when she visited her and was neatly illustrated with motifs from nature and her home. But the drawing and writing was a great effort and it was an achievement of sorts. And overall, an inclusion story which is organic and natural.

Another child's hand work which needs a mention is Keshav, with whom his teacher Arul has been working steadily and sincerely and Keshav has managed to make a garland for the Gods at home.

Reading with parents, teachers, with children continues. More on reading in the next update.

Warm greetings from the VRC/BLA team

It is a pleasure to share with you the achievements and happy moments of November. We are sure that all of you are doing fine.

November was a month of celebrations!

Celebrations:

It was a double dhamaka for the students on 7th November 2020. Yes, both Children’s Day and Diwali were celebrated online by our students and teachers for about two hours.

Diwali means lights and sweets. So the students were given two tasks, one to prepare sweets without using fire and then paint a set of lamps.

Children and teachers were dressed in their colourful attire. One student came dressed like Chacha Nehru and wished all the children for Children’s Day. It was a pleasure to hear his confident speech.

The children came up with various ideas to prepare sweets. They prepared the sweets with the help of their parents and each one enjoyed doing it onscreen. Later each one was given a chance to speak about their sweet – the name, ingredient and how they did it.

The second task was to paint two lamps as colorfully as possible; with the able guidance of the teacher, the children quickly completed the task and displayed their ware.

IT was followed by a group song led by our unit head Mrs. Lekshmi Ramesh. As usual we all enjoyed every bit of the singing.

The meeting ended with the students thanking their teachers and also exchanging wishes. We felt happy as we had accomplished it all online!

Diwali celebrations at our Sharadha Centre:

Some of our students and staff celebrated Diwali by drawing colorful roangolis and lighting bright lamps in our centre. Ofcourse social distancing, wearing a mask were all followed.

These clebrations brought a change in our daily routines, helped us to mingle and spend some time together and also learn that festivals are all about sharing and caring for each other.

Our online classes:

Online classes continue for the students. Sometimes the students are grouped together and activity based learning is taught. In one such class students of primary NIOS learnt about the uses of water, how water dissolves various elements, etc based on their curriculum. The teachers are doing their best to make the classes interesting, informative and enjoyable.

Last month we spoke on how to model good behaviour, this month let us see about how to bring about a routine .

Why routine?

Routine is very important to sensitise children about the importance of managing time, doing activities in a phased manner, to reduce anxiety, to learn to appreciate the task they are performing.

How to go about it?

Draw a SMART plan. One which is suitable and simple, manageable and measureable, acheivable and accountable, reasonable and realaxing, Time bound and tangible.

How is it useful?

• It helps parents to make daily functioning more manageable and helps both parents and children to focus on one thing at a time.
• Helps to focus and achieve.
• Reduces distraction.
• More success in perfoming daily activities.
• Finally – helps in consistent improvement of the child in all aspects, brings about a sense of satisfaction and happiness for the parent.

So parents use your own intuitions, experience and creativity to create routines for yourself and your family. Happy parenting.

With this we sign off and hope to see you all soon with our December achievements.