Pre-Primary Shikshantar Birthday `23
Shikshantar celebrated its 21 st birthday on Friday, 29 th September ’23.
The vision of Minoti Didi, Sunil Bhaiya and Sanjay Bhaiya that has taken the shape of Shikshantar,began its journey with a diya lit by the 3 friends under an Alstonia tree in the space that eventually became the Preprimary block of the school. This day is marked on the calendar as our school’s birthday.
Birthdays are special days for our young ones. And to know that their school is one of them and celebrates its birthday every year, excites them no end.
They look forward to making it happy by visiting its different areas, spending time in each, hugging and together lighting a diya under the Shikshantar tree, making rangolis within their groups by collecting fallen flowers and leaves, interacting with the turtle, fishes and Kaju/Kishmish.
They discuss ways in which they can decorate their Shikshantar on its special day.
“उसके mumma papa को बुलाएँगे” , “Shikshantar के लिए cake लाएंगे”, “पर वो cake कैसे cut करेगा, उसके hands कहाँ हैं?”, “अरे हम ही तो Shikshantar हैं, हम cake cut करेंगे”
So many ways of strengthening bonds with their school.
This year, the theme of Shikshantar's birthday was ‘Our world of discoveries’.
The themes and project experiences taken up within groups led to children making discoveries in and around their spaces, with the art material and within themselves through reflective experiences. They made models of their favourite space of the campus and shared birthday messages for Shikshantar.
They were excited to see their art explorations up on display on the day of the birthday, when they visited the school along with their family and friends.
Exploring the corners planned for them led to further discoveries and ‘Aha moments’.
“मैंने ukulele बनाया”, “मैंने magic painting किया”, “I liked making the shadow toy”.
The heartfelt thoughts shared by Minoti Didi, singing their favourite songs in Nandanam and then winding up the evening with some home-cooked food, eaten picnic-like in the school campus,
culminated a memorable event that they had been gearing to celebrate with peers, didis, bhaiyas and family members.