Whole Body Learning through Play

Another Sunday morning workshop with kids living in the slums near Gomti Nagar in Lucknow. This time we introduced the kids to the popular game of Twister. This game requires children to use all their limbs and capture colored spaces on a plastic mat. They need to be quick, bodily flexible and strategic in their play. All children participated in the game play, each trying to do better than the others and at the same time being collaborative. It was a whole new experience for them, and they sure looked like they were enjoying themselves.

After the game, the children sat down for some drawing and coloring activity. Our intent was to know how well these children worked on their own with minimal instructions, supervision and having to share resources (colors). We had asked them to draw the Indian flag (in honor of the Republic Day) or to draw any other thing that they fancied.  It was encouraging to see that all children completed their task without much intervention of the facilitators.There was no inhibition among the children as to what was ‘correct’ or ‘wrong’. Several elders too came out and tried their hand at drawing. It was a humbling realization for us that these grown-ups were holding colors for the very first time in their lives!