You are well acquainted with our two awesome reviewers, Priti Nihalani, (rather Vidhi Gupta, the nom de plume that she has long used in her writings) and Sai Deepak, but here’s a sneak peek at those behind the scenes. Dinesh Nihalani and Jayashree Desai conceptualized Kiducere after several months of brainstorming and innumerable hours of fruitless searches for information on the activities, events and sites that would interest children. By day, both Dinesh and Jayashree spend time in the capital markets, but Kiducere is a 24X7 enterprise for them. With that, all four of us hope, you will be waiting for us on the other side of the break!

Raju Patel

Q: Tell us about yourself. How long have you been in this business? How did you get interested in astronomy?

I am 55 years old now, so my interest in astronomy and telescopes has spanned 35-40 years. My interest in the world beyond began at age 13. Like all kids I wasn’t really interested in learning about stars and planets, but my father had a telescope, a small 6” one, that he kept on our terrace. One day he showed me Jupiter and Saptarishi, and my curiosity was aroused. Soon, I was learning about constellations and scanning star maps. My father taught me to hold the maps, spot the North Pole, spot Saptarishi, the tail, and understand the links between each heavenly object. I learned to spot one object and use that as a reference to spot others.

At age 16 I asked my father if he would teach me to build a telescope. He said, open the library, there’s a book called Scientific American Telescope making, read it, and do it. I was astonished! It seemed like a book for PhD students! My pace was agonizingly slow, but I read on. Equally slowly, I began grinding a mirror. There was no one to help- no planetarium, no astronomy club, no Google! I ground the mirror for 200 hours over a one-year period and polished it so that the shape would change. 5 years later my telescope was ready. It was huge, 10-inches in diameter, 100 inches in length, with a 250 kg stand. I kept it with me for a few years before donating it to St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, where it stood for many years. Later in 1980, I also made a solar telescope weighing 1-ton without any drawings or technical instruction. You can see it today if you go to the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai.

Q:For the benefit of our readers, what is a telescope? What are the basic kinds?

Lets talk about the two basic types of telescopes here- refractor and reflector. A refractor telescope has a lens in the front just like binoculars, and from the rear eyepiece you can view the planets. A refractor telescope uses glass lens that can be made by any optician. However, the images seen through these lens cause color distortion and hence it is necessary to use achromate lens. At very high power refractor telescopes may give some color distortion, but these telescopes require no maintenance and are robust. You can view the sky well and if you have purchased one from me I can even add a camera to it.

A reflector telescope or Newtonian telescope uses mirrors instead of lens to reduce color distortions.The light strikes the mirror, is reflected and focused on a point, and you view the image.

Q: What guidelines should a parent follow when buying a telescope? How much will it cost?

There is no specific age to sow the seeds of astronomy in your little one. However, for the younger ages of 5-6 years, parental supervision is a must and only adults should handle the telescope. Children and adults should not view the sun without a solar filter under any circumstances! If you are buying a telescope for a child, buy a refractor telescope. Reflectors need maintenance and have sensitive parts; the mirror needs to be safe. On the other hand, anyone can clean the lens of a refractor telescope. Refractors can also be used for terrestrial viewing.

Some parents say, give me a telescope costing Rs. 1000, that’s my budget. I am happy to sell them such a telescope, but I strongly advise them to go for one costing Rs. 5000 to Rs. 6000. Is the child not going to grow? His interest may bloom; besides, a Rs. 1000 telescope will hardly show you anything. Pay a little more, it’s an investment after all. If the child’s interest is sustained it will be the most awesome thing and you will not have to reinvest in another telescope. If the interest wanes, as a parent, you can always use it!

Konus, Orion and Skywatchers are good telescope brands to buy; Konus especially is good for children. The cost of a telescope depends on the lens; a 50 mm refractor telescope costs Rs.2, 000 to 3,000. For a 7-year old, a 60 mm telescope will do just fine. Children have sensitive eyes so you don’t need telescopes with very high diameter lens. A Rs. 5,000 telescope will help you view the rings of Saturn, phases of Venus, Jupiter, Milky Way and moon craters, among other things. These telescopes are all portable and have unlimited shelf life unless you break them. A telescope is timeless and eternal and I will clean it for you for life, free of charge. Always store telescopes in a plastic bag- if you are using it everyday no need to pack it but keep it dust free.

Q: How do I know what I am staring at? How do I spot heavenly bodies in the sky?

Read! Join clubs, buy sky maps and star charts, download applications from the internet.

If you enjoyed this article and wish to buy a telescope, check out www.tejraj.com.

What: Primrose GK Class

Where: Juhu, Opp. Utpal Shanghvi School

Even though I found out about Primrose Institute a tad late, my older one was able to spend about a year and a half at the Institute; my younger one has been more fortunate, he is in his 3^rd year and has another year left besides. I would love to continue, but they take children only up to Grade 1.

Co-incidentally, classes at Primrose for both my kids have been scheduled such that they have had to rush from home directly after school; but never has either of them ever, without exception, been reluctant to attend a session there. On the contrary they are most eager and look forward to it.

Primrose focuses on holistic development of children and broadly subscribes to Glenn Doman’s philosophy and methodology of working with them. It firmly believes in the adage, ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’ and very session at Primrose necessarily includes physical activity (like creeping, crawling, running on toes, sideways, backwards or hopping on one leg), activities that focus on motor and manual skills (like building blocks, stringing beads, balancing walk on a narrow beam, colouring) and games of logic (jigsaw puzzles).

Stories are the mainstay and teachers use stories from mythology, history, science, sport and adventure to inspire the children. Teaching aids include use of pictures, puppets, flip charts and flash cards as visual aids.

Once I happened to be waiting outside class and was witness to a session on the ear and its function. On the floor of the class was a detailed chalk drawing of the internal ear. A teacher, imitating the movement of a sound wave, moved through the ear, doing a little jig as it hit the ear drum, to the cochlea. Each child followed suit, learning the names of the three smallest bones in the human body and their functions. Now challenge a child to forget that! On another occasion I remember seeing the drawing of a flower and was hardly surprised then that my son pointed to me a stamen and some other parts of the flower in a book.

Their curriculum includes science (animal kingdom, its broad classification based on their characteristics, human body including its detailed functions and systems like respiratory, circulatory, skeletal), geography (countries, capitals, flags, encyclopaedic bits on their culture, monuments, etc), history (the story of Gandhi, the incident of Jalianwala Bagh, Martin Luther King) and language development through story telling. They introduce stories of Roald Dahl and use ChildKraft series for narration. The various subjects start with a cursory knowledge and become in-depth every successive year. My 4-year old came home one day and started pointing out names of bones like cranium, mandible, femur, tibia, fibula and phalanges.

I remember once my son was given a list of projects to do in the Diwali vacation; one of them included watching movies like Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Polar Express,  Sound of Music and few other titles (and they call this homework!). An example of another interesting project includes researching hats, shoes or bridges of the world. A student at Primrose may also enrol for membership to their library which has an amazing array of books, fiction and non-fiction.

Inspite of the fact that my son learns so much here, the place hardly resembles a classroom and the teacher hardly fits the stereotypical image of one- the teachers don’t talk down to the children, but befriend them. They are all highly motivated mothers who volunteer to teach at the Institute out of the sheer love and joy of teaching and seeing children blossom. They are extremely friendly and approachable and available to parents for a listening ear for behavioural problems and issues beyond the classroom as well.

The biggest testimonial for me is that my son has been going there for the last two years and looks forward to every single class.

The journey to discover myself as a mother had begun…

Awareness set in that my daughter’s upbringing should encourage her to explore what she is rather than what I want her to be. I concluded that learning had to be with all senses, holistic, enriching and fun. To me, playschool was the stepping stone in the process of learning. Hence, I rejected the idea of run of the mill teaching based playschools.

I chanced upon Primrose through an acquaintance. Here, warm and loving teachers, open space and green trees welcomed me. They took me through their approach and I was immediately smitten!

Year after year, I saw the teachers love their students like their own mothers. With patience that I’m sure would sometimes exceed their own mothers’, the teachers would help the children learn values through stories, play and enactment. Children would be allowed to throw tantrums and even wander around during a reading session. The Glenn Doman method adopted by Primrose, helped build learning and physical, mental and emotional faculties of the children.

My daughters attended playschool and GK programs at Primrose 4 years apart. Many a times, I was at my extended home just to know names of story books to read or to share my concerns and worries as a mother.

I attended workshops by Sushila Narayanswamy, Aruna and Raghavan. I learnt how to significantly enhance physical, intellectual and social development of children in a joyous way. My learning about sensory and motor development helped me become a better parent- teacher at home. Creeping and crawling did wonders for my children. Brachiation brought in rhythm. Making flash cards at home and working with them was fun. Repetitive stimulation enabled my daughters to read at the age of four.

Primrose developed my children’s natural curiosity and taught them to love learning. It laid the foundation for their lives and helped them to enjoy the simplicities of life and cherish its offerings. My daughters still go to Room 13 – a place created by Primrose for older children to explore the joys of life. Sushila and other teachers are overjoyed whenever they meet my daughters and take pride in their growth just as they do for every other child they have taught.

Today my elder daughter dreams of becoming a teacher at Primrose while I dream of becoming a student there.

Some time ago, I recommended Primrose to a parent. She came back to tell me “you sent your child to such a school where there are no walls?” I laughed and told her “Instead of building walls, Primrose builds bridges to live life and grow”.

For a detailed review of Primrose’s activities, coming up next, a post by Vidhi Gupta!

(What has been your experience at Primrose? Let parents know via the comments section)

The Magic School Bus Series

Author: Joanna Cole

Illustrations: Bruce Degan

Read to: 4 years plus

Read alone: 6 years

As promised, Kiducere’s focus on Science continues; this fortnight, MCubed Children’s Library, Bandra, presents the Magic School Bus series of books. This series tells fantastic, magical stories into which are woven a great number of scientific facts. Ms. Frizzle, a teacher who wears funny shoes and funny dresses, embarks on extraordinary field trips in a Magic Bus with her students, Arnold, Wanda, Tim, Keesha and others. In each book, she takes the children on a new adventure and presents a lesson based in fact; along the way, they meet spiders, spaceships, dinosaurs, encounter electricity, climate change, the solar system, beehives, the list is endless! To help kids (and parents!) separate fact from fiction, the last page of each book lists the events and tidbits in the book that are fictional.Thank goodness!

I picked up The Magic School Bus Gets Caught in A Web, and soon the bus turned into a bus-moth to teach me a few things about my bugbear, spiders! Did you know, spiders are not insects? They are actually in a class of their own (well, I knew that!) and have been around since before dinosaurs. Apart from teaching us the species that they belong to and the characteristics of the species, the book beautifully explains the spider’s habitat, their food, their external and internal structure, how it captures a prey, and so on. The illustrations are funny and beautiful and guaranteed to elicit squeals from children! Some of my other favorites are Out of This World (where the Ms. Frizzle and the children actually travel to outer space and save their school from collision with an asteroid) and Inside the Human Body (where as is obvious, the children learn about the human body and its functions).

I typically tend to love series like The Magic Tree House and The Magic School Bus which weave academic lessons in a fictionalized account; it’s a great learning experience sans the tediousness. Check out the official site for a full list of the books in the series, coloring sheets, quizzes, science experiments, virtual field trips and more: http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/books/index.htm, and buy the books here.

(Have you read this series? Use the comments section to tell us if you enjoyed it)

This fortnight on Fun on the Web, we recommend National Geographic Kids, a site that dares you to explore! This is part of the main Nat Geo site, and is a fantastic General Knowledge resource populated with interactive games, videos, news, photos and even a community page for blogging. The site has something for even little kids, and is a great way to gainfully while away several hours. Describing the range of learning that can be gained from this rich resource is beyond the scope of this post, so I urge you to take your time and explore this site over a period of time. Chances are by the time you are done, there will be new updates and you will have to start all over again!

The Nat Geo Kids site is neatly organized under several tabs. My favorite is the Little Kids section which has several cool games including an App that allows you to look at and learn about different animals, several jigsaw puzzles, mazes and colorable prints. The best part is a video series, where a pair of siblings learns about the world as they explore fun, familiar childhood experiences in truly unfamiliar locations. From Kenya to Mexico and India to Ukraine, it’s not show and tell, it’s see and do! Older kids can learn more advanced facts by clicking on the Countries tab. They can also check out the Animals and Pets tab and pick out their favorite animal and learn amazing, little known facts about them. Or change things around and explore animals by habitat and use the interactive map to pinpoint the habitat of every animal, from insect to bird to aquatic life.

The Videos tab has short videos on a plethora of subjects such as animals, history, people and places, and science and space. You can watch the migration of Tundra swans or simply watch cartoons that tell you where money comes from. Or take a trip to Germany and watch the X’mas market or explore natural phenomena like volcanoes, lightning and hurricanes.

The Games tab is exhaustive and organized into subsections such as Adventure, Geography, Action, Puzzles and so on. The News tab deals with History, Space, Science, People & Places, among other things. You can learn about interesting professions like that of an Oceanographer, Conservationist or Paleontologist. Or you can learn about the history of writing or Thanksgiving. If this is too pedestrian for you, get some tips on stargazing from the Space section.

Browse this wonderful resource and discover new things along with your kids; and when you do, please share it with us! Check out http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/?source=NavKidsHome.

Primrose dispels many myths and notions that parents may have about what education means and how to go about it. Its teachers are highly motivated mothers who have worked with their children and come back to Primrose to be a part of this innovative, alternate school. The teachers are driven by their love of teaching and all of them are volunteers, accepting a mere stipend for the time, effort and energy they put in at the Institute.

Once again, Primrose is conducting its workshop, ‘How to Teach Your Child at Home’, both Basic and Advanced workshops over two consecutive weekends.

Who may attend:

• Parents who believe that educating themselves is the first step towards education of their child
• Parents who enjoy teaching and want to proactively participate in their child’s life
• Parents who want to be 100% effective in the limited time that they have with their child
• Parents who have gifted children or those dealing with children having special issues like learning disabilities, dyslexia, speech clarity, etc.

The programme focuses on giving parents the tools, techniques and teaching aids that  they may incorporate in their everyday life to make education a process of exploration, discovery and learning for their children, all in a manner that is not only effortless, but joyful and enthusiastic. It helps parent nurture the inherent curiosity in a child to learn all the time, everywhere, because learning is no longer a task, but an extension of exploring the world around them.

The Basic Course focuses on how to teach reading, impart encyclopaedic knowledge, teach math, importance of physical education and also covers the brain and its development along with common learning concerns. The Advanced Course is more in-depth and focussed on subject-wise teaching aids and techniques for Language, Math, Sciences, and Social Studies.

Please call the following numbers for Registration or a detailed course schedule:

Shubhangi Deshpande- 98204 57356; Shilpa Shah- 98213 20705; Sushila Narayanaswamy- 99879 22012

What: Basic Course

Date: 7^th & 8^th July, 2012

Time: 10am – 3pm

Venue: Shree Kirtan Kendra, Opp. Utpal Sanghvi School, Juhu, Mumbai 400 049.

Fees: Rs.3,000/- for one parent and Rs.3,500 for both

What: Advanced Course

Date: 14^th & 15^th July, 2012

Time: 10am – 5pm

Venue: to be confirmed

Fees: Rs,5,000/- for one parent and Rs.6,000/- for both

Please note that all monies collected by way of fees are donated to Anugriha Charitable Trust, which runs a school for the under-privileged, first generation literates in a remote village in Tamil Nadu.

Learning Pitara (LP), IQ Raising and Personality Development Centre, is usually and broadly referred to, by parents, as a ‘General Knowledge’ or GK class. The material attempts to touch upon many subjects like yoga, shlokas, mythology, general knowledge, geography, logic and math. Oh, did I leave out language development? They certainly haven’t left anything out.

One term with LP is for about 5 months or more precisely 20 sessions. Each term is loosely centred around a theme, say dinosaurs, astronomy or animal kingdom and the material is refreshed every term. LP works on a franchisee model and there 25 centres across the city. The classes are divided into 2 age groups, Toddlers (2- 5 years) and SGC for 5 years +, further divided into levels based on age groups.

Both of my kids have attended these classes for 4 terms each, which is around 2 full years. And they both gained a lot from these classes- concepts like Sudoku, Kakuro, random, disconnected encyclopaedic knowledge bits and, of course, a few Sanskrit shlokas.

Not many parents or even classes expose such young children to many of the concepts, for instance teaching visual reasoning or number logic or such other mind games to 6-7 year-olds, let alone the even younger ones; one typically tends to teach numbers, addition, subtraction, even tables, but beyond that we do not often remember to incorporate logic and analysis in kids this young. Speaking for myself, it would probably have not occurred to me to give a picture crossword to my 4 year-old or Sudoku or Kakuro to my 6 year-old.

When my kids were younger, it gave me quite a kick that my children knew tidbits of information about such a wide spectrum of subjects (in fact, my younger son discontinued LP just recently). But as my children grew, my outlook changed, priorities were re-defined and perspectives evolved and I started feeling that the class was very cursory and the curriculum spread itself too thin; the general knowledge bit specifically was random and disconnected across a variety of subjects. Also the general language used in the worksheets, in terms of grammar and sentence construction leaves a lot to be desired.

Of late, it has been more strongly brought home to me that GK or encyclopaedic knowledge is endless and knowledge of random bits does not serve a long-term purpose- invariably every term my children had forgotten what they had done at the beginning of even the immediately preceding term. A child will most likely not retain the answer to which is the smallest bone in the human body, unless she has understood and learnt its function or remember the name of Tintin’s best friend if they have never read the book.

Well, another way to look at this is that LP introduces children to so many concepts and the onus to build on them lies with the parents. For instance, after my son learnt Kakuro and I realised he enjoyed it so much, I could have encouraged him to pursue it beyond the class or after a random mention of Tintin in class, if a parent went out and got a Tintin book for the child, I challenge any child to try and forget Caption Haddock once they have read the book and loved it.

If parents use LP as an introductory primer and take it upon themselves to build on it to give it a more in depth perspective, then the classes would serve a holistic purpose. While my children have enjoyed and gained from the classes in their younger years, I now believe that it is more important to focus on specific skill sets; if I have to make a choice between LP or any pure ‘GK class’, I would prefer a class focusing on a particular skill, be it language development, a foreign language, math, music or sport.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, the LP model is a franchisee one, so every centre is completely teacher-oriented and driven by the experience, expertise, knowledge and personality of the teacher; the teacher from a specific centre plays a great part in the LP experience. Needless to add, one may encounter teachers from opposite ends of the spectrum, some who are very qualified (and I do not mean in terms of holding degrees) and others who just seem to hand out question and answer sheets as passed down to them from the Head Office.

To sum it up, I think LP is the next best alternative if parents are unable to devote time and effort do such activities themselves.

(Parents, have your kids attended Learning Pitara? Share your experiences in the comments section below to help all of us)

Kalpana Iyer is a former banker who left her job at the peak of her career so she could be there for her daughters when they started secondary school. Her daughters have now grown to become independent and well rounded individuals and Kalpana has stepped back into the finance industry as a consultant, working alongside her husband.

I am a mother of two girls, aged 16 and 13. In all the years of growing with my kids, there are so many things I have learnt from them. Here are a few that are close to my heart.

My first experience was on the first day of my older one’s school.  Unlike the other 2 year olds around, my daughter walked into the school with no sign of fear or anguish. Just when I was feeling relieved, I saw her sauntering off towards a tree, where she sat and watched what was happening around her. I was preparing myself to give her a piece of my mind, when a teacher gently reminded me that I should relax and the school staff knew what to do. Over the next one week, my daughter continued to do this, and when I could stand it no more, I spoke to the teacher.  The perspective to education that the teacher gave me that day is something that I believe in strongly even today.  She explained that while most kids learn to follow the herd, there are some who like to learn by exploring, observing, and being with nature. I am eternally grateful to the teacher and the school to have provided an opportunity and environment for my child to enjoy the learning process, and that which was not dictated by measurable results.

My second experience was when my younger daughter was about 6 years old and had just started primary school.  One of those nights when I was putting her to bed, she said, “Mamma, why do you think kids study?”  I was quite intrigued, but I decided to play it safe and gave her generic answers like, “To be independent, to do well in life….etc.” To which, she simply grinned and answered, “No Mamma, kids study because they want to impress the teacher!”  And with a nice hug, a goodnight kiss, she turned the other way and went to sleep. I lay next to her and reflected on what the little girl had actually said, and realized the truth in it. Children tend to complete the tasks given by teachers with so much pride, ever willing to do those things they don’t really enjoy, or even deprive themselves of what they love. The motivation, encouragement and attention from the teacher are what truly drive the children to perform well in school. It is one of most important things that a school can offer.

I grew up in a very orthodox Tamil Brahmin household, and like any typical Tambram, I was expected to excel in studies,and education was the biggest focus in my life. Out of the limited choices, I happily took up Chartered Accountancy and went on to work in the Financial Industry in India. In this day and age, education means much more than what it used to in my times. There are so many choices available for children to make, and opportunities in each of those fields. While it makes the decision more difficult, I believe the regrets are much lesser.

Careers, hobbies, one’s calling, one’s passion, following one’s dreams could all mean the same today! Independence and self-satisfaction is of prime importance. My daughters have many common interests like painting, drawing, sports and Bharatnatyam.  Yet they are also different in many ways – older one is quite adventurous, but younger one is very cautious and is a budding poet/writer. I can see them growing up with different traits that could define their future. So what I am trying to say, is let your kids be, you will be pleasantly surprised by what you see!