Tag Archives: education
Learn while you play
Learn while you play (Staff Reporter) / 27 April 2013 SHARJAH – Making comic books, creating their own dream city with simple cardboard cutouts and finding art in language are a few of the skills children learn at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival. Art and creative workshops for children are in full swing at the festival and children get hands-on experience on all aspects of art at the various stalls in the Mamzar Hall of Expo Centre, Sharjah. Various art workshops are taking place both in the mornings and the evenings through the course of the twelve days of the festival. ‘Let’s Make a Book’ is an interactive workshop conducted by Joelle Esso, an actress, song-writer and illustrator from Cameroon. From illustrations to cutouts, from scripting the text to laying it out in the best possible way, children are taken step by step through the process of creating a picture book out of a story that is carefully chosen. Each child leaves the hall as the proud creator of a story book. A total of nine sessions of ‘Let’s Make a Book’ is taking place in the first week of the festival. ‘Build Your Own City’ is another very popular workshop conducted by Ahmad Dawi and Ahmad Mahdi, Egyptian artists and miniaturists, who teach children to create their own dream home and city. Using simple, easy-to-make cutouts that can easily be adapted to produce a 3D effect, these artists not only ignite the creative spark in children, but also teach them the skill of efficiently cutting out pleasing images from sheets of thick paper or board. Nine sessions of ‘Build Your Own City’ are being conducted till today. Arabic script is not just a written form of communication – it is also a work of art. In order for children to understand the beauty of Arabic language, the Ministry of Education is conducting ‘Tafaneen’, a specialised workshop that looks at the various aspects of the language. ‘A Child’s Fear of a Big Painting’ is one such workshop that uses mixed media on canvas to create works of art using cutouts of Arabic letters. Teachers of language and art can also benefit from the seven workshops that are being conducted in the Mamzar Hall of Expo Centre till Tuesday. news@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
It’s story time for the little caterpillars
It’s story time for the little caterpillars Nivriti Butalia / 27 April 2013 Motivated by the excess of ‘gadgets and gizmos’, Nishi Chatterjee is starting a one-woman campaign to improve children’s reading in Dubai. Mother to 5-year-old Arritro and wife to urban planner Roopak, Chatterjee moved to Dubai four months ago from Bahrain. Since she got here, Chatterjee, who has a doctorate in Education and a post-graduate degree in child development and human studies, has felt the need to further the habit of reading in children in Dubai. “Nowadays children are taken in too much by gadgets and gizmos.” And so in her home, that has paper cut-outs of butterflies in shiny purple and green paper among other children’s wonderland adornments, she set out to gather an audience of children aged between 5 and 10 at her place in Mankhool. Twice a week, for an hour-and-a half, the children sit and listen to stories about Jack and The Beanstalk and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Chatterjee engages with the children to a phenomenally interactive and educational extent. For instance, if she’s reading out, very animatedly, the story of how Jack (of beanstalk fame) grew so tall, she injects a little homily on the benefit of beans and spinach, and why it is essential not to trouble one’s parents and eat this healthy food. The children are, on the whole, attentive. They sing rhymes, mingle with children of their age, and answer all the questions that Nishi quizzes them on as the stories are read out. Chatterjee, sensing that one little girl is losing her battle with attentiveness, might ask her, “Sarah, what kind of beans were there?” and if Sarah doesn’t know the right answer, a little chorus will chime to her rescue: “Magical beans!” At the end of the class, the children are involved in further educational exercises, such as preparing their own pots of bean sprouts. “In the next class,” Nishi promises the children who are all called ‘little caterpillars’, “we will learn to make golden eggs.” This is followed by squeals of excitement. Parents who come to pick and drop their children are advised to sit a little distance away from the actual carpet space where the children are sitting cross-legged hanging on to Nishi’s every expression and constantly changing intonation. It’s a joy to watch the lady, who originates from Rajasthan in India, skillfully negotiate the temperaments and attitudes of these ‘little caterpillars’. Some are more attentive. Some want to rattle the cage of the lovebirds just to see them squawk. The undeniable common thread seems to be all these children are learning the joys of a good read and are going back asking their parents for more books. nivriti@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
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