Vadodara, December 2022: Following activities were organized this month under the aegis of ‘Urban Slum Education Project’ supported by Holy Childhood (Germany).

1. Training of teachers: Mrs Hema Shah was the resource person. She trained teachers on the engaging and working with children. In her sessions she taught the interactive method to teach children about Seasons, Various types of clothing, calendar and colours. The sessions were interactive and teachers learnt by practicals and demos.

2. Neighbourhood Visit: Teachers took children out to the nearby localities to have a feel about their neighbourhood. They were asked to take note of various things around them like trees, buildings, hotels, street names, people’s gathering, condition of the road, garbage, pipelines etc. After the visit each child shared what he/she noticed in their neighbourhood. This activity made children knowledgeable about various things which are part of their day to life but are ignored.

3. Learning about Seasons: The teachers took interactive sessions to teach children about various seasons, characteristics of each season, type of cloth worn, food eaten etc. This was taught using a song and pictures of the season. Children enjoyed this method of learning by doing.

4. Learning about calendar: The teachers taught children to understand the concepts of date and calendar, recognize the date from the calendar, know day, month, name in Gujarati/English, make calendars as part of plan. Children made their own calendar also.

5. Christmas Celebrations: Christmas was celebrated with 632 children from various slums of Vadodara. A brief talk was given on the Christmas festival. After that children performed action songs, group dances, games, drawing of Santa Claus etc. Cake and snacks were distributed to all.

Apart from above activities regular classes were held every day in which the school syllabus was covered by the teacher. Monthly teacher training and meeting was held to take review of the project progress and progress of children.