Questions

Key concepts/Issues

Suggested Resources

Suggested Activities

1. Family and Friends

1.1 RELATIONSHIPS My family

Who all live with you at home? How are they related to each other? Do you have relatives who do not live with you? Have they always been there? How many children did your grand parents have? Who do you think will be your new relatives in future?

Concept of a family; diversity in family types; Family as a support system, Ideas about relationships; Simple family tree (three generations).

Child’s daily life experience; Family members.

Observation, enquiry about family relations from adults, discussion.

My family and me

Do you look like anybody in your family? Have you learnt anything from anybody in your family? Whom do you admire most among all your relatives? Who is the most caring and patient person? When do you meet members of your family who do not live with you?

Family influences – physical characteristics, values and habits, appreciating qualities and skills of family members; family as a support system.

Family members, local knowledge, story/poems on different festivals

Observation, exploring from elders about extended family, narrating stories/singing poems related to festivals, writing about any festival, drawing.

Whom do I look like?

Do some of your relatives look similar? Which features are similar – eyes, ears, the voice or height? Are there any two people in your family who look exactly alike?

Concept of similarity between relations, hereditary features

Family photographs; Narrations by elders about family members when they were young.

Discussion About stories/ films/jokes involving twins

Old and the physically challenged

Do you know of people who are hard of hearing? Are many of them old? Do you have any friends who cannot hear/see well? Is there any way in which you may have helped them? Are there any sounds you like but others/elders do not?

Sensitivity to the old and physically challenged; Introduction to the sense of hearing and sight; sensitization to the fact that the body ages, also that some children may not hear /see at all or may be partially affected. Basic idea about Braille.

“Meri bahen sun nahin sakti’ a book by Bharat Vigyan Samiti or any other material on differently abled children.

Reading and discussion; Making different kinds of sounds and expressing likes and dislikes about them.; blindfold act, visiting any local institution that deals with the blind or any other institution.

1.2. PLANTS

Plants around us

How many different kinds of plants do you see around you? What are the differences you notice? What things around you are made of plants? Is there a plant in your area that was not there when your grandparents were young? Do you know of some plants which do not grow around you, say things that we eat and not grown around you?

Exploring children’s ideas about a ‘plant’. Plant diversity; size, where they grow, shape, colour, aroma, etc.; dependence on plants for everyday life. Introduction of new plants/crops and changes observed by elders over time. Plants and the climate/environment.

Child’s daily life experience, observation, information from grandparents/ elders, a sample/picture of a plant which is unusual in the local surroundings.

Observation of different plants around, compare and classification based on simple characters; Discussion about things made of plants, pencil prints of barks, leaf prints.

Leaves in our lives What different kinds of leaves do you see? Do you use plant leaves to eat on? In what other ways are leaves used? Is there some time of the year when lots of leaves fall to the ground? Are they burnt? Have you seen a compost pit? What leaf motifs do you find on clothes, pots, walls, animals, etc.? Do you decorate your house with leaves on some occasions?

Leaf diversity – colour, shape, texture, aroma, etc. Seasonal shedding of leaves; compost from leaves. Leaf designs/motifs on different objects.

Child’s daily life experience, observation, a story on a compost pit.

Observation, collection of different leaves, smelling different plant leaves, discussion, visit to a nearby compost pit, decorating the classroom with leaf motifs. Applying mehndi on palms in different designs.

1.3. ANIMALS

Animals: small and big

Which are the smallest and the biggest animals you have seen? Which have you only heard about? Which animals have tails? How many legs?

Exploring children’s ideas of an ‘animal’.

Child’s daily life experience, observation, stories/ poems on animals (NBT)

Observation of diversity of animals around you, listing, Discussion about what they eat, were they live relative size of animals they have seen, pictures in books, animals heard about. Drawing pictures of favorite animals.

Some creepy crawlies – and flyers too

What different kinds of small crawling animals do you know? Where and from what does each of them hide? Which insects can crawl and also fly? Which ones bite us? Can flies make us ill? Why does a spider make a web?

Exploring children’s ideas of crawling animals, flyers and insects.

Child’s daily life experience, observation, stories/ poems on insects, flyers and crawling animals (NBT)

Observation, of ants, flies, spiders, crickets, cockroaches, earthworms, lizards and other animals. Discussion about them, where they live, what they eat, insect bites (wasp) etc. Drawing some of them.

Birds

Which are the birds you see around your area? Do they like some trees more than others? What do they eat? Can you recognize birds by their feathers? What are the different sounds they make? Are they saying something to each other? Are there some birds that come from other places? Do you feed any birds or place water for them?

Exploring children’s ideas of birds-their living places, eating habits, common features like feathers and sounds produced by them. Feeding birds

Child’s daily life experience, observation, stories/ poems on birds (NBT)

Drawings of birds; mimicking different neck movements and sounds of birds, collecting feathers.

1.4. WORK AND PLAY

Work around me

What are the different kinds of work done around me? What work does my mother/ father/ brother/ sister etc. do? What work do I do? What work do others do? When I am not working what do I do? When my father/ mother is not working what do they do?

Different occupations, idea of working time and leisure time; work inside and outside homes – gender, age, caste, economic, etc. aspects.

Poem ‘Home work’ by Shyam Bahadur Namra Case study: time chart of the daily routine of a child who does a lot of housework

Draw a daily time-chart for your father, mother and yourself, discussion.

Working children

What kind of work was done by children when your grandparents were young? Has that changed today? Who are the children you know who work and go to school/ who work and cannot go to school?

Sensitize children to other children who work at home and outside - not as a result of family neglect but more as a systemic cause. Important that all children go to school. A sense of how child labour existed in other countries before all children began to go to good common schools.

Excerpt from story by Charles Dickens. Narrative describing a poor child’s/child laborers experience in a common school in another country.

Reading and listening to the story/excerpts. Discussion and narratives about children making firecrackers at Shivkashi., child workers at Dhabas and auto workshops.

Games we play

What games do I play? Did my grandparents play the same games? Are these indoor/outdoor?

Leisure; games in school and outside, past and present; for some play is work

Traditional and local games; folk toys

Listing, classifying indoor and outdoor games.

2. Food

Foods from plants and animals

Which of these is food – red ants, bird’s nests, snakes, bananas, goat’s milk, etc.? What plants do you eat - what parts of the plant? What food do we take from animals?

Appreciation of cultural diversity in food; basic ideas about various plant used as food; food from animals.

Regional narratives and stories about ‘unusual’ foods mentioned.

Listing and discussing about food we do or do not eat; tabulating food we take from different plants and animals. Observing and drawing different parts of plants eaten.

Cooking

What do you eat that is not cooked? What is eaten only when cooked? How do you cook food? What do you cook it on? What are the different kinds of vessels used for cooking? What are they made of? Is water used in all forms of cooking? Which food is cooked without using water? How?

Food may be eaten raw or cooked - steamed, boiled, baked, fried etc.; Different fuels, types of stoves; Types of vessels used in cooking, different shapes (regional/ traditional), different materials, etc.

Songs/poems on food or lack of food; local knowledge about what is edible; photographs.

Songs/poems on food or lack of food; local cooking methods/ materials, etc; survey to find out the types of fuels/vessels used; drawing various utensils; historical time line tracing what in the kitchen has changed and roughly when.

Eating in the family

Do all members of the family eat the same food in your family? Who eats more? Who eats last in your family? Who buys the food and what is bought from the market? Who cooks the food in your family? What do babies have for food? When do babies start eating and what do they eat other than milk?

Different eating practices in the family. Amount of food varying with gender, age, physical activity, etc. Cooking and gender/ caste roles in the family; Food for the baby, significance of milk.

Everyday experience, local knowledge. Poems/ illustrations on gender stereotyping.

Observation and asking adults, discussion. Listing of food items bought from the market/grown at home.

What animals eat

Do animals eat the same things? What do different animals eat? Do you feed the animals around you - what? What do they take from your house even when not fed?

Food of domestic and wild animals; care of domestic animals.

Stories, cartoons and films.

Observing and listing different animals and their feeding habits,; Discussing food given to animals.; observing animals being fed, keeping food out and observing animals come and feed.

3. Shelter

Houses and houses

Have you seen - a house on stilts, a tent, a flat on the tenth floor, a house on wheels or a house on a boat? Do you know anyone living in such houses? Why do people use such houses?

Some unusual houses, a narrative and a discussion about why such houses are built. Different types of houses Need for shelter, need for living together

Pictures of different types of houses; easily available materials for model making.

Discussion; observation; Drawing, model making and art work. Creative writing about imagined experiences.

Decorating and cleaning our shelter How do you decorate your shelter? Do you draw designs on your walls/ floor or decorate with leaves/flowers/other objects? How do you keep your house clean? Do you also help in cleaning? Who mops and sweeps it? Where do you throw the garbage? Do you have any problems living in your house during rains, summer or winter? Have you seen houses with sloping roofs? Why are they made sloping?

My house, Houses/ shelters are decorated in different ways in different cultures; Need for shelter to provide protection from heat, cold, rain and problems faced. Need to share housework. Garbage disposal.

Illustrations of designs/ motifs used for decoration of the house.

Draw a picture of your house. Draw the various kinds of designs/motifs used to decorate walls/ floors of houses.

My family and other animals

Who all live with you? Which animals live with you - which are the biggest and the smallest animals living in your house? From where do they get their food? Where in your house do these animals live? Which of them are seen only at night?

Family members; pets and other animals, insects, rodents, etc. Food for the pets and other animals. Some are seen only at night.

Daily life experiences. Cartoons.

Discussion and sharing of experiences and knowledge. Drawings of insects, rodents; pets and other domestic animals

Mapping my neighborhood

How big is your school? What kind of a building is it? Can you draw a picture of your school and your classroom ? Do you know your way around your neighbor-hood? Can we explain to someone how to reach the post office or the bus stand from our house?

Neighborhood, mapping and representation in two dimensions. Directions.

Survey of different parts of the school, survey of the neighborhood

Estimating distances, marking location of places and drawing/ mapping from different perspectives, like from the top, from the front etc., Draw a map of the route from our house to the nearest shop

4. Water

Water for my family

What are the main sources of water in your locality? Who fetches the water and from how far? Do all the people in your locality use the same source of water? Are some people not allowed to take water from where you take it? From where do you get water? Does it look clean enough for drinking?

Local sources of water; uses of water; gender roles; distance estimates; social discrimination; clean water for drinking

Child’s daily life experience, local knowledge

Listing the sources of water, Exploring by asking questions from elders or people around, Discussion.

Do animals and plants need water?

What happens if plants and animals do not get water – how do you see that a plant or animal is thirsty? Do all animals/ plants need the same amount of water? Which plants/animals need the least?

Water for plants and animals.

Library resource-brief information about the camel, cactus along with their pictures.

Reading, Discussion; Comparison of a well-watered and a wilting plant.

Water shortage

When is it difficult to get water? Are there some people in your area who always face water shortage? What would happen if we had no water? Have you seen water being wasted – how? How can we avoid it? Do you reuse water?

Water scarcity, wastage and recycling, water harvesting.

Newspaper clippings about water shortage/ water being wasted.

Poster making/ writing activity in groups with a message of saving water.

Water in our lives Which of your daily activities use water? Do you and others you know wash your hands and feet before you enter the house? Why do you think this is done? Can you describe the scene of a rainy day – with details about birds, animals, plants and yourself?

Use of water in different activities; cultural expressions about water/ rain/ rivers; observations related to rain and the response of plants and animals.

Library resources, observations related to daily life. Songs about water/river/rain?

Enacting different activities that utilise water/ a rainy day, listing the activities in which water is used, singing rain/river/ water songs/poems together in the class.

Storing water

How do you store water in your home? Do you collect rainwater - how? How much water do you store every day? About how much do you use for drinking or bathing? In what kinds of containers do you store water for drinking/ washing/or for animals? What are the containers made of? If the water is at the same level in a narrow and a broad container does it mean they contain the same amount of water?

Measurement of volume in terms of non-standard units such as buckets, pots, etc. Estimates of quantities used for different domestic activities; safe handling of water. Containers made of different shapes and materials to store water for different purposes; Conceptual development of conservation of volume.

Child’s daily life experience, bottles of different shapes/sizes/ materials; Panchtantra story

Drawings of different containers. Measurement activities; demonstration to help the understanding of conservation of volume. Touching different containers and discussing about their material.

5. Travel

Going places Has your family traveled together to another place? Where and what for? How did you go? How long did it take? How far did your grandparents (or other elderly persons) travel when they were young? How did people travel in those times? How do people travel today in the desert, hilly areas, on sea, etc.

Need for travel, travel within the locality and beyond; travel to different social spaces – forest, village, city, etc.; travel for migration, sight-seeing, family occasions.

Story of a journey along the river, mountain, etc.

Reading and Discussion, Drawing a village / sea/ forest /mountain scene.

Ways to travel

How do we go to school? How do we travel to other places? How many different ways have we travelled? How many different ways of travel do we know of? Have you been to a railway station? What all do you seen there? Who are the people who work at the station and on the train? How did people travel in the past?

Different modes of transport; short distance, long distance, newer ways of traveling. Different kinds of workers associated with railways/station.

Pictures of modes of transport;

Collect pictures of different modes of transport; classify them into different types of transport; enact a train journey/railway station, Observations of activities at the station like loading, weighing, washing trains, signaling, selling tea, level crossing, etc

Talking without speaking

If I cannot speak, how do I tell people what I want to say?

Communication without speaking, Use of sign language, dance mudra’s.

Sign language, dance mudra’s.

Playing dumb charades, enacting situations without speaking, learning sign language, practicing mudra’s

Mailing a letter

What happens when I post a letter? How does it reach my friend? Who are the people who help to do this? Are there any other ways of sending a message? How was a letter sent in the past?

Letter as a means of communication, work and people associated with the post office; different means of communication, changes with time

Local post office, different samples of letters- inland, post card, greeting card, etc. Discussion with workers at the post office.

Trip to local post office, Observing sorting, stamping, weighing etc.

6. Things we Make and Do

Pottery

What kinds of pots do we see around us? What containers are used to store grain? What kinds of containers did people make long, long back with rings of clay- when they did not have a potter’s wheel? Can you make such pots and dry them in the sun – how long do you think these will last? How does the potter bake them?

To meet basic needs human beings make things; need natural resources, creativity; have changed the way we live. An idea of the earliest pots made for storage of grain – when there was no potters wheel. The experience of making such pots with clay; drying and the need to bake them for greater strength.

Narratives and illustrations of pots and containers made in early times – with rings of clay (e.g., Social Studies book by Eklavya).

Making pots of clay; also with rings; with different types of clay; drying in the sun; talking to potters or brick makers to find out how these are burnt/ baked in furnaces. Making different ornaments etc. with clay.

Textiles

In how many different ways can you wear a long cloth that is not stitched? How many kinds of sarees or lungis have you seen worn by people from different parts of the country? How many different colours do we know of – how many new ones can we create? What are fast colours and what problems do we face when colours run? How do we make our own vegetable block prints and tie and dye?

Diversity in types of clothing we were; even with unstitched clothing. Colours and design are used in textiles; scope for creativity; vegetable dyes.

The idea of different styles of dress; traditional unstitched clothing and different styles of draping it. Some idea of mixing colours to make new ones; fast colours and colours that run; tie and dye; block printing and making our own blocks with vegetables. Samples of blocks, dyes.

Activity to wear/drape a dupatta or long cloth in different styles to emulate what different people do and also to create their own designs. Play with colours and colour mixing; Using dyes to dye cloth; making blocks with potato or ladies fingers for printing on paper.