To the University Afterschool!

There is a lot of talk about the need for Universities to open up their doors to the community. Kudos to the University of Hyderabad for doing so!

The Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication now has a new building on the University of Hyderabad campus at Gachibowli. A week-long cultural fiesta was organized (March 13-19) on the occasion by the University. The best part - it was open to the public. I attended the final day of the festival - a wonderful music and dance performance by students from the Mahasarakham University, Thailand.

If you live around Gachibowli, Kondapur, Miyapur, BHEL... keep an eye out for happenings at the University of Hyderabad - they can make a wonderful afterschool learning opportunity. You can check out their website for upcoming events.

A Good Toy for Afterschool

Here is a great video on What makes a good toy? Thanks to the Centre for Science and Environment and its Down to Earth magazine for this interesting and inspiring video.

Create Comics Afterschool

I mentioned about internet resources for comic creation in an earlier post. But this one is different: it is about creating paper and pen comics - and, more importantly for a purpose.

A good way to get children think about issues - development, environment, poverty, peace... is to get them to communicate about them in creative ways. What better way than a comic strip?

World Comics India has a simple, to-the-point manual to help you get started. It gives useful tips on creating comics (do check out the pages on Common Errors). Here is the link to the manual.

High School Math for Afterschool

Sometimes you just stumble upon a fabulous website - you wonder how you missed it for so long! Here is a very rich and comprehensive site on high school math I just found. FREEganita.com. What makes the site so special is that it is closely tied to the Indian school curriculum - it has a topic map page showing how it links to the CBSE, ICSE and the state boards of all the 4 southern states plus Maharashtra.

Yes, the site is not interactive - but it gives good revision material for a high school student. It also has a nice section on Mathematics in Daily Life.

The best part is - the whole site can be downloaded as a .zip file - how useful for students struggling with low band width and limited internet access!

BASE Camps for Afterschool

BASE is the Bangalore Association of Science Education. BASE focuses on non-formal science education. It offers workshops, exhibitions, summer camps, etc., for school-age children. For more information go this this link and see under BASE. The website also offers a sky chart for every month - you will find it at this link.

Explore India Afterschool!

The Kids' Travel and Activity Guide to India seems to be a great resource for afterschool exploration. Here is the link to the website.

For many children from middle-class homes in India, travel is a rare luxury. Most never get to travel beyond the grandparents' village. Getting children to read interesting accounts of places can help them take a virtual tour. They could even make a photo album of their virtual tour by doing some clever image mixing and editing on the computer (last summer a child in my afterschool centre 'visited' the 'new seven wonders' of the world and made a great set of photos to show off!). Such projects can make geography and history come alive. Children could also try making a travel guide for visitors to their own city/village. Writing for an alien audience can help you discover surprising aspects about places you thought you knew all about.

Mad Science AfterSchool!

With international schools mushrooming in India, international afterschool programmes can't be too far behind! Mad Science - an afterschool science enrichment programme from the US is now in India - at two locations Kolkata and Mumbai.

Mad Science offers a range of fun, hands-on science activities for children between 6-12 years of age. Visit their website for more information and contact details.