Why the project Myself?

Student’s understanding of the world begins from the immediate ‘self’ to the family, neighbourhood, school, communities, country and world. Considering this, the first project ‘Myself’ is taken up.

The project is concerned with the personal, social and emotional development of the students. An exploration of the elements of this strand fosters self-awareness and understanding and enables students to take care of and respect themselves. It also contributes to establishing ways of thinking, feeling and acting that help promote and maintain health and well-being of students; both now and in future.

The project focuses on developing a sense of care and respect for other people and the facility for relating and communicating effectively with others.

Students face two challenges when they enter the school—first, adapting to a new environment and second, learning new content. The two combined together become too difficult for them to cope. The project, being familiar in content, takes away these challenges and allows students to adapt to the new environment by interacting with each other. It also focuses on building confidence and social relationships. The project provides plenty of opportunities to students to know about their friends. This helps them settle in the school environment. While learning the concepts, students learn about different body parts, sense organs and cleanliness of different body parts.

At this age, students love to talk about themselves. This project gives space to them to talk about themselves such as their name, body parts, likes and dislikes, emotions. This, in turn, builds their knowledge about themselves. They also learn about concepts like my body, different body parts and their functions. They talk about the cleanliness of different body parts. They show their likes and dislikes through graphs and pictures. We have tried to bridge the gap between the school and home by giving them some home tasks which they do with the help of their parents and later discuss them in the school, so that these two spaces remain interconnected for the young learners, rather than being isolated environments.

Adequate emphasis is given on the development of finemotor skills of students through activities like finger- printing, tearing and pasting. Finemotor skills refer to the coordination between the small muscle movements that occur in body parts such as fingers, usually in coordination with eyes. These skills are an important part of their development and prepare them for writing.

Integration in Project

Projects are a great means for learning. They allow students to explore abstract ideas in a context with which they can relate. Familiar context makes the grasping of the project simpler for them. They get motivation to learn. Early childhood years are very crucial for the all-around development of a child. It is said that brain development is maximum in the early years of life. It is essential that in this age, work on holistic development of the child should take place as these years acts as a foundation for future learning. Hence, projects are built in such a way that they integrate major domains of development. Moreover, experiences in real lives do not happen in a divided manner. They happen holistically. Integration in projects makes learning natural for students. Domains of development covered in this project are:

Cognitive Development: Cognitive development includes skills pertaining to learning and thinking. Reasoning skill, memory, conceptual knowledge, attention, etc., are a part of cognitive development. This project familiarises them with concepts like recognising and naming different body parts and senses. Recognition of body parts involves not just the naming of body but also uses of those different body parts.

Language Development: Language is not just a means of communication. Language plays a crucial role in the shaping of thoughts. It is the means of making sense of the world. It is a medium to express, relate, inform and build relations. It is also the means to teach all other subjects that happen in school. Hence language development is very crucial in the teaching and learning of students. In this project, ample opportunities are given to students to speak about themselves and listen to their friends. Expectation is not that they speak in complete and grammatically correct sentences but in few words; even broken sentences are accepted. Gradually, they are encouraged to speak in complete sentences. The context myself is most appropriate for such talk as students know about themselves and expressing/sharing is not difficult for them. In this project, a lot of work like colouring and drawing also happens. These activities act as pre-writing activities as they support students in connecting with the context. The project also supports pre-reading as a lot of stories and rhymes are done which provide students an exposure of reading. Tools like story and poems are used in this project. This helps students build a relation that carries meaning.

Mathematics: Students develop some mathematical skills through this project. They collect different data to represent in pictograph. Students get exposure to various mathematical skills such as sequencing, matching and making pictographs. These skills go with the context.

Life skills: Various life skills such as caring for self, taking needed steps in different situations (e.g. when she/ he gets hurt, clean it with water), taking turns, are used. These skills help them in understanding how to clean their body.

Arts and Craft skills: Various skills of arts and craft such as clay modelling and drawing are used to introduce different body parts and their names. They handle different craft material. They use their hands and fingers’ pressure to create things from clay. This develops their motor skills. They learn to handle different materials and learn to create things. Motor skills help them in their overall development.