Some Interesting Facts on Origins of Indian Education

• Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.

• The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.

• The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.

• The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

• Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: ( 5th century ) 365.258756484 days.

• The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.

• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 ( i.e 10 to the power of 53 ) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12( 10 to the power of 12 ).

• India has the second largest pool of scientists & engineers in the world.!!

• Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

Poem - This my Peace Song

This is my song, O ! God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover-leaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.

Land where my forefathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside,
A song of peace.

Corporate Moral Story

A young and successful executive was going a bit too fast in his new car.Suddenly, a brick smashed into the car's side door! He applied the brakes and drove the car back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry man then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him, shouting, "What was that all about and who are you?Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money.Why did you do it?"

The young boy was apologetic. "Please mister ... please, I'm sorry... I didn't know what else to do," he pleaded.

"I threw the brick because no one else would stop..."

With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car.

"It's my brother," he said.

"He fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the man understood the problem of the small boy. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out his handkerchief and tried to wash his scrapes and cuts.

"Thank you and may God bless you," the grateful child told the man.
Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the little boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.  Now the man returned slowly to his car. The damage to the car was very noticeable, but he never bothered to repair the damaged side door.

He kept the door as its is to remind him of this message:

Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!

God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us.
It's our choice: Listen to the whisper ... or wait for the brick!

Check your IQ

1. Some months have 30 days, some months have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?

2. If a doctor gives you 3 pills and tells you to take one pill every half
hour, how long would it be before all the pills had been taken?

3. I went to bed at eight 8 'clock in the evening and wound up my clock and set the alarm to sound at nine 9 'clock in the morning. How many hours sleep would I get before being awoken by the alarm?

4. Divide 30 by half and add ten. What do you get?

5. A farmer had 17 sheep. All but 9 died. How many live sheep were left?

6. If you had only one match and entered a COLD and DARK room, where there was an oil heater, an oil lamp and a candle, which would you light first?

7. A man builds a house with four sides of rectangular construction, each side having a southern exposure. A big bear comes along. What color is the bear?

8. Take 2 apples from 3 apples. What do you have?

9. How many animals of each species did Moses take with him in the Ark?

10. If you drove a bus with 26 people on board from Chennai and stopped at Kancheepuram to pick up 7 more people and drop off 5 passengers and at Vellore to drop off 8 passengers and pick up 4 more and eventually arrive at Bangalore 20 hours later, What's the name of the driver?

click here for the Answers:

An interesting fact about October 2010

The OCTOBER 2010 has:

5 Fridays;
5 Saturdays; and
5 Sundays, all in 1 month!

It happens once in 823 years.

Quotes by Swami Vivekananda

• Everyone should know that there is no salvation except through the conquering of desires.

• Purity is strength. Spiritual truth is purity.

• The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.

• The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say “me” and “mine”; they are only blessed in being instruments.

• Hold to the idea, “I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act,” and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

• The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.

• The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are, the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.

• The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.

• There is only one sin. That is weakness.... The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.

• Do any deserve liberty who are not ready to give it to others? Let us calmly go to work, instead of dissipating our energy in unnecessary fretting and fuming.

• Both the forces of good and evil will keep the universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies.

• Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.

• Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.

• “Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable.”

• “Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.

• When we come to nonattachment, then we can understand the marvelous mystery of the universe: how it is intense activity and at the same time intense peace, how it is work every moment and rest every moment.

• Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached. 

• Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has its seat.

• Thank God for giving you this world as a moral gymnasium to help your development, but never imagine you can help the world.

• The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.

• The power is with the silent ones, who only live and love and then withdraw their personality. They never say “me” and “mine”; they are only blessed in being instruments.

• This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

• Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.

• Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.

• Anything that brings spiritual, mental, or physical weakness, touch it not with the toes of your feet.

• All who have actually attained any real religious experience never wrangle over the form in which the different religions are expressed. They know that the soul of all religions is the same and so they have no quarrel with anybody just because he or she does not speak in the same tongue.

• We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.

• The power of purity—it is a definite power.

• 'The world is the great gymnasium where we come to make ourself strong.' 

• 'FEEL like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.' 

• 'THE will is not free- it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect -but there is something behind the will which is free.' 

• 'THERE is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting things.' 

• 'As the different streams having their sources in different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.

• 'THROUGH prayer, the love of God grows and assumes a form which is called supreme devotion. Forms vanish, retuals fly away, books are superseded, images, temples, churches, religions and sects, countries and nationalities - all these little limitations and bondages fall off by their own nature from him who knows this love of God.'

• IT is good to love God for hope of reward, but it is better to love God for love's sake; and the prayer goes: O Lord, I do not want wealth nor, children nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth. But grant me this, that I may love thee without the hope of reward--'love'' unselfishly for love's sake.

• 'My nature is love Him. And therefore I love. I do not pray for any-thing. I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love's sake. I can not trade in love.'

• 'HOW to worship Him? through love. He is to be worshipped as the one beloved dear than everything in this and the next life .' 

• 'GOD of truth, be Thou alone my guide..'

• You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

• We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.

• It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

• Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.

• 'TO worship God even for the sake of salvation or any other reward is equally degenerate. Love knows no reward. Give your love unto to God, but do not ask anything in return even from Him through pray.'

• 'PRAYER is divine love alone. When this highest ideal of love is reached, philosophy is thrown away. Who will then care of it ? Freedom, salvation, nirvana- all are thrown away. Who cares to become free while in the enjoyment of divine love? '

• Purity in thought, speech, and act is absolutely necessary for anyone to be religious. 

• That which tends to increase the divinity in you is virtue, and that which tends to increase brutality in you is vice.

• 'We see that the apparent contradictions and perplexities in every RELIGION mark but different stages of growth. The end of all religions is the realizing of God in the soul. That is the one universal religion.'

• To me the very essence of education is concentration of the mind, not the collecting of facts.

• Let all your nerves vibrate through the backbone of your religion.

• The first sign that you are becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful.

• There is only one sin. That is weakness.... The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.

• Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

• If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

• Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. It is not in the brain but in the heart that the Atman, possessed of knowledge, power, and activity, has its seat.

Poem - Number One

NUMBER ONE

One song can spark a moment,

One flower can wake the dream.

One tree can start a forest,

One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,

One handclasp lifts a soul.

One star can guide a ship at sea,

One word can frame the goal.

One vote can change a nation,

One sunbeam lights a room

One candle wipes out darkness,

One laugh will conquer gloom.

One step must start each journey.

One word must start each prayer.

One hope will raise our spirits,

One touch can show you care.

One voice can speak with wisdom,

One heart can know what's true,

One life can make a difference,

You see, it's up to you!

* * * * * * *

Life Philosophy: The Value of Time

To realize the value of one year;

Ask a student who has failed in a final exam.

To realize the value of one month;

Ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one hour;

Ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute;

Ask the person who has missed the train, or bus or plane.

To realize the value of one second;

Ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond;

Ask the person who has won silver at the Olympics.

Time waits for no one.

Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more if you can spend it with someone special.

*******

Life Philosophy: Think About It !

"My mother used to ask me what the most important part of the body is.  Through the years I would take a guess at what I thought was the correct Answer.

When I was younger, I thought sound was very important to us as humans, so I said, "My ears, Mommy."

She said, "No. Many people are deaf. But you keep thinking about it and I will ask you again soon."

Several years passed before she asked me again. Since making my first attempt, I had contemplated the correct answer.

So this time I told her, "Mommy, sight is very important to everybody, so it must be our eyes."

She looked at me and told me, "You are learning fast, but the answer is not correct because there are many people who are blind."

Stumped again, I continued my quest for knowledge and over the years, Mother asked me a couple more times and always her answer was, "No. But you are getting smarter every year, my child."

Then one year, my grandfather died. Everybody was hurt. Everybody was crying. Even my father cried. I remember that especially because it was only the second time I saw him cry.

My Mom looked at me when it was our turn to say our final good-bye to my Grandfather.

She asked me, "Do you know the most important body part yet, my dear?" I was shocked when she asked me this now.

I always thought this was a game between her and me.

She saw the confusion on my face and told me, "This question is very important.

It shows that you have really lived in your life. For every body part you gave me in the past, I have told you were wrong and I have given you an example why.

But today is the day you need to learn this important lesson."

She looked down at me as only a mother can. I saw her eyes well up with tears. She said, "My dear, the most important body part is your shoulder."

I asked, "Is it because it holds up my head?"

She replied, "No, it is because it can hold the head of a friend or a loved one when they cry.  Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on sometime in life, my dear. I only hope that you have enough love and friends that you will always have a shoulder to cry on when you need it."

Then and there I knew the most important body part is not a selfish one.

It is made for others and not for yourself. It is sympathetic to the pain of others.

People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will NEVER forget how you made them feel.

Stagnation in Life? Change it.

If you don’t like where you are,

Change it! 

Because, 
YOU are not a tree.

* * * * * * *

Make life smooth....Take Time in Life to...

Take time to learn,

It is a sign of greatness.

Take time to think,

It is a source of power.

Take time to plan,

It is the first step to fulfillment.

Take time to work,

It is the price of success.

Take time to dream,

It is the fountain of achievement.

Take time to act,

It is an expression of belief in oneself.

Take time to give,

It is a symbol of maturity.

Take time to smile,

It is the window of the soul.

Take time to love,

It is a gift of God.

Health Check: Why to Drink Coconut Water?

Coconut Water contains organic compounds possessing healthy growth promoting properties that have been known to help:

·         Keep the body cool and at the proper temperature

·         Orally re-hydrate your body, it is an all natural isotonic beverage

·         Carry nutrients and oxygen to cells

·         Naturally replenish your body's fluids after exercising

·         Raise your metabolism

·         Promote weight loss

·         Boost your immune system

·         Detoxify and fight viruses

·         Cleanse your digestive tract

·         Control diabetes

·         Aid your body in fighting viruses that cause the flu, herpes, and AIDS

·         Balance your PH and reduce risk of cancer

·         Treat kidney and urethral stones

·         Boost poor circulation of Blood.

                                                                             *****

Life seems so difficult? Think - About It

Think - About It

Today before you think of saying an unkind word.
Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food.
Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Before you complain about your husband or wife.
Think of someone who's crying out to God for a companion.

Today before you complain about life.
Think of someone who went too early to heaven.

Before you complain about your children.
Think of someone who desires children but they're barren.

Before you argue about your dirty house; someone didn't clean or sweep.
Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before whining about the distance you drive.
Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job.
Think of the unemployed, the disabled and those who wished they had your job.

But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another.
Remember that not one of us are without sin and we all answer to one maker.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down.
Put a smile on your face and thank God you're alive and still around.

******

Take life easily - A philosophy using Mayonnaise Jar

A professor stood before his Philosophy class and had some items in front of him.

When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.

The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life”.

"The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full”.

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car”.

"The sand is everything else--the small stuff”.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls”.

"The same goes for life”.

“If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you”.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness”.

“Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter”.

"Set your priorities”.

"The rest is just sand”.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked”.

"It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend."

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 Hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar . . . and the coffee.

***************

Garbage Menace

Introduction:
Managing garbage seems to be a ubiquitous problem. Our ad hoc ways of managing ways and inadequate knowledge of the problems that creep because of this are causing irreparable damage to the environment. As tomorrow’s citizens, children have to be made aware of this huge problem so that they become responsible citizens. This article tells the teacher ways in which she can introduce this problem to her students and get them to think about it.

Objective:
1. Students will know how better to manage the waste they produce.
2. Students will learn to empathize with people who strive to keep our roads and cities clean.
3. Students will be more conscious about littering the environment.
4. Students will learn the dangers of an unhealthy environment.

Activity Steps:
Can your students imagine a situation where the municipal workers have decided to go on an indefinite strike protesting against their working conditions? Create a situation that can help them imagine this. It could be a rainy day. The rains have hit the city badly and sewerage system has collapsed. Dirty water is flowing everywhere – on the roads, in the gutters, into the shops and houses. The waste bins are overflowing, and a bad stench engulfs the atmosphere. To worsen the situation, all the municipal workers have declared an indefinite strike. What would the consequence be on our daily lives? The students could write a report/letter to a newspaper, an essay, or even click a picture depicting the situation.

Through this activity, draw the attention of the students to the fact that most often we limit our concern to keeping our immediate surroundings clean. In the process we unload our garbage either on the streets or waste bins located outside our territories. While some of the garbage may be non bio-degradable, a large part could be used as manure. It is a low-cost process which would reduce both the accumulation of garbage in public bins and the unpleasant burden on the municipal worker. Being a municipal worker is a tough job, which entails sweeping roads, collecting garbage, clearing the gutters, sewers, removing the carcasses of dead animals, to name a few. Some of the most common diseases a sweeper is susceptible to are breathing problems, lung diseases, tuberculosis, scabies, and other skin infections, cuts and scratches, bites from insects and rodents, muscular aches and fungus infections. You could begin the discussion by asking them what they think are the difficulties and dangers of being a garbage collector or road sweeper.

What do they think the remedies are? How can the job be made easier? For instance, the broomsticks are so structured that the sweepers have to work in a bent position for hours together. They are never provided with gloves to protect their hands from rotten garbage or pesticides. Face masks are totally unheard of.

What can we do to reduce the misery of these workers?

Devise sustainable ways of using daily waste, especially that which is bio-degradable. The students could be encouraged to make their own compost heap, keep two separate bins in schools, one saying bio-degradable and the other, non-biodegradable. The bio-degradable bin could include paper, bits of cloth, food stuff, fruits and any other object that can be easily decomposed. Initially, the students would require help to prepare the compost beds.
As an additional task, ask the students to find out how the waste gets decomposed to form a natural fertilizer. Though this entire exercise, the students should realize that composting their own waste at home and at school, however little it may be, would make a world of difference for their immediate environment.

Make your own compost heap

• Take a box measuring 2 X 2 feet, and 4 feet high. Such a box would be easily available in any grocery shop.
• Fill the bed with a few pebbles and sticks. Add a layer of sand on the pebbles.
• Fill in the gathered waste up to nine inches and pour some water into it, sprinkle some powdered lime and add a two inch layer of soil on the waste. Repeat to wet the heap regularly.
• After a period of six months, remove the heap from the box.
• Mix it well and put it into another box of similar proportion.
• Continue to wet it regularly for another two or three months.

Your fertilizer is ready. This natural fertilizer could be used as manure for the school garden and the excess could be marketed commercially. The students could even gift the fertilizer to any small farmer.

Make-believe the Potential of your student

Indian classrooms in general tend to be crowded, if not overcrowded! Many Kindergarten classrooms try to provide a small area devoted for children to play. This play area can be a valuable learning resource for young children. This area can be named "home comer" or "role-play area". If space is an issue, move aside a few desks or the teacher's desk to make room for an hour or two.

Children can use this area to play different roles. A few (as shown in the boxes) situations that could be played include

A. a restaurant
B. a doctor’s clinic
C. a shoe shop

A. A Restaurant


Someone in a hurry who wants something to eat quickly, consults the waiter as to what is available and which food item could be made quickly.
A customer who complains about the food.


B. A Doctor’s Clinic

Ask one child to play a difficult patient who cannot come for an appointment and wishes the receptionist (played by another student) to give her special attention
A worried mother who wants a doctor to visit her ill child.

C. A Shoeshop

A customer who wants special pair of shoes to match a grand dress.
A customer wishing to return a pair of shoes because they don’t fit.

Each of these offers a different set of learning opportunities. The doctor’s clinic would include a reception desk and telephone to encourage discussion, giving clear and simple explanations and providing reasons for actions. Record-keeping and appointment books allow children to practice their writing skills.
Role-play areas do not always have to represent familiar places. Places that take children back in time, such as palaces, give them a sense of the past.

Scenes from fairy tales, folk tales and myths, such as Cinderella’s kitchen or the abode of Shiva and Parvati in the Himalayas or the forest of the Panchatantra tales could extend the children’s speaking and listening skills.

The question of the teacher’s intervention of supervision of the home-corner is tricky. Children tend to be shy and inhibited in the presence of adults. It would be worthwhile to allow them to play on their own for a while. There are times, however, when the teacher can benefit the children’s learning by entering into their imaginary world and joining in their play.

Initially, it may be preferable simply to watch the children playing and to make some comments as you pass by. This will help build up their trust so that they will eventually allow you in their play. When and how to intervene constructively, without the children feeling that you are intruding, takes sensitivity and a watchful eye.

Once you join the children at play and adopt a role within their make-believe world, you can vary opportunities and possible outcomes. Those which arise naturally from the children themselves are particularly effective. Children need to feel some ownership of the story and that their contributions are valued.
Remind the children playing roles to treat themselves with the same respect as in real life situations.

With careful thought, many curriculum areas can be visited as part of the whole project, and the work can lead to much class discussion.

Select a story (popular myths, tales, etc.) and create a role-play area on the theme of the story. Plan the project for over a month. As timetables don’t actually permit these activities, it can be conducted over a period of few weeks. Select one story and fashion the role-play area on its theme.

A demonstration with the following story:
The Wicked King
The Lion eats all other inmates of the forest. The animals want to put a stop to the indiscriminate killing—they offer to take turns sending food/prey to the Lion. The day comes when the Rabbit must supply himself as the Lion’s feed.

The Rabbit hatches a simple but effective plan…

Hopping into the Lion’s den, the Rabbit says that there is another Lion poaching in the forest. The enraged Lion demands to meet the interloper. The Rabbit takes the Lion to a well. Assuming its own reflection to be another predator, the Lion jumps into the well to fight, but drowns.

This fairly popular tale offers a variety of situations for role play and cross-curricular activities. Here are some suggestions for cross-curricular activities linked with creating a role-play area on the theme of Forest Kingdom.
All these exchanges will provide opportunities for:

• Sharing opinions and ideas
• Investigating and reporting events
• Sharing feelings
• Listening to others

Geography
Discuss the physical surroundings: Is there a pond or lake in the forest? Are there human settlements nearby? Discuss the necessity of water for life.
Draw a pictorial map of the forest showing the paths the animals use. Keep it in the Forest-role-play area for consultation.

Art
Paint some portraits of the animals and hang it on the walls.

Also draw trees and hills on charts and hang them on the walls to help create the Forest theme.

Language

Create a copy of a newspaper called The Forest Times. The news items could be topics such as the birth of the baby elephant, weather report, etc.
Suggest some suitable books for the Royal Lion, perhaps reading Gandhi can turn him to the path of Ahimsa? This could lead to a discussion about how well animals can read, i.e., the difference between human beings and animals, etc.
Write a book of forest rhymes.

Maths
Maintain a notebook and measure the growth of the plants, the number of leaves, etc.
A deer family of seven members has sent two young deer as the Lion’s feed, how many remain?

Science
Plant some seeds to grow plants for the role-play area. The children can water them. Use mugs, small pots, etc.
Place some plants on the window sill and some in the shade. Once the children notice the difference in the growth of the plants explain photosynthesis using this.

Drama
Ask children to finalize a list of the animals involved and learn to imitate their calls, movements, postures, etc.

Enact the scene where the Rabbit fools the Lion.

Involve children in roles of different animals making a petition to the arrogant Lion to stop killing them—a passionate argument might develop!
A reporter from The Forest Times investigates the death of the Lion. Stage interviews with the Rabbit and the other animals, requesting their opinion.