Welcome the Miss Intelligent of Grade 5

We heartily welcome this new member of the class Samruddhhi Kotecha.

"Hi. I am Samruddhhi. I am known as Miss Intelligent and I love to cook, dance and listen to music. I love to giggle too. I am actually known for it :)"

Happy Blogging !!

The Web of Words

OUR NEW CAMPUS!

                              

In SMIS Jamnagar, there are many grades,

And 1 to 5 grades have shifted to a new premises which is recently made.

The new school has a large ground to play,

There is a big building where we come everyday.

In school we have a garden which is grassy,

We also have a library which is very classy.

We have a small computer lab,

But we all want a separate tab.

We have 1 to 5 classes,

The entire school is made up of glass.

This beautiful structure is delicate,

So please take care all my mate.

                                                                              

                         - Saifuddin Makati

CHILD LABOUR

Child labour is bad,

It makes young, innocent children sad.

These young lives do not get the privilege to study,

Or even have the time to interact with their buddy.

They work hard sweep or serve,

But it is education that they really deserve.

It is not their age to work but to play,

But still they have to toil hard every single day.

Help is all they need,

So that one day even they can lead.

It is our duty to stop exploitation,

That would surely improve our nation.

                                                                        -Dhrit Khona

News about news

Namaste All!

Right in the beginning of the year we, the mentors of grade 5, decided to instill news sense into the students. It is very appropriate age to instill the same in the kids. While our curriculum exposes them to chapters like government and civilizations, it was very important that they know and connect in a better way to the world.

We at our school have circle time where we discuss what we did the previous day and how we feel about whatever we did. It is a healthy discussion that promotes expression. During the same time, every day we encouraged students to find out what happens around the world and how we feel about it.

So why do we need to know about news or the least instill the same in such young kids? Reading news is a habit. We often find our elders at the home with a newspaper in hand and cup of tea in hand almost daily. Newspapers, channels, and websites displaying news are tiny windows to the world. As citizens of the world it is necessary for us to know more about the world we live in, think about it critically and do our bit wherever necessary.

This is a habit we need in our kids too. They might be initially we reluctant to read news on a daily basis. But as time passes by we believe that they will love being in touch with the world. We, here at SMIS, not just nurture leaders, but just leaders, leaders who know their surroundings, who can tell the right from the wrong.

It is compulsory for every student to bring a new piece each. Each time a student comes out with a news piece, we discuss the in the class to understand both the good and bad elements of it. Not only did it abridge the students with the world today, but the discussion that followed also gave them a heads up on what is ethically right and wrong done by the leaders or fellow human beings.

We, at SMIS, have seen a positive change in our kids. The parents of our students have shared that students at their homes put on news channel or talk to their elders or skim through newspapers every day to find out news. Their news sense has improved with time. This has also targeted in improving their language. As they read the newspapers and sites they language skills improve as well.

As an elder we need your participation too. You can encourage reading news. Explain the importance of being a global citizen. Discuss important issues of the world and ask your child to express their ideas about the news.

We aim at making reading news a regular habit. Making an individual aware of their surroundings, helping them become a better citizen for a better tomorrow is something that we target here. 

                                                                                                                          - Deepti Venugopal

Get your brain in gear !

A warm welcome to all of u! I am Saifuddin and it is time to tell you the most interesting topic that we learnt in the past week in our academics.  One beautiful morning Ma’am bought a bagful of porridge and asked us to feel the bag. After we felt it she asked us to guess which body organ is as soft as the porridge. We passed the bag a number of times amongst ourselves and came up with various answers. And we had guessed almost all the body organs that we knew of. We were later told by Ma’am that our brain is as soft as the porridge. We were surprised. Our brain is so soft that we can cut it with a table knife!! So this is how we got hooked ourselves to the basic part of the nervous system, THE BRAIN !

Hello friends I am Jenisha. Let me tell you the next activity that we did to know something more abour brain. After knowing that our brain is as soft as porridge, we were given a clay model of the brain and guess the weight of the brain. While most of us guessed it in grams, Sparsh made the closest guess. The weight of our brain is about 1 kg and 366 gms!! Did you know that the weight of the human brain is a total of 2 percent of the entire body?! Humans have the largest brain to body size!! 

Heyya Friends, this is Sagar. The next day we were given one full page of newspaper and a 4-inch chart paper and we were asked to fit the newspaper inside the perimeter of chart paper given. We all tried to fit the same in various ways. While some of us formed some neat origami, the others just crumbled it. By the end of the game, our mentor told us that the just like a crumbled paper has bumps and fissures the surface of our brain has bumps and fissures too. The brain actually would cover a very large area, but is in a compact/compressed form to fit in our skull, just as the newspaper is crumpeled to fit in the 4x4 chart paper. The more the bumps and fissures, the more intelligent wet are. 

Dear friends, I, Dhrit would like to tell you the next interesting way through which we learnt a bit more about brain. We were given two laptops and asked to find out the various parts of our brain. It was an interesting activity. We google-d a lot and found out that brain is divided into three main parts; the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem.  Cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and it weighs 85 percent of our brain.

Hello all , this is Diya. Let me tell you the how we learnt more about cerebrum. We were shown  videos through which we got many information about cerebrum . The scientific name of cerebrum is Telencephalon. It is the largest part of our brain. Cerebrum covers the 2/3^rd mass of our brain. We learnt that the cerebral cortex is divided into four lobes; the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe. Now an interesting fact about the cerebral cortex; It contains 100 million nerve cells in every square inch!!

Namaste Readers, this is Pranil. I will now tell you how we learnt more about cerebrum. The Ma’am gave us a photocopy of paper puzzle of brain and its parts. We then had to fix the parts in the right place just like a jigsaw puzzle. After we fit the right part in the right place ,we had to label the lobes and color it in different colours. Then we had to stick it in the chart paper. We then learnt that the brain is divided in two hemispheres. The left and the right hemispheres .While the right brain controls the left parts of the body, the right part of the body is controlled by the left brain.

Namste guys!! I am Sparsh. Cerebrum is covered by grey tissues called cerebral cortex. Cerebrum is divided into left and right hemisphere and it is connected by corpus callosum. Let me tell you how the lobes control the functions of your brain. Each of these hemispheres is divided into four lobes. They are frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes. The functions of each lobe are as below: Frontal lobe controlles reasoning, planning, movement, speech and problem solving.Temporal lobe deals with auditory perception, memory and speech. Occipital lobe controls visual processing. Parietal lobe deals with recognition, perception, movement and recognition. We all are waiting in anticipation to learn more about the brain.
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Let the CAT out of the bag !

Hello to all our Readers! This is Dhrit and the Fantabulous 5 is back again after an action-packed week at our school, SMIS. Last week was filled with a lot of action related to CAT. To refresh your memory, CAT at SMIS is Child Advisory Team, where the students of SMIS are selected and elected by our fellow students to govern the school. Last Saturday we had interviews for CAT. We had butterflies in our stomach before the interview. In the interview we were asked a few questions. To become a member of the CAT we had to crack the interviews.

Hey Readers, this is Pranil. We were all very nervous before the interview. While some of us were jumpy, the others got hungry as we were nervous. More than nervous I was excited. I couldn’t wait to face the panel to be interviewed. Before the interviews we were shown videos on tips on what we should do and what we shouldn’t do while in an interview. This gave us an idea on what mistakes we shouldn’t do while facing the panel and we were confident but yet nervous.

Hello to you who is reading our blog! This is Sagar and I would like to give you an insight on what happened inside the interview room. As Pranil said we were all much tensed. This was the first time we would be facing something like this. When I entered the interview room I was nervous but I dint show it. We were questioned by mentors who did not teach us.
Mentor: What post would you like to apply for?
Sagar: I am interested in applying for uniform supervisor and assembly manager.
Mentor: What do u promise if you get to campaign?
Sagar: I promise I will be regular and always be neatly dressed.
Mentor: And what will u do if you can’t come to school?
Sagar: I promise I will be regular to school and never miss it.
That was all they asked and surprisingly I did get tickets for the post I applied for. J

Hello all, its Sparsh here. Adding to what Sagar said, the interview was pretty tough for all of us. But most of us got all the posts that we wanted and we are happy for that. I got the nomination tickets for the post of president and arrival and departure leader. Dhrit got the tickets for President and assembly leader, Pranil got the tickets for the post of president and discipline leader. Saifuddin got the tickets for the Event Manager and Uniform Leader and Diya got the tickets for Discipline leader and Member for choir. Along with Diya, Jenisha too got the ticket for member of choir and uniform leader.  

Hello all. This is Saifuddin. So after we got the tickets it was time for Campaigning. J . To attract and convince the students for voting us we had to campaign the way we wanted to. We were allowed to do campaigning in any way so Dhrit and I made posters and took out print-outs of it to be stick on the glass walls of the school. We were very excited about it and we pasted it on Monday. But it soon came to our notice that print-outs were not allowed. Thought it was very disappointing to watch our efforts go waste, we removed it. But hurdles are a part of life. Without wasting any more time, we were back to creating new hand-made posters for the school.

Hey friends, this is Diya. After we were all done with making the posters, it was time for some real campaigning. We had to advertise ourselves to every class and ask for their precious votes. The campaigning had to stop 48 hours before the D-day and we had only three days to campaign. It was very exciting and challenging. But we had certain rules in the campaigning too. We couldn’t shout slogans and we had very limited time during the day to campaign ourselves. We could only propagate for ourselves during the break after we were done with our breakfast or lunch. Though we had fun, we had a tough time campaigning. But along with the fun, learnt some valuable lessons.

Namaste to all! It’s Jenisha here. Campaigning was the most exciting part of the elections. We saw various posters made by the students of grade 3 and 4 and it was great to get an authentic experience of elections. The first day of campaigns we saw some students offering votes for votes and remote-controlled cars and helicopters were being offered too. Later our mentors told us that this is not the right way to campaign and this is known as corruption. We had often come across the word corruption but this was the first time we actually experienced it. The next day we were told that any student found offering anything for votes except good values will be disqualified for standing in elections. Though nobody from grade 5 was spotted offering any such thing, we learnt a very valuable lesson.

We, as grade 5 students are desperately waiting for the D-day when we will be voting and get voted. We have our fingers crossed for the best!! J

Nurturing the future leaders!!

CAT (Children Advisory Team)– Nurturing the future leaders!!!

We, at SMIS, want our children to influence the world he or she lives in, rather than merely be influenced by it. We educate them to make a difference, not just make a living. So, we try to nurture the leader within each child.

 We believe that a leader is not the person at the front, the person with a title, the loudest person or the bossiest person. A  leader is rather a person who sees – and shows – the way forward, especially during setbacks; communicates big ideas simply; celebrates the accomplishments of others; has the capacity to learn, share knowledge and change; helps people to see problems differently; understands leadership is not control and gives others the chance to show their talents to get things done.
 We firmly believe that every child is a leader. Children have the skills, capability and capacity to lead themselves, others, small teams, the school and friends. Whether they put themselves forward or not, most of them will have to lead at some point in their lives.

But are the good leaders natural or to be nurtured? Research suggest that all children have potential leadership skills, we only have to nurture that. We can only influence the kind of leaders they will become through our guidance. Hence at SMIS, we design strategies  to help children develop their innate leadership skills so that they can use them effectively throughout their lives.By giving children a role in decision-making at an early age, we foster the critical thinking skills necessary to be an effective leader. We try to provide wide variety of opportunities that help students learn and practice essential leadership skills within a learning community.

As a part of this, we have introduced CAT (Children Advisory Team), wherein the students will have a say in almost all the aspects in school. The students of grade 1 to 5 will be given the authentic experience of electing their leaders through the secret ballot system. Students of  grade 3,4 and 5 will apply for the various spectrum of leadership like Assembly leaders, Arrival/Departure Leaders, Event Leaders, Choir Leaders, Discipline Leaders, Uniform Leaders,  Class Representatives, Vice- President (only for grade 4 students) and President (only for grade 5 students). The applicants will face the interview which will be taken by a panel of mentors, and if they are found eligible, a Nomination Ticket will be issued to them. The nominees will then propagate and request their peers to vote for them. The propaganda will stop before 48 hours of the election. . A special ballot paper will be designed for the purpose and each child will vote on the same and deposit their ballot papers in the ballot boxes. After they have cast their votes they will also have a sign on their nails to avoid repeated voting. Once the voting for the committee members from grades 3 and 4 is completed, the elected members will form the Council of Ministers and these Council of Ministers will vote for their President from grade 5. This is how the students will elect their leaders. We, the mentors, will proudly facilitate this process of evolution of the future leaders!! This is surely a wonderful, thrilling and exciting endeavor! To know the student-leaders of SMIS, Jamnagar, keep in touch and don’t miss our next update the next week!
                                                                     -      Jully Bathia

Let's not steal their childhood !

Hey there ! This is Saifuddin. In our class during the POI session we came across the topics of rights for the Indian citizen where we were taught child rights. We came to know about child labour. We learnt about child labour through many ways such as presentation, photos, discussions about child labour etc. We also interviewed  child labourers to know how hard they work and talked to the adults around us and asked their opinions about child labour. With the information that we got we made power point presentations and presented it in class. By this, we came to know child labour is employing a child  and making them work. We should stop child labour and it is bad and it creates problem for kids.

Hello friends, I am Sagar and I will talk about child rights. There are four important categories of rights that have been given to children by UNICEF. These rights are right to participation, right to development, right to survival and right to protection. Child labour is not given these rights  and people who employ child labourers should be punished. Child labour is a crime and people employing innocent children are criminals.

Hello there, this is Jenisha. To find out more about child labour and the issues, we took interviews  of children who worked all day long to earn money, who did not play or study and suffered a lot. We also took interviews of adults and found out that even the adults around us oppose child labour. I think the government should make more strict laws to punish people who employ child labourers.

Hi, I am Diya and adding to my friends I would say that child labour is a wide spread problem. In some families the parents do not work themselves and send their children to work  which is very  strenuous. This spoils the childhood of the young and innocent children. When I went to take the interviews, I came across a girl called Munni. She was just 8 years old. She balanced on the rope at Lakhota lake in my city. She was practising this since the age of 6. Her parents said that she goes to the school in the morning, practises in the afternoon and performs  in the evening. Parents should understand that at this age their children should be educated and not work. Child labour should be strictly banned in our country.