View from the Classroom

Small Science during Lockdown! Ever since the Covid-19 lockdown Al Qamar Academy has been working in online mode. The entire experience is new for teachers and students. I was particularly apprehensive about teaching science...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Grade IV A, September, 2018 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 3 – Fun with Air! Air makes bubbles I am very excited to share my classroom experience with...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Grade IV C, June-July, 2018 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 1 – Sun, Wind, Cloud and Rain! Weather watch I feel elated to share my classroom experience on...

Gyankriti School, Indore Fun and Games! जब Small Science पाठ्यपुस्तक मेरे हाथ में आई और मैंने अंत में दिये गए ‘खेल’ वाले खंड को पढ़ा तो मेरी बचपन की यादें ताजा हो गयी। बचपन...

Delhi Public School Bathinda, Punjab Class IV B, April 2018 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 4 – What’s in the air? Gases in balloons I had previously read in class the story and...

Delhi Public School, Bathinda, Punjab Class III, February 2018 Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 12 – Make your own house Mud and bricks After Chapter 11 – ‘Houses of all kinds’ the Class...

Gyankriti School, Indore, Grade 1 Year 2017-18 Knowing the food we eat We spent a significant time teaching children about food and its origin. This blog details some of the activities we conducted while...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class III A, 2017-18 Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 7 – Our Teeth Observing teeth One day, I walked into my classroom with a black envelope closed tightly....

Delhi Public School, Bathinda, Punjab Class II C, December 2017 Small Science – Class 1 & 2 Topic 19 – Festivals Id and more At DPS Bathinda we take up one chapter per month...

Gyankriti School, Indore, Grade 1 February 2018 Our first year with Small Science One year ago we started our first batch of Grade 1. As I wrote earlier, it was a comparatively easy decision...

Gyankriti School, Indore December 8, 2017 Lunar cycles and Indian calendars Outer Space and celestial bodies fascinate everyone, including children. Many countries invest lots of time and resources in exposing children to space research....

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 November 2017 Small Science – Class 3 Unit 3 – Our Body, Our Food Chapter 6 – Our food Millet party Grade 3 have been working on the...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai March – May 2017 Little authors Al Qamar students of Grades 4-8 worked with K. Ramnath Chandrasekar, a wildlife educator and nature conservationist, to write books with an ecological /...

Delhi Public School Bathinda, Punjab Class IV, October 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 6 – Water and life Water in plants We did this beautiful set of activities over the course of...

Delhi Public School Bathinda, Punjab November 2017 Small Science at DPS Bathinda I joined DPS Bathinda in 2003 as a science teacher. As of now I have more than 15 years of experience in...

Delhi Public School Bathinda, Punjab November 2017 My association with Small Science The Rajkot experience I stumbled upon this amazing set of books called “Small Science” in 2005 when I was the principal of...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class V C & V D, August – September 2017 Small Science – Class 5 Chapter 3 – How things move Sliding, rolling, slipping I as a science teacher...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class III C, August 2017 Small Science – Class 3 Unit 1 – The Living World Indian Common Crow Question – Indian Common Crow is also called “Euploea core...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class IV C, August 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 3 – Fun with air! Trapping air I am very excited to share my classroom experience with the...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class V B, August 2017 Small Science – Class 5 Foldscope at Vedavalli Foldscope workshop In October 2016 two of us teachers, from Vedavalli Walajapet and Ranipet, attended a...

Akshaya Foundation School, Hyderabad 3 August 2017 Small Science Class 2 – Topic 2 – My Body Small Science Class 3 – Chapter 1 – So many living things! Small Science Class 4 –...

Akshaya Foundation School, Hyderabad August 2017 About Akshaya Foundation School Before starting Akshaya Foundation School I was a regular school teacher. A good friend suggested to me that I should start a school. I...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 March 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 3 – Water Chapter 7 – Water and us Water and us We went on an excursion to the Rain...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 February- March 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 3 -Water Chapter 6 – Water and life Water and life Aunty read us the story of Mini and...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 February 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 3- Water Chapter 5 – Fun with water! Water cycles Today was another wonderful science class. We had been thinking...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 February 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 3 – Water Chapter 5 – Fun with water! Creeping crystals Today we made solutions. Aunty asked us if we knew...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 January 2017 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 3 – Water Chapter 5 – Fun with water! Water wheel and flotation After a long period of erratic classes,...

Gyankriti School, Indore, Grade 1 March 2017 Small Science Teacher’s Book – Class 1 & 2 Unit 1 – Me and My Family About Gyankriti Gyankriti School was founded in 2013 by me, Yograj...

Trees of Vedavalli – Walajapet Campus This map shows the trees at Vedavalli Walajapet campus. The number near each tree corresponds to the serial number of that type of tree in the Table below....

Trees of Vedavalli – Ranipet Campus A team of four teachers, Ms. Kesavapriya , Ms. Indhumathi, Ms. Divya and Ms. Sheela, the head teacher, along with aunty Raniamma, carried out the documentation of the...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 September – October 2016 Small Science – Class 4 Unit 1 – Sky and Weather Chapter 2 – Day sky, night sky Sky watch Our class has been...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class IV D, September 2016 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 9 – Food in our bodies Food in our bodies – 1 I am very excited to share...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 August 2016 Small Science – Class 3 Unit 1 – The Living World Tawny Coster Only when the first butterfly emerged and spread out its handsome orange-brown spotted...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 October 2016 Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 9 – How many, How much? How many, How much? One day in class Aneesa Aunty read us the story...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 August 2016 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 1 – Sun, wind, clouds and rain Reflective responses on ‘Weather’ These are some of the Al Qamar Grade 4...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai August – September 2016 Small Science – Classes 3 and 4 From inquiry to learning – 2 Students love the Small Science activities but initially balk at the workbook –...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai August – September 2016 Small Science – Classes 3 and 4 From inquiry to learning – 1 As adults and educators, when we see the Small Science Workbook, we are thrilled....

Pongam puzzles A report from Al Qamar Academy, Chennai September 2016 We found many Pongam trees (Latin name ‘Pongamia pinnata’ or ‘Milletia pinnata’; ‘Karanj’ in Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati) in and around Chennai. These...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 August 2016 Small Science – Class 3 Unit 1 – The Living World Outings and sproutings After observing lots of living things in and around our school we...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 August 2016 Small Science – Class 3 Unit 1 – The Living World Little critters – 2 We decided to try the terrarium activity (Small Science Class 3...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4 August 2016 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 1 – Sun, wind, clouds and rain Clouds, floods and droughts We went upstairs to the terrace to see clouds....

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class: V A, August 2016 Small Science – Class 5 Chapter 2 – Soil Soil-1 I am very glad to share a few experiences which I had with my...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class IV D, August 2016 Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 1 – Sun, wind, clouds and rain Weather calendar and clock I felt very excited to teach Small...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet, Tamil Nadu Class: III A, August 2016 Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 4 – Looking at Animals The ants, the ants * Students of Class III A of Vedavalli Vidyalaya,...

Vedavalli Vidyalaya, Walajapet and Ranipet Small Science at Vedavalli The Vedavalli Vidyalayas are two CBSE senior secondary schools founded by the Thirumalai Charity Trust about two decades ago at Walajapet and Ranipet in Tamil Nadu....

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3 27 July 2016, 12-1 pm Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 1 – So many living things! Nature walk and teacher thoughts We went for a nature walk...

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 4, 25 July 2016, 10:30 am Small Science – Class 4 Chapter 1 – Sun, wind, clouds and rain We talked about the weather today – almost like grown ups....

Al Qamar Academy, Chennai, Grade 3,  25 July 2016, 11:30 am Small Science – Class 3 Chapter 1 – So many living things! Little critters -1 In the classroom, besides students and teachers we...

Flying Seeds 18-11-2008 I hurried to class IV  today anxious to see what kinds of seeds( (see activity on ‘flying seeds’ in class IV book, Unit: II, Air) the students might have madebut I...

Some Metaquestions .. 18-9-2008 The questions posted in the previous post (see ‘small science and asking questions’) got me pondering about what the nature of questions in Science are. Two of the categories in...

Big questions from Small Science !! 17-9-2008  Besides opportunities given through activities, the final exercise in each chapter of Small Science is, “Ask a Question”.  Curious to see what kind of questions the children...

Exploring the Senses…  September 9, 2008- Part I In class III today, the teacher continued with the unit ‘Our body’. Today, she brought a teaching aid with her. It was a big illustrated chart...

Narratives in the Classroom September 2, 2008-part II In Class III, The students and teacher were engrossed in finding about ‘Our body’. The lesson begins with a story called Mini’s fall. In fact, all...

Science in Festival Time… September 2, 2008 -part I   Today was the day prior to Ganesh Chaturthi holidays that the children were to have for a week. The children were engrossed in making pictures...

Categories and Kinds August 12, 2008 I walked into class III today to see the teacher engaged in getting her students to think of similarities and differences between various pairs of living things. I...

Little Scientists at Work… June 26, 2008      We arrived at AK Joshi School located in a busy locality of Thane on a wet afternoon just in time to observe class IV students engrossed...

Al Qamar Academy report that they are going strong with Small Science and children continue to love it. Small Science, it seems, is getting older and now we have students even in college who...

Recap of “Food in our bodies” We are using the 4th grade book for 5th grade because I wanted to finish all the chapters. We didn’t manage to finish last year since we started...

Recap of “Water and Life” (A unit from Class 4 text book) June 15, 2012 Though the kids have formally graduated to Class 5, we hadn’t finished up with the Grade IV curriculum, so...

Classrom experiences with “Water” Al Qamar Academy have a wonderful experience with learning about Water to share with us.  The observations and the questions the kids present are amazing, all the more encouraged by...

Classroom experiences with “Air” (A unit from Class 4 text book) February 7, 2012 The Junior Elementary children at Al Qamar Academy have been having a wonderful time learning about Air (Class 4) using...

How we made the Bricks (An activity from Class 3 text book) April 5, 2011 By Mudassir, Mujahid and Fuaad Al Qamar Academy, Chennai We tried making bricks using matchboxes but the bricks broke....

Experiences of Gunvant Jain Teach For India – Fellow 2010 in Lt. Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School, Pune It gives me immense pleasure to share my classroom experience with you. It all started with...