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Wonder Women

9/21/2017

Meet the cutest, smartest Wonder Women in town! To launch our year of Wonder, we created our own Wonder Woman costumes that we'll wear sometimes while we research and explore our wonders. With the help of my amazing daughter who was off school today, we put together our arm bands (bracelets) and headbands (tiaras).

These girls are strong. They are brave. They can do hard things. This year we're going to explore what it means to be curious and full of wonder. Some activities will be guided but hopefully as the year progresses they'll be able to explore more wonders on their own.

We cut. We glued (no one got burned from the hot glue gun -- yay!). We colored. We posed. And most importantly, we got absolutely covered with glitter, which is enough to make anyone happy.

They were quite proud of their finished products!

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Year of Wonder

9/14/2017

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After an absolutely perfect summer break, I'm back in Mumbai and happy to see the girls today. They've grown!

I've stewed long and hard about how to best help them this coming year during our time together. I've reflected on various activities we've tried, what's worked, what hasn't, what they've enjoyed balanced with what they need, what is most helpful but also fun...it's not an easy process. What would you do if you were given these girls for a few hours a month?

They may have limited physical surroundings, but they are incredibly bright and strong and keep me on my toes. They get bored easily, want all the bells and whistles of anything we do online, and it's challenging to motivate them and keep them engaged. Generally they don't like to do anything hard or anything that isn't fun. What child does?

Yet, I have a responsibility to try to help them increase their literacy. Specifically, my goals with them are:

Girls will improve English language skills
Girls will learn digital literacy skills
Girls will strengthen their innovative spirits

No small task...

So, given what I know of them and what we've experienced together so far, I've decided on a theme this year I want to try:

Wonder.

That's our word. It's our year of Wonder. I want them to foster their innate curiosity about the world. To ask questions. To find answers. To reach and explore. To travel virtually. To discover. Ultimately...to think. To learn how technology helps us think and solve problems and find answers and demonstrate what we've learned.

This is the mystery box. They asked me lots of questions to guess what was inside. While they hoped it was chocolate, it wasn't. They shook it. They asked questions like, "Is it a ball?" Nope. After a few guesses they were done and wanted to open it. I pushed them to ask me different types of questions that I could answer yes or no. They began to narrow it down. It was an animal. Not a real animal but a toy animal. A big animal. A brownish animal. It lives in India. Not a cow. Our youngest girl guessed it: an elephant! She was so proud and got to open it.

After talking about our upcoming plan for the next little while, including types of questions and question words, we decorated question marks.

It was an analog activity no one was very excited about, but I wanted to lay the foundation and we'll use these in future projects.

So, exciting things are in store! Wonder what? Wait and see.

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Wonder Women

Year of Wonder

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