Teachers from Glovis Sangamam project have been visiting the library at Annanagar once a week and have been conducting many activites related to Science experiments, Maths games, Craft activities etc.

Asha has been running a library / activity centre at Annanagar with support from Hyudai Glovis. This is mainly for the class 1 to 5 children in the village who go to that school. The library is being managed by Thilothama. She encourages the children to read the book and also tells them stories from the books and with the videos and stories on the computer.

We have been planning to have activities at the library besides these at least one day a week. We were not able to arrange external resource people to conduct activities at the library. So, from February we have been getting two teachers to go to the library once a week to conduct some activities. This will provide a welcome change from the routine for the children and also expose them to other aspects of learning. Two teachers have been going to the Annanagar library every Thursday. Our hope is also that Thilothama also learns from this and conducts similar activities on other days.

It must also be appreciated that Annanagar is very far even from other parts of Thiruvallur district that we work with. Teachers have had to really put a lot of effort to just travel to and from Annanagar library. Some teachers reached their homes only by 10:00 pm after leaving the library by 7:00. This couldn’t be going on without a good sacrifice from these teachers.

Here are the teachers who have gone to the library and the activities they have conducted there. These are taken from their own reports. Click here for photos from all these teacher visits.

7^th Feb – Radhika and Anusuya

Radhika and Anusuya were the first team to volunteer to go to the Anna nagar library. They didn’t have much of an idea about what they are going to do. About 30 students came on that day around 4.45 pm. Except middle class students all students participated in all their activities. Radhika focussed on ELS kits games and Simon says. Anusuya gave a game using pen that involves odd and even numbers. Then she gave a ball and passed it on among the students with a background music in her phone. When music stops the student has to tell any word in English he knew with meaning. Kids enjoyed all the activities. They completed by about 6.30 pm.

14^th Feb – R. Nathiya and T. Divya

Divya and Nathiya went to Annanagar library by bike (Divya’s). They reached at 4.45 pm. Few students came at 5 o’clock. Nathiya started doing Comparisons of numbers activity using base ten blocks and cards with 10 students. After this activity more students joined. Then Nathiya conducted activity for place values. They enjoyed and there was more participation. After this activity Divya teacher did art and craft with match stick. Children did things even faster than the teacher. They liked and enjoyed this art and craft activity. After this Nathiya conducted addition activity in circle with stick. Children enjoyed and learned addition property. Overall about 30 children participated.

21^st Feb – Tamilselvi and Iswarya

It needs to be mentioned that they travelled from Vidaiyur to Thiruvallur to Kannigaiper to Annanagar and back! They reached their homes only by 10:00 pm! Tamilselvi and Iswarya went to the 21^st of Feb. 32 children came to library and both the children and the teachers had an enjoyable time. They conducted the following games and activities.

• English three and four letter words activity
• Fun story
• Bingo game (with dice) for addition, and subtraction.
• Games with Playing cards
• Big and small number
• Matching card memory game.
• Science experiments on air.

28^th Feb – Soundariya and B. Nathiya

Sondariya and Nadhiya, both come from nearby places and could more easily go to Annanagar library. Only about 18 children came to library that day. They conducted games like tongue twisters in tamil. In English they couldn’t play. They played musical chairs in which, when someone lost the game the teachers tell them an alphabet and the child has to say a word for the letter. After that they played ring ball and some outdoor games with the children. Finally, some chocolates were distributed to the children.

7^th Mar – Kumari and Sumithra

Kumari and Sumithra gave snacks to motivate the children. First only 5 children came to the library. Towards the end there were more than 35 students. They are very happy to play with them.

They did the 3 science experiments:

• Total internal reflection
• Float the egg on the salt water
• balloon with heat air.

Students are very excited to do the balloon experiments. When the teacher lit candles they knew it will go off and water will be pulled in when closed by a glass. It looks like Thilothama has also been showing them science experiments!

Teacher then had the children make words by using TLM. Student are participated interactively and make some words.

Secret sum maths games was played by using TLM. They gave one clue but the children find the answer easily.

Then the children were taken outside to conduct crazy train game. All student enjoyed the game. Finally all the students took photo with the visiting teachers. The children really like the TLM kits that the teachers had brought with them. The teacher gave them TLM kits.

14^th Mar – Sulochana and Vanitha

They travelled all the way from beyond Goonipalayam to Annanagar by Vanitha’s scooter. This would have taken more than an hour even by Scooter. On that day about 30 children participated in that class.

Vanitha and Sulochana sang a motivation song 1-10 numbers with actions. They told them 2 maths stories. One on children knew the story! Then then taught Rhyming words to them with TLM cards.

Then they taught them fractions and patterns with TLM. The children participated with a lot of interest and replied to the questions. Then they did a couple of science experiments.

• Newton’s 2 nd law (hover craft).
• Heat adaptability

Then they should the children how to make paper Rabbit & paper basket. They also did an activity to make the children easily learn the 2-tables.

Finally at the end of the class they gave biscuits to the children. They were very happy and all of them thanked the teachers. Vanitha and Sulochana felt they needed to time their activities better for it to reach all the children.

21^st Mar – Geetha and Bharathi

Geetha and Bharathi teach at Annanagar. They conducted some outdoor games and also some indoor activities. Indoors, they told them some stories and also taught them easy way to remember 9 – tables.

28^th Mar – Radha and Selvi

Radha and Selvi conducted some Maths, English and Science activities there. Some 20 students participated in the activities. Selvi conducted skip counting through a game, taught them some English rhymes, and also did some science experiment. She showed how to make Kaledioscope. Radha taught addition via games, matching picture with words and number identification games for 1^st to 3^rd std students. The children really enjoyed and also hopefully learnt through these activities. The teacher also enjoyed it.

Other Developments and Plans for the Future

The compound wall has been laid and the level of the ground outside the library has been raised and made flat. A regular group of older boys plan volleyball there.

Couple of other NGOs are also beginning to be active in Annanagar! Don Bosco runs a centre in Thirukandalam for children from all the nearby brick kilns. While they do not have a regular programme, they conduct games and programmes once in a while for all children. Single Teacher School has started a tuition centre for 6^th to 12^th std children. The main attraction is that they give snacks for the children!

We didn’t want to really compete with any of them since we are only comfortably able to manage about 20 to 30 children anyway. More than this number of children from the classes 1 to 5 anyway come to the library. The centre we have and the programmes we conduct are much better than that done by the other organisations. At the moment we are just going to continue focussing on that.

We plan to do the following additional things at the library.

1. Provide Jigsaw and other types of puzzles for children to play at the library.
2. Try to find appropriate resources offer classes in some skills like music or karate or silambam or …
3. Allow / encourage children to take books home to read. Reward children with one book every time they complete 5 books. This may work only with the older children. We have to see about that.
4. We can also do more to encourage the sports activities with the space available there and the nets.
5. Gradually introduce homework in the school and assist with that in the evening at the library.

We will try to get some of these started during the summer holidays.