In our work, we constantly try to brainstorm and develop various activities for children. We hope that this will encourage children to pick a book to read with interest, challenge their abilities and help build their imagination.
What better way to capture one’s feelings and emotions in this monsoon than with a Rain Display to showcase creativity, imagination and story books. As Amy Miles has said, “A rainy day is a special gift to readers”. We felt that we should involve the children of all the schools that we closely work with for this activity. The plan was to put up a display for a week in a common area, corridor or open hall based on Rain and encourage children of all grades to read the displayed books on Rain and contribute to the display with something that connects them to Rain. We gathered some framed pictures of rain, fallen leaves, fresh rain flowers, stones, paper boats, an umbrella, a rain maker and of course the most critical aspect of our work – Books in different languages and genres, but all on Rain.
The first school scheduled to have this display was in Panjim but like many a great idea, this idea failed spectacularly in this school as there was not a single contribution put up by any child and the display was quietly dismantled and kept for us at the end of the said one week. This was a moment of great disappointment for the entire team. But as there was another school, the next day, we cheered ourselves up and set off. The display was put up amidst great fanfare and it was declared open to one and all. The librarian promised to keep us posted about any new developments (read new contributions) daily by sending photos… And she kept her promise! The children had contributed massively to this display…they were reading the displayed books and there were poems, paintings, sketches, short stories, paper boats, mushrooms, real flowers, paper lotus flowers, poems written on raindrop cutouts being displayed every day…
There was a parallel display happening in another school in Aldona too. The response was superb here too with children bringing flowers, poems, drawings, paper boats, mushrooms, earthworms in cans and hold your breath…a live rabbit too !!!!!
There was no space for the children to put up their work in both these schools. Many children had hung their work on the fringes of the umbrella, some had stuck their work on the table edges, and some had plonked their work with the help of pebbles and mushrooms. The schools provided notice boards and allowed permission to put up this work on the wall near the display areas. It has been an amazing example of creativity and cooperation from these schools and the children. At the time of writing this post, the display is still travelling and is stationed at two other schools in Panjim. The response has been overwhelming to say the least.
The crux of this idea has been not only to encourage creativity but urge the children to read something, connect with it and express themselves. Getting the children to read for pleasure and to internalise it, is of course a long and arduous process but we have already started on this path and will continue to devise different strategies to encourage children to get there.
