A child doesn’t necessarily need a classroom to learn their lessons. When Learning is Fun, it can happen anywhere. Dalhousie Institute hosted “CleverMinds”, an initiative for kids on October 20, 2019 in the club premises. Wonderfully organised by Team Library, the event consisted of various fun activities which helps them to develop a lifelong love of learning and acquire knowledge in a better way. 

44 kids had registered for the event and barring 2, all of them turned up. As a warm up session, the enthusiastic kids were all "sure, sure, sure" about doing a quick run around the basketball court. As Leslie encouraged them, they completed the race with a lot of enjoyment. The kids were then divided into four teams – Jaguars, Ravenclaw, Dragons and Name. The sorting completed, the kids were all ready to Learn by Fun.

The organising team had a fun time developing and designing the games and the first one was Map The Baddy. The junior members from each team had to measure the basketball court, given only one quarter of the court each. The seniors then had to draw the court on paper and mark the measurements of the whole court. As the teams were provided paper, pencil and measuring tape, the activity began. The juniors tried to figure out and calculate the measurements, while the seniors did their best drawing on paper. The teams did a pretty good job. Jaguars emerged as the winners followed by Name, Dragons and Ravenclaw.

Next, it was Rhyme time for the kids. We all enjoyed rhymes when we were young. Right? The kids had a lot of fun with rhyming words during this activity. The juniors from the teams were given a word and they had to come up with 10 rhyming words in 1 minute. Points were given according to the number of words they came up with. While the little members had fun with rhyming words, the seniors took joy in writing poems made out of rhyming couplets. Each team was given a topic – Dance in France, Liar on Fire, Land of Sand and Ants in my Pants. It was hilarious watching the teams read out their poems as they were quite funny. Among the juniors, Team Ravenclaw emerged as the winners followed by Jaguars, Dragons and Name. Among the senior teams, the funniest rhyme was composed by Team Dragons followed by Name, Ravenclaw and Jaguars.

As the next activity was announced, all the little girls jumped with joy. And why not? It was shopping time. The kids had to go toy shopping. They were given a budget of Rs. 100 and the team which utilised the budget to the maximum won. As the boys took less than a minute, the girls had a tough time selecting and picking up their favourite toys. It was so much fun watching them shop. Team Jaguars & Name were the winners for this activity (they managed an exact 100 each) followed by Dragons and Ravenclaw.

Have you ever tried forming letters with your friends? The next activity was all about that. Captain Leslie called out a letter of the alphabet and the team that formed the letter first and correctly won a point. After the letters, it was time for some interesting shapes too. There was a lot of excitement and energy as the kids ran around to make letters and shapes. The members of team Ravenclaw formed the letters and shapes perfectly and came out as the winners.

The next and final activity for the day was a quiz, sorry a Visual Quiz. Interesting, right?  The kids racked their brains through Fun Riddles and brain teasers like Puzzle it Out and Math-e-Matchstick. The interesting riddles had us all glued up to the projector screen. The kids thoroughly enjoyed this fun and learn activity and team Dragons came out as the winners.

As all the activities came to an end, it was time to declare the winner. The anxious little ones were already doing the counting and we didn’t want to keep them waiting. The winner of CleverMinds was Team Dragon followed by Jaguars and Ravenclaw in second place and Name in third place. Amidst a lot of cheer and applause, the winning team cut a delicious chocolate cake. Saldanha Bakery prepared snack boxes for the kids which were then distributed among them along with fruit juice, gift folders and chocolates for all.

Such wonderful initiatives by Dalhousie Institute give ample opportunities to kids to apply their learning and have fun at the same time. Having fun while learning also helps the little ones retain information better because the process is enjoyable and memorable.  Special thanks to the team on the field comprising Christabel, Nushrat, Simran, Ritu, Sreemoyee and Leslie.

[Please check Facebook for all the pictures of the event - photos by Simran, Ritu, Adrija, Leslie]