Mentor India 2.0 – Design Thinking With Clay Ganesha
Last Saturday took Mentor India class to a whole new level. After a super Week 4, we were wondering how to make sure that Week 5 tops the high expectations we had set. We came up with ideas, and hoped the execution would go well too.
Applying Design Thinking To Ganesha Making
This week we wanted to introduce the concept of design thinking to the students. We decided to do this through a fun activity. So we set up a clay station in the school with the many clay bags we carried from Bangalore in the morning.
We divided the students into teams, and asked all of them to make a Ganesha idol using it. We were ready with How-To-Do and What-To-Do Cheat Sheets, for those who would need help. But to our surprise, the excited kids had more ideas than we could think of. They went above and beyond just making a Ganapati, and went on to make rats, Modaks, Goddess Gauri and other accessories. They decorated the idols using flowers, leaves and other things that they could find handy!
Full-On Play With Learning
At the end of it, we used their own creations to help them understand the concept of design thinking. We don’t think it could have been taught in any other way. There was 100% fun and 100% learning in this activity.
Music, Story-Telling And Kabaddi Ofcourse
After the fun leaning session, we had mentors taking up Prepositions through Music. That was followed by a story-telling lesson, which the students thoroughly enjoyed. Then there was the Kabaddi hour, where students and mentors played together, with the students giving commentary in English, to the best of their abilities, using the Kabaddi terminologies.
Hackathon In Session
While all the above activities were taking place, our Hackathon was in session simultaneously, led by Manu Nair from Cooey, who is an IoT Expert. The result of the Hackathon will be revealed to you in the next session. Did it go well, did it not… what do you think?
Announcements Are In Order
Apart from the Hackathon result, there are many many more things we are waiting to tell you all! Big announcements in store ahead. Till then, let’s keep the suspense on, shall we?
