Volunesia Diaries – Taking The Kids On A Cinematic Journey [Video]

Our Chief Content Officer, Anjali, shares her thoughts on a special Saturday treat.

Puja season is in full swing and though we’re all in a celebratory mood, it does put a damper on our Volunesia sessions. We’ve had quite a few holiday weekends in the last month and the kids have missed us (but probably not as much as we’ve missed them!).

Keeping that in mind, we decided that we had to do something fun for them this weekend. Thanks to some wonderful helping hands from Goavega, we now have a projector and tablet, which we use to show short educational clips to the kids. This week, they had been learning about aquatic life and the underwater world. So, it was only appropriate that we show them a contemporary classic – Finding Nemo.

A Whole New World

We love showing the kids films because they really make learning more interactive. We also think that learning spoken English becomes much easier when they watch and read English content. It was a sneaky yet fun way to teach them something new – and to take a trip down memory lane ourselves.

Now, I’m a huge Pixar fan and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to share my passion with the kids. I knew they would love watching the cartoon (any cartoon to be honest!), but I was also worried that they wouldn’t be able to grasp the content since it was all in English.

We need not have worried. From the minute we turned on the projector (against all odds – Bangalore power cuts at their finest!), they were mesmerised. Every time something new came on the screen, they ooh-ed and aah-ed. If only Andrew Stanton could see how his film crossed cultural and language barriers. I think he wouldn’t have waited so long to make Finding Dory.

Stay Tuned For More

We managed to show the kids half the film before the power went out halfway through the film. When we asked them about the movie, we were surprised at how much they grasped without any prompting from us. Other than casting Marlin as Nemo’s mother (an easy mistake to make), they knew exactly what was going on. In fact, they were impatient to see the rest. We can’t wait to see how they react to the rest of the film – and the fun ocean-based activities we’re thinking up in anticipation!

A Short And Sweet Circle

To conclude our morning at the cinema, we held a short and sweet circle. Though we were a small group, it was nice to take a few minutes to chat and reflect on the session. One of our favourite parts of Volunesia is the little recap that we have afterwards with our volunteers, and this week didn’t disappoint! I loved hearing everyone’s thoughts on the activity. Your feedback and ideas always inspire us to try new things and better ourselves. Through your eyes, I got a completely different and important perspective to the experience. Thank you for your time and tireless efforts! Volunesia would not be the same (or successful) without all of our smiling faces.

Enjoyed reading about this? Then you might like to read Volunesia Diaries – Riding The Time Machine To Childhood Every Saturday.

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