NCERT devises plan to teach kids at home

NEW DELHI: The National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) has for the first time designed a four-week alternative academic calendar for primary school students, which includes an assignment for maintaining a diary about the Covid-19 lockdown, as they stay indoors because of the measures put in place to ensure social distancing. The students have also been asked to use spoons and bowls, coronavirus charts and graphs to learn about numbers, millions and trillions as they continue learning at home.

The calendar of the NCERT, which designs the school curriculum, explains how kitchen equipment and other things can be used to teach children subjects like maths and even environment studies. For teaching numbers to students of class 1, the calendar, a copy of which HT has seen, suggests that parents can ask their children to take out as many bowls, spoons, and plates and ask them to count the objects. They can also count the number of chairs in a room, family members etc. Similarly, a class 3 students can learn about shapes using utensils besides making posters about the dos and don’ts recommended during the outbreak.

The calendar suggests the children may be asked to record surprise voice or written messages for their friends or family members about how they feel, what new things they did or learned during the lockdown, the around 100-page document suggests.

The document suggests class 4 students can learn about measurements by comparing heights of their family members and estimating, for instance, whether a cupboard can be taken inside a room through a door. The document also suggests children may be encouraged to observe and to help with chores. For class 5 students, the document says they can find charts about the number of coronavirus patients across the world to learn about Indian and international number systems and terminology like lakh, crore, millions, trillions, etc. .

NCERT chief Hrushikesh Senapati said , “...our effort here has been to encourage engagement of children when they are at home through the involvement of parents and under the guidance of teachers.”