Dancing like Loons!

Deep Griha Society’s teachers that teach at their English Medium School at their City of Knowledge Programme had a day of teacher training. Instead of giving all the children the day off, all the volunteers were asked to spend the day entertaining them with lots of fun activities such as painting, singing, games, storytelling, movie time, dancing and science experiments.

I was in charge of dancing and I’d spent a few days beforehand gathering my music together in order for the children to have some fun songs to dance to.

It was an early morning start and we left Pune at 8 am, arriving at the school by 9.15am. We were all split into our various activities and given areas of the school in which to do them. I was given the help of another volunteer, Judy. I was quite glad to get some help as I knew that with the children being all very excited, they maybe a handful to control and it would be easier with two people.

Our programme began at 10.15am and all day we had small groups of each year group rotating around the different activities.

With the younger children, we danced to ‘I am the Music Man’, ‘Superman’, ‘The Hokey Cokey’, ‘The Conga’ and ‘The Birdie Song’ all by Black Lace, which was a real blast from the past! With the older ones, we danced to ‘Follow the Leader’ by The Soca Boys and we even taught them ‘The Macarena’! It was brilliant! The children loved it and to be honest, so did we! Even through our lunch break Judy and I were dancing around together like Loons regardless of the fact that we were so hot and worn out!

'The Conga' with Judy in the yellow!

'The Hokey Cokey'!

The chorus of 'The Hokey Cokey'

Trying to teach the children ' The Conga'

All the other activities went really well and all the children had a really great time and they were so well behaved. The teachers were also really grateful for us helping and giving the time alone to concentrate on their training.

Becca and Catherine playing games in one of the barns at the school.

Kassie and her science experiments.

Riikka and Madeline painting.

Camilla singing songs.

Teacher training with Clare in another barn.

Thanks to Ashlesha Onawale for some of these pictures.

If you want more information about Deep Griha Society or are interested in helping them continue to do the brilliant work that they do for the people of Pune, India, 

please visit their website: www.deepgriha.org 

or email: deepgriha@gmail.com