A carnval for charity

Sometimes your kids do somethings that totally wow you. Anjali's idea for the carnival began a couple of weeks ago when her school sent an envelope over asking for donations for charities week 2013. I was about to put money into it when I got an idea.

"Anjali", I said, "Do you want me to give you money or d you want to raise the money yourselves?"

"What do you mean?", she asked

"Well, you can think of ow you can raise money - by selling something you make, by teaching something, by performing in a ticketed concert... "

and then to make it more of a challenge, I added "I'll match you dollar for dollar the money you collect"

It was a wonderful planning experience for the girls. The idea slowly evolved, with me listening carefully, but stepping in only when things went logistically too out of the way.

The girls planned for two weeks, settling into a combination of craft workshops and performances, for which they chose the activities.

Here are some snippets from the day.

Sophia is working on demo scratch pads to so that she could show the children as they arrived.

 Anjali had been working for the past couple of days on what she calld "hamster circus". This involved all kinds of cardboard and lego constructions with which se trained her hamsters to do tricks.

 Anjali made a big loom and before the guests arrived, she set up a weaving station.

 Sidewalk paint was the most messy activity and we put a shaeet on the floor to contain the mess.

 Most of the supplies for the activities were ready

 

Here is Anjali's welcome sign, nicely decorated on the chalkboard

 As the children arrived, they worked together

Sometimes they worked quietly by themselves alone

Kids came though the day and constantly worked on the projects and played.

It was nice to see other kids taking responsibilities. At some point, Nithil, who had been here since morning, took up the role of giving chops for activities (Anjali had prepared chop cards where the kids could get a chop for eac completed activity. When they collected five chops, they could choose a prize from the goody bag)

Swapna spontaneously decided to show some dancing. Many barriers on general shyness were broken.

Children dropped in and out all day, and when we finished in the evening, it was 7.30 and we rounded off with some time in the playground.

Totally, Anjali and Sophia collected $33. Which I think is great. I also think that they collected a lot of confidence and implicit skills.