The pandemic impasse has been difficult for parents with young children. Keeping them off gadgets has been one of the most challenging of tasks, especially for working parents, says pre-school teacher Niha Mansoor, who has come out with an interactive learning binder for children aged between two-and-a-half and five years.
Niha struck upon the idea while conducting her online classes. “Children haven’t been to the kindergarten and are stuck at home. Online teaching helps in orienting them towards learning, but I realised the importance of touch-and-feel and the role it plays in learning all over again,” she says. “Working with the hands helps pre-schoolers understand concepts faster and better.”
She started work on the binder a few months into the lockdown and came up with LittleBlooms interactive learning binder with 22 activities. “It took me three to four months, to do my research, organise my ideas, find a designer and a printer,” says Niha, who experimented with it first on her three-year-old daughter. “She took to it well, identifying emotions and weather. I found that she loved playing with it. I wanted other children too to be able to do that,” she adds.
While researching the binder, Niha learnt that it is a popular concept in West Asia, which is fast catching on in India.
A hands-on resource for children, the book is aimed at encouraging self-learning. Hard-bound, it is provided with Velcro stickers, which children would enjoy peeling off and sticking back. This would aid the development of children’s motor skills too. The sheets of the binder are laminated, which allows them to be reused. It comes with a pouch of markers and erasers too.
LittleBlooms includes basic, essential concepts such as days of the week, emotions, numbers, weather, colours, fruits and vegetables, farm animals, wild animals, transport, and body parts. It also includes basic life skills such as brushing teeth, braiding hair and tying shoe laces. “It is ideal for quiet playtime at home,” adds Niha.
“The idea is to help create an opportunity for toddlers to explore concepts on their own. Each day, the child can learn something new even if he or she is not in a classroom environment. It also guides the parents through what the child can imbibe,” says Niha, who has been running Sundale School in Kochi for 12 years.
The book can be ordered @littleblooms.binder on Instagram
