Ludhiana, June 8
With thousands of kids heading for summer camps being organised in schools and other private centres here, there has been a tremendous response to such activities this summer.
Parents do not want their children to idle away their time at home. Instead, they want them to explore their hidden talents, brush up their skills and become more creative. While most of the parents prefer their kids to join coaching for dance, music and painting classes, others want them to take up sports activities like skating, karate and swimming.
There are so many activities going on in schools, that the schedule of the students as well as teachers seems to be more hectic now in holidays than during working days. Students of most of these schools have been told to come wearing school uniforms, the impression on passers-by being that summer vacations have yet arrived.
At Bhartiya Vidya Mandir alone, there are over 900 kids participating in summer activities who have been divided into two groups. The first group comprises students from Nursery to Class II in which nearly 400 kids are learning painting, music and dance for two hours daily. The second group has children from Classes III to IX who have chosen one activity each from an array of hobbies like art, vocal and instrumental music, dance, gidha, bhangra, making soft toys science model-making, computers, cooking and public speaking.
Giving details, Mr Gautam Gupta, principal of the school, said a few courses like public speaking have been added for the first time and 32 students from Class VI onwards are taking part. The activities involves daily exercises like group discussions, debates, declamations, elocutions and poetry recitation, which help the students gain confidence in public speaking, he said. Besides, 220 students are taking part in the 10-day sports camp and on June 11, all students would put up a show to demonstrate the activities they were engaged in during the camp, he said.
Over 500 students are taking part in summer activities on at BCM<\p>Arya Model Senior Secondary School. As many as 54 students are taking part in the one-week vedic karmayoga camp titled ‘In love with India’ in which exercises like yoga, pranayama, PT activities and sports are being conducted. Lectures are being delivered on religious thoughts, personality grooming, dignity of labour and meditation. For kids of pre-primary wing, two-hour activities like block printing, paper mache, collage making, puppet and mask making, free hand painting and drawing are being undertaken.
Besides, there are computer classes for students who are being taught various courses according to their age group. For children of Classes I and II, games based on mathematics, English and painting are being taught, Class III and IV students are learning scanning of photographs and playing games using joy stick, Class V and VI students are learning to surf the Internet, slide presentation on Power Point, Class VII and VIII students are being taught the concept of making softwares and Class IX to XII students are learning Windows XP and HTML.
Ms Paramjit Kaur, principal of the school, said that response to the activities is exceptionally good this year and students are actively participating in other 15-day activities like synthesizer and guitar playing, applying mehndi, making the best out of waste, fabric painting, and glass painting.
At Kundan Vidya Mandir, activities like dance, synthesizer and tabla playing, vocal music, computers, fabric and glass painting are being organised for 15 days. Ms Neena Khanna, principal, said that during classes, the children are also being taught aerobics, yoga, classical and modern dance.
