When something as beautiful as a soap bubble made the young readers ponder and share so many perspectives...a page from the Young Readers' Club diary.
A bubble is beautiful in many ways. It is short lived in reality but frozen in photography, making for an interesting subject to talk about!
A bubble. Multiple ways to observe and describe it. Every perspective leads to something new. This what makes learning so much fun, if only one is ready to see multiple perspectives. This comes naturally to children.
In the context of a story, we were exploring math being used in real life. The story talked about a bubble and even showed a beautiful magnified picture of the bubble. Some of the readers observed the hexagon shape and descriptions such as honey comb came up. An older reader introduced us to hexagon lattice! Another reader noticed the rainbow colours on the bubble and volunteered to explain how rainbow colours are formed. He started talking about a prism and was immediately interrupted by a younger reader. "What is a prism?" he asked. Together we found pictures of a prism and the reader who had volunteered earlier used the picture to explain how a rainbow was formed.
"I had another explanation, but I guess it doesn't matter any more," said one reader.
When we insisted that she should go ahead and share, she said, "The bubble is reflecting what is there in the surroundings. There are plenty of colours in the surroundings and that's why we are seeing rainbow colours in the bubble."
Who said there is only one way of looking at something?
The discussion continued in the lines of, "Is that a hexagon or a pentagon? I always get confused."
"Hexagon has six sides and pentagon has five sides. This one is a hexagon."
"Let's count the number of sides. 1,2,3...6. This is hexagon."
Having seen the obvious, the group let their imagination do the work and made a variety of connections...
"Could this be an AI generated image?"
"It looks like a hexagonal shaped mirror that is reflecting the light around."
"It resembles the patter on an insect's body."
"The pattern is like that on the football."
"Neurology- the study of the brain!"
"Closeup of a diamond."
In the span of a few minutes, we managed to discover the beauty of math and various branches of science, using a beautiful bubble. The session ended with a shared feeling of satisfaction and an inexplicable sense of joy!
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Both weekday and weekend batches are available at the Young Readers' Club. While this program is for the 8-12 age group, the Young Writers' Club program for the 13-15 age group offers a weekly platform to read and discuss curated articles from the news, observe writing approaches and practise one's writing skills.
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