By Ruchi Varma

We all have fond memories of Children’s Day at school. As children, we knew there would be celebrations plannedand teachers would do something creative.  There was so much anticipation and we were never left school disappointed.

Children’s Day is celebrated to create awareness of the rights, care and education of children. I have been working in the area of cities and built environment sector for many years and have seen children and their needs been ignored or left behind. Today’s lifestyles have become more sedentaryand public spaces are unsafe and unsecure. Outdoor Play is no more considered as an essential part of the day and there are deteriorating effects on the physical and mental development of a child. Children learn and develop multiple skillsduring play and that contributes to their cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being.

This is the first year when I have been introduced to the Outdoor Classroom Day, a global campaign to celebrate and inspire outdoor learning and play. As a mentor for DAV Vasant Kunj in Delhi, I reached out to the school principal Mrs. Anju Puri. As an educator and a proponent of holistic development of children, she instantly agreed to participate. She and her teachers collectively have designed a full day timetable of outdoor activities across six venues in the school. Venues include large areas such as main ground, lawn etc. to smaller pockets such as area near gates, swing ground, etc. Every outdoor area will transform into magical spaces of learning and fun.

The process of creating the timetable has been participatory and extremely interesting.  Each teacher and class, collectively came up with ideas to combine learning with being outdoors.
The principal&teachers screened and deliberated upon the massive collection of responsesand finally prepared a timetable to ensure that each class gets an opportunity to be in the outdoors and enjoy learning on this special day.

Activities like ‘ shape walk ‘ for preschool kids,  an adverb race for Class V,  learning science by measuring long jumps, nature walks etc all remind that learning can be made more experiential, playful and interesting. Children develop more attention in nature and are also happier outdoors.

At the end of the day, over 2000 children would have participated inOutdoor Classroom Day 2019. This again reminds us how small changes can lead to a bigger transformation; in this case a need for our times.

This 14 November 2019 will be a Children’s Day to remember.

About Ruchi

Ruchi is the founder of HumanQind, a social enterprise harnessing kindness to build equitable and compassionate cities. She is a Dalai Lama Fellow, LEAD India Fellow and aMentor of Change for NITI Ayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). She learnt about the Outdoor Classroom Day from Sudeshna Chatterjee at ACE and reached out to DAV Vasant Kunj in New Delhi.