Lost and Found

Mr. Fraukh finds an umbrella near his shop. He gives an advertisement in the news paper that he has found an umbrella and who ever is the owner can collect fit rom his shop on 26th morning. On 26th morning, he has 550 people in front of his shop who have all lost their umbrellas. Farukh then starts describing the umbrella.
Its red, yellow and green - 300 hundred people went away.
It has a red handle - another 150 went away.
It has a red flower at the tip of it - 50 people went away.
In the 5 people left, one small child shouted after seeing the umbrella "it's mine, it has 3 small scratches on its handle". She gets her umbrella back.

This is the story of a lesson in Balbharati (English text book). For each lesson I break my head for some time on how to keep the kids involved and engaged all the time. The attention span of 9 year olds are 9 minutes. If they need to listen to you for more than 9 minutes, you have to do something special in that 9 minutes.

I create 13 different descriptions of umbrellas.
Red, yellow, green. Red handle. Red flower on the tip of it. 3 tiny scratches.
Red, yellow, green. Red handle. Red flower on the tip of it. No scratches.
Red, yellow, green. Red handle. No flower on the tip of it.
Red, yellow, green. Red handle. Yellow flower on the tip of it.
Red, yellow, green. Green handle. Yellow flower on the tip of it.
Red, yellow, green. Blue handle. Yellow flower on the tip of it.
Black, blue. Blue handle. Red flower on the tip of it.
Red, blue. Black handle. Red flower on the tip of it.
Red, yellow, green. Black handle. Yellow flower on the tip of it.
Yellow with red flowers all over.
Black. Black handle. Black flower on the tip of it.
Dark red. Black dots all over.
Black. Blue handle. Yellow flower on the tip of it.
Then I become Farukh at the shop and my kids all the people who lost their umbrellas. I start describing the umbrella and each one of them read their description and match it with what I have read. Showing disappointment, they go away if it doesnt match. Finally there are only 2 kids left, the ones with the first 2 descriptions. Finally I give off the umbrella to the first kid and the kids listen to me, though making merry, all the time.

Then I show my umbrella and ask the kids to describe that. One by one hands start going up. "Didi its all colours of that thing in a flower". Then didi - that thing in a flower is called a petal. "Its silver colour inside". "it has orange handle", "it has an orange string in its handle", "it has an orange button at its tip", it has a panda on it".

Thank you class. EI standard 4.8 done.