It was her love for storytelling alone that convinced 30-year-old Snigdha Mutha to quit her job as a teacher at the playschool Kangaroo Kids and start out on her own. She quit about a month and a half ago and started Snigdha's Storytelling Workshop online. "I also love children and always wanted to do something more for them," says the Hyderabad-based teacher. Hence, her workshops cater to children aged 2.5 to five years. Quite the challenge handling them, don't you think? But her love for storytelling and the knack of knowing how to gain toddlers' attention propelled her to successfully conduct her first batch with seven kids June 12. Now, she has already started her second batch with 14 kids. A two-fold increase is pretty great, don't you think?
At these workshops, every story is followed by an activity. After Snigdha concluded the Three Little Pigs story, she and the kids made pigs with dough. After Zelda the Zebra, the children had to fill in stripes in the drawing of a zebra without any stripes. "When we do stories followed by an activity, the child retains it for a longer period of time. Also, the activities help build their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and so on," she explains. Snigdha conducts classes for only one hour a week because she doesn't want to add to the kids' screen time. "My son, Aryan, is actually my guinea pig. I narrate all my stories to him and see how he receives them and I tweak here and there, accordingly," she laughs as she shares.
Coming to the stories itself, the alumna of Symbiosis International who pursued her MBA in HR, uses puppetry, voice modulation, jingles and so on to catch and hold the attention of the tiny tots in her class. But before she does anything else, the first ten minutes are just about getting to know the toddlers. "I ask them about what they like, what they do in their free time and so on," says Snigdha. So, you see, the hour is very economically divided into various sessions so that the goldfish-like attention span of toddlers remains arrested.
While Snigdha's second workshop is ongoing, another two batches are on the cards. This time, she will charm children between five to seven years and seven to ten years, and maybe even experiment with twice-a-week sessions. Either way, as long as she is in the business of telling stories, Snigdha will remain a happy soul.
Books that your kids will love
- Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
- Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr Seuss
- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
For more on her, contact her on +91 9704791105