As a mother living in Bangalore, I like to take my child out on as many variety filled outings. I truly believe it is experiences and exposure to a lot of things in the world that make a person.
So last week after many months of delay, I thought of taking my child to a group outdoor picnic by the Honeybees club. (This was in spite of criticism from my partner that I take my child out to commercial activities, when I can handle them alone better).
As expected it was a one woman show(I had nothing against it, infact thought I should encourage her) but the content of the outing was way to below expectations than it should have been.
We were a bunch of 15 moms (complete strangers), some who had come again (guess they found it beneficial than me), others were first-timers like me.
We were asked to assemble at Lalbagh and given a sheet to do sound mapping as part of sounds of nature -the first activity with the kids. Little D( my child) found it interesting to hear the sounds of nature and stick pictures on the sheet, but later to that there was no other explanation of nature, detailed activities for kids to understand what they need to do after sound mapping etc.
Like me, I found two to three other moms who were disappointed as their kids were not finding it amusing to do the activities with moms (just two of them) and were informed to go back home. They didn’t say anything but their expressions gave out their jaded and bored feelings of being there on a saturday outing. One kid even gave back the sheet to Puja (organizer)as there was nothing else explained.
Those who love dancing, (kids), their moms were lucky as some found it good to dance to some tunes played by a guitarist and singer (the third and final activity).
Ideally outdoor picnics about nature should have included more understanding of nature -given as an explanation from the organizers.
Also I felt it should have had more fun activities.
We had to carry our own snacks and were asked to go to corners (moms and kids) and eat the boxes. It was supposed to be group activity to facilitate better interaction not better understanding in living me time.
The only good thing D has learnt now is -he wants me to hear everything around me, draw them and allow him to paste it on a sheet of paper. Art of mapping sounds..
At the end of the outing, just was content that henceforth, I will be able to draw better outdoor picnics for my kid and others than this which seemed so promising.
Oh yes we were also given a sticker too of honeybees…there was nothing more though the club meant to teach kids to be nature lovers can go miles in teaching this.
Hopefully they will learn soon enough.