Monday 6 January 2014

Special Projects

I am blessed with 3 daughters, lovely angels. Amna, Rabia and Zoha. The first two are twins, 11 years old and currently in grade 6. While Zoha is 3.5 years old. Since last year I moved the twins to another school and I have seen remarkable improvement in their academic performance. Both of them work hard as my wife, Soulat, and I keep a very close track of their performance. The teachers are good and the parents are kept updated on child's performance on each test. In December, the twins appeared in their Mid Term Exams and I had promised them a trip overseas if their results are good. So, currently they are enjoying their holidays in Dubai. Shopping, relaxing and having fun. They have earned it. 

But the journey so far has not been easy for the twins and for the parents (mainly that's me!). I spent on an average 2 hours per day (after a full day at office) with them to help in their studies. This includes daily assignments, preparation for tests and special projects. 

Today, I would like to share with you about a special project that Amna and I did together. It is very special for us as well. The fun part was in the designing and planning of the project. Each subject has a special project at the end of each term and she did very well on all the projects, with a little help from my side. But, the science project was very special. The topic was 'Solar System'. Full freedom was allowed by the teacher to be as creative as you can be. But it should be original.

So, we came up with the idea of a small booklet. The main character in this booklet was Amna herself as an 'Expert of Planetary Sciences'. She is the one who takes the reader to a journey to the Solar System, explaining about the planets and space in detail. For this, we borrowed a laboratory coat from my nephew, who is a college student. Then, we had a photo session at home. We took many pictures of her to be put in the booklet. We kept this secret from my wife, so she didn't know about this till we got the booklet printed.

Next step was the designing of the booklet and collection of information. Amna and I worked on this for 10 days. Sorting out the right information, we also finalized few designs and then got the one we liked most.

Once done, I took the booklet design and Amna's pictures (in the Lab Coat) to a graphic designer for final touching and improvements. It was a lengthy process as each of the 14 pages of the booklet was carefully checked. We also paid a good deal of attention on paper quality and the type of binding we wanted for our booklet. 

The result came out as follows:








When I got the printed booklet from the printer's shop, I knew it was a blaster. As I brought it home, Amna was waiting for it and was very anxious to see her project. I can't explain the feelings of joy on her face. She was very happy and confident about her project. Then we showed it my wife and she was like stone for a moment. "Is this Amna?" she asked, " I can't believe it!". 

On the due date for submission, she carefully placed her booklet in a large brown envelope and gave it to her Science Teacher with very high hopes. 

She got full points for this project and her whole class surrounded her asking all sorts of questions. 

The best part of this whole exercise was that it was completely prepared at home, we spent quality time together sorting out information, designs and formats and above all the joy it gave to us. 

Amna is now more confident in doing much better than what she did in this project.

My other twin Rabia also prepared a similar project, the topic was the same but the design was different. It was also a booklet prepared on the same principles and it resulted in similar fashion - full points. Unfortunately, I don't have it's pictures to show you at this time. Maybe, if the school returns the projects to us, I'll take a few snaps and put it for your review.  



 

No comments: