A van full of puzzles, activities and games for children that visit Panchayat Union schools across the State was in the city recently.
The mobile toy library, an initiative of the Vidyarambam Trust, was here as part of the annual meet of the trust. The van moves from one village to another and has 250 puzzles, toys and multi-coloured games painted on its body.
When the van was brought to T.Nagar, Class V students of Ramakrishna Mission Matriculation Higher Secondary School rushed in excitedly and got engrossed in constructing English sentences, solving mathematics puzzles and playing games.
For the past five years, the activities ‘on wheels' have been presented to students of various Panchayat Union schools. There are a total of three vans operated by the trust and they cover the length and breadth of Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Nagappattinam districts.
Each van visits two schools in a day and more than 320 in a year. “We spend three hours in each school. We are able to visit each school only once a year owing to the lack of time and resources,” says V. Ranganathan, founder and president of Vidyarambam Trust. “The children jump with excitement when they see our van, since students of village schools are not exposed to these kinds of games and toys like children in cities,” says A. Siluvaikoti, the driver of a van. The vans have games for students from Class I to Class VIII with varying difficulty levels. In spite of the introduction of Activity Based Learning in schools, the vans continue to be popular. The vans also have a few toys for special children whom they sometimes come across in the government schools.
