Most of the things that we vividly remember from our school education either had a picture related to the text in the book, or the words painted a pretty picture in our minds. There are countless studies that have confirmed the power of visual imagery in learning. For instance, one study asked students to remember many groups of three words each, such as dog, bike, and street. Students who tried to remember the words by repeating them over and over again did poorly on recall. In comparison, students who made the effort to make visual associations with the three words, such as imagining a dog riding a bike down the street, had significantly better recall.

Do you remember stocking up friendship bands before going to school? All of us used to wait for friendship day each year and gifted friendship bands to our friends. In the month of August, we conducted the first set of Let's Start Art workshops on the same theme. We asked the students to draw their friends and narrate their friendship stories. 

In the second set of art sessions, we asked the students to ponder over the question- 'How exploring space improves life on earth?'. 

Wouldn't you love to watch your favorite movie with a nice cup of tea? This is what our theme was for the Let's Start Art sessions this month- Chai (tea) and Favourite movie. Schools reopened after long summer vacation, so the students were more excited than usual for the art class and Chai seemed to be a popular thing among children.

The academic year 2018-19 comes to its end in this March, so we conducted the last of Let's Start Art workshops for the session in the month of February. The students of class 3rd, 4th, and 5th belong to the age group of children who spend a lot of their time playing indoor and outdoor. So, in this session, we asked the students to draw their experiences about playing with dogs and received amazing stories.

Let's Start Art sessions this month were conducted under the theme of The Winter Season and Family Pictures. The first set of workshops started in the first week of the month and we asked the students to draw their family photo. 

A number of 162 students from 10 schools attended these workshops.

What do you know about an agricultural farm?

The first set of Let's Start Art sessions for the month of August started with this question. Around 130 students from 5 Govt. Primary Schools in Varanasi attended the workshops. 

All the students had their own element of fascination from the farms. Some of the students were fascinated by the scarecrows, while others couldn't get over the tube wells, sowing, and techniques of planting rice. It was surprising that the students, who have never been introduced to the methods of crop production and management, have observed such details on their own. 

Mayank is a student of class- 3rd at Govt. Primary School, Orderly Bazaar. He's a silent student in class but his work reflects his observation. Not just the stories, but also the diagrams from the science book, he confidently draws all these in his drawing book and this has definitely made learning easier for him.

Our first workshop of the year at a Government Primary School in Nagwa, Varanasi (Jan 17, 2018). This time the students made all the drawings without using erasers and pencils. We thought we were challenging them, and they surprised us with their creations.