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Welcome to LIFESMART Parenting

100 Days of
Family Fun and Learning

Watch the videos, review the tips and explanations in our blogs and daily shares, and explore with your child!

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Do a 100-Day Project

From Silence
Blossoms Speech

Learn about our Six Ss (Smile Brightly and Dance, Soothing chants, Storytelling, Silence, Self-inquiry, and Surrender) for organizing daily rhythms. Calming rhythms support speech and communication. Evolve your own daily rhythms for calmness and silence as a foundation for the 100-Days of Family Fun project.

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Family Fun and Learning

Guided by the Four LIFE Goals

Learning Daily

Implement daily rhythms and learning experiences to facilitate daily learning.

Interests

Discover and nurture the learner's interests. Make learning experiences more interesting.

Family

Manage parent and child stress and enrich parent-child interactions daily.

Engagement

Expand opportunities to engage neighbors, friends, community organizations etc.

100 Days of Family Fun and Learning

Weekly Schedule and Resources

Click the links to view the daily shares in LIFESMART groups. These activities are designed to explore the Family Fun and Learning content gradually over time.

Family Fun and Learning Daily Shares

We will add information to the Pinterest Board daily as blog posts and videos are released. A picture and brief description will be on the pin. The link is available at the top of the pin.

100 Days of Family Fun and Learning

Week 1: Fun with Fruits

Throughout this 100 Day project, we will explore a variety of ways to integrate theater activities and visual tools. The Fun with Fruits activities show one example of how theater activities and visual/tactile tools can be used to have fun while enhancing learning.

Theater arts can be used to address a variety of outcomes simultaneously through enjoyable activities. We can address body awareness, movement and mobility outcomes, develop listening skills, teach concepts, and develop language skills through activities such as the fruit song.

Ananth and I have also used a variety of visual and tactile tools for over 15 years. Now, we are exploring ways to integrate such tools with theater activities to amplify the fun and to enhance learning. This week we created a lesson on building sentences with Thinkblocks based on a movement activity (fruit song).

  • Read Rama's blog on SpecialSaathi on Fun with Fruits.
    Fun with Fruits
  • This movement activity is a part of the Family Fun and Learning collection. This song is from the Ramana Maharshi Center for Learning (RMCL) collection of children's songs designed to teach important concepts to children. A process of imitation is used to teach the song in an incremental and enjoable way. Children learn gradually through repetition.
    The Fruit Song
  • Watch the video by Ananth on building sentences with Thinkblocks. The sentences in this video are based on the fruit song and can be used to reinforce the concepts conveyed in the song. In addition, grammar skills (sentence structure) can be taught to students. Thinkblocks are a visual and tactile tool developed by Cabrera Research Lab. Enjoy!
    Building Sentences with Thinkblocks - 1

100 Days of Family Fun and Learning

From Silence Blossoms Speech

We call our language arts explorations "From Silence to Speech" to draw attention to the notion that working on a quieter mind and communication together is very effective for Ananth. While we have worked on language and communication for decades, we are beginners in working explicitly on inner silence and communication jointly! We have now started integrating tools and techniques that we have learned over more than 20 years in our "From Silence Blossoms Speech" project.

Daily Rhythms and Learning

Today, Ramana Maharshi life and teachings play an important role in organizing our daily rhythms. Language learning and all other learning experiences are grounded in healthy daily rhythms. Our daily rhythms are organized by the Six Ss shown on the bottom part of the vision board: 1. Smile Brightly and Dance, 2. Soothing chants, 3. Silence, 4. Storytelling, 5. Surrender and 6. Self-inquiry.

Read about our daily rhythms on Rama's blog on SpecialSaathi.

Discovering Daily Rhythms that Work


Our Team

Dr. Dasaratha Rama

Parent and Professor, Developer of LIFESMART approach

Dr. Rama is a home educator who has explored a variety of educational approaches with her son, Ananth. She is a certified leader in systems thinking, mapping, and leadership under a program offered by Cabrera Research Lab. She designs content and lessons on Thinkblocks and other tools. She also integrates the DSRP (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives) method developed by Cabrera Research Lab. She is a parent ambassador for Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD). She manages content development and dissemination for the 100 Days of Family Fun and Learning project.

Ananth Raghunandan

Student Ambassador, Ramana Sunritya Aalaya (RASA) and Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD)

Ananth is a Bharatanatyam dancer and blogger. He is doing his diploma in Bharatanatyam under Dr. Ambika Kameshwar, Founder and Director of Ramana Sunritya Aalaya. Since completing his Bharatanatyam arangetram in 2020, he has been learning Bharatanatyam in a TAHD way from Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh. He creates content through his theater explorations as well as through other learning experiences. He is currently doing the Fun with Hastas (hand gestures) project under the guidance of Dr. Vaishnavi Poorna to produce content for the RASA web channel.

Ujwal Jagadeesh

Senior Faculty and Artist, Ramana Maharshi Center for Learning (RMCL)

Ujwal Jagadeesh is an experienced TAHD facilitator. He offers a Ramana Bala Kendra program using a family immersion approach for neurodivergent children. He has extensive experiences in teaching Bharatanatyam and in using theater activities for teaching children. He inspired Ananth to explore storytelling and to develop the Ananth's Adventures YouTube channel. Through his dance lessons and stories he continue to provide ideas and content for the 100 Days of Family Fun and Learning Lab. He guides Ananth in developing the skills needed for this project.