Trust me, children can be the greatest comedians, especially during their early years. Watch them, play with them and you will definitely end up laughing with them, as their natural curiosity and desire to learn, leads them into all sorts of interesting situations.

One of my greatest joys is introducing two year olds to the joys of glue/paste, but be prepared for a mess; strongly recommend aprons, short sleeves and plenty of soap and water for afterwards. And keep your camera ready!

Sit with your child. Start demonstrating how to use the glue/paste to make a collage by taking a range of materials — any recycled paper or pages from colour magazines works well — and stick them onto a backing; small pieces of cardboard are great for this as they don’t go soggy with the glue/paste. Gently encourage your child to imitate your actions. The objective here is to convert two formerly clean hands into sticky ‘paddles’, to create a range of new multi-sensorial experiences and problems for your child to resolve. How to get something now stuck on one hand, onto the board?  Why aren’t hands working as they normally would? Mum looks as though she is having fun, so this new experience must be okay, yes?  Who can I ask for help?  And more . . .
I have never had a negative response to this activity; from teachers, children or mums. At most some children are reluctant to touch the glue/paste at first, in fear of ‘getting dirty’. But this quickly dissipates as the fun of the process takes over.

So what does this have to do with education and humour? Everything! Here is a fun-based learning activity for a young child, which is designed to teach math skills (problem solving), language skills (verbal communication and new vocabulary), physical development (fine motor skills), scientific thinking (curiosity and discovery), emotional development (coping with change), and creative expression (making something of his/her own).  And all this quality ‘academic’ learning gained by succumbing to the simple joys of having fun.

So if the purpose of education is to impart knowledge i.e. to ‘learn’, and if the learning process can be considerably enhanced using ‘humour’, why then do many homes and classrooms in India remain bastions of solemnity, especially for early years’ education?  Why are we not integrating more humour into the learning process?

The writer is CEO of Kara4Kids, Extended Preschool and Daycare Centres, Bangalore. Website:  www.kara.in