I am an ambassador for Ramana Sunritya Aalaya (RASA) and Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD). I encourage neurodivergent learners to explore theater daily!
Ananth's Adventures is our digital storytelling
and web development initiative.
Ananth's Adventures
The Project Team
Dr. Dasaratha Rama
Parent
Professor, home educator, and developer of LIFESMART approach
Ananth Raghunandan
Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) Student
Practicing web development, digital storytelling, and narration daily
Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh
Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) guide
Senior Faculty, Artiste, and Program Co-ordinator, Ramana Maharshi Center for Learning
Featured Resource
Lesson of the Month
The lesson of the month is the featured monthly resource created by the Ananth's Adventures team. Every month, we will share one main resource for neurodivergent learners, parents, educators, and others.
The featured resource for May 2023 is a lesson by Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh. This lesson was presented during the LIFESMART Parenting virtual meetup on May 29, 2023.
Review the video below TAHD. We encourage parents and children to try this lesson together. You can try the full lesson or parts of the lesson. You can also get ideas for your own lesson on trees.
Visit the Ananth's Adventures Youtube channel and follow us for the story of the month and other resources.
Designing and Implementing a Lesson
- 1. Choose a topic and make your lesson plan based on your goal.
- 2. Start the lesson with a warm-up.
- 3. Do the lesson and invite your child to imitate.
- 4. Minimize verbal instructions/prompts.
- 5. Reduce performace expectaions and let the child imitate as best as they can.
- 6. Use nonverbal communication to give directions to your child.
- 7. Observe and adjust the lesson for future repetitions.
- 8. Repeat the lesson daily for at least one week.
- 9. Create other experiences on the same topic.
- 10. Use different tools to explore the topic.
Featured Project
Story of the Month
The story of the month is the main project of the Ananth's Adventures team. Every month, Ananth practices a story with dance movements. Initially, the stories were primarily imitations of what was learned in the class with Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh. Over time, Rama and Ananth have started selecting, compiling, and curating dance and story nuggets and creating the videos.
Ananth narrated his first story at a webinar organized by SpecialSaathi on his birthday on December 2, 2022. These stories are a part of my Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) explorations. Each story includes some music and dance elements. Also, since I learn Ramana Maharshi stories in my dance class, I am narrating stories of Ramana Maharshi.
Watch the stories in the playlist below and share with your child. You can also get ideas for telling different stories to their children based on my explorations. For example, the peacock and cow hand movements can be used while narrating other stories abour peacocks and cows.
List of stories in the playlist
- 1. The White Peacock
- 2. A Journey to Arunachala
- 3. Cow Lakshmi - 1
- 4. Robbers in Ramana Thatha's Ashram
- 5. Kartari Mukha Hand Gesture
- 6. About Hasta Stories
- 7. Nattaduvu
- 8. The Golden Mongoose
- 9. What is Silence?
Visit the Ananth's Adventures Youtube channel and follow us for the story of the month and other resources.
100 Days of Narration - Day 60 Highlights
Narration means sharing one's ideas and experiences. Narration means retelling what we have learned. Narration is an important capacity and a foundation for thinking, learning, and communication. I narrate in different ways throughout the day.
Learning by narration is a daily habit that is a part of every experience. Hence, 100 Days of Narration is my key 100-Day project. The Ananth's Advnetures Youtube channel documents my learning journey
This page shows outcomes and trends of my current 100-Days of Narration project, narration tools, my narration journey, and activities and projects that influence my narration.
- 1. Increased smiling: Consistent reinforcement of smiling daily through our Smile Brightly and Dance project has resulted in more smiling throughout the day and in narration activities.
- 2. Silence, smile, and speech: Silence is one of our explorations based on the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. Speech blossoming from a silent mind with a smile is our long-term narration goal towards which we are making some progress.
- 3. More improvisation: As we practice daily, we are able to generate more ideas and improvise in different ways.
- 4. Harnessing the power of storytelling: Daily stories in dance class have sparked more narration.
- 5. Increased Motivation: Motivation is high because the story of the month combines opportunities for targeted practice and improvisation.
- 6. Thinking about values: Each story in dance class encourages exploration of values in a simple, clear and nonprescriptive way.
- 7. Evolving a Process: Imitate, repeat, memorize, improvise is becoming a stable process for practicing narration. Independent recall in own words is supported by imitation.
- 8. Progress Tracking and Playing it Forward: We are continuing to build his youtube channel and website. The Youtube channel and website are a record of our evolving narration practices and skills. It is also intended as a resource for parents, teachers, and others on implementing narration.
The outcomes described below are a part of our LIFESMART outcomes listed below. The sixteen words (four for each of LIFE components) provide a simple and consistent wy of thinking about outcomes.
Becoming LIFESMART with Narration
The outcomes described below are a part of our LIFESMART outcomes listed below. The sixteen words (four for each of LIFE components) provide a simple and consistent wy of thinking about outcomes.
- L: Learning daily: Narration facilitates learning from all experiences. Imitate, Repeat, Memorize, Improvise as our basic learning process with an emphasis on oral- motor imitation integrated with motor repetition.
- I: Interests: Interests result in motivation, initiation, commitment, and effort.Initiation is a very important indicator of interest. Initiation is a key ingredient for co-creation!
- F: Family interactions: When the L and I elements work well together, the parent's role as a guide can be faded. Parents can continue providing physical and emotional safety, encouragement, and support. They can enjoy experiences together!
- E: Engagement with Community: Finally, acceptance and inclusion by others guides and peers is a key factor that enables parents to reduce their role as a guide. Access to other mentors is an important step in increasing independence, facilitating expression of ideas and experiences, and in supporting co-creation.
- SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-framed) projects: Implementing SMART projects to practice narration increases focus and creates accountability. SMARt projects can be used to track progress and to play forward the results of the explorations to community members.
1. Movement and Dance
I have been using movement and dance as tools for narration for many years. Now, because of my Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) based dance classes, I am learning more about the use of these tools.
2. Music and Rhythm
Music and rhythm are an important part of every dance lesson. I have been combining music and movement with oral storytelling in my narration videos.
3. Storytelling
I have been focusing on storytelling extensively. I am focusing on storytelling techniques and practice storytelling daily.
4. Drama
Drama has been a part of our narration toolkit for many years. We are not focusing more on storytelling now though I continue to participate in drama experiences.
5. Arts and Crafts
I am not using arts and crafts much now. I will explore it in the future.
6. Thinkblocks
Thinkblocks is a set of nested blocks that I used for visual modeling and storytelling when I was young.
7. Notebooks
I use notebooks for taking notes, but also for practicing.
8. Index Cards
I use index cards for tracking and memorizing information.
9. Diigo
I use Diigo for BBA review.
10. OneNote
I use Diigo for memorizing and practicing. I write about Ramana Maharshi, Ramayana, and other stories in OneNote.
11. Kumu
I am using Kumu for Visual storytelling.
12. Canva
I use Canva for posters and visual storytelling.
Ananth's
Milestones
October 11, 2020
Ananth's arangetram
I learned Bharatanatyam from Guru Harija Sivakumar and Guru Kalakshetra Mohanan from 2012 to 2020.
August 25, 2022
Jatayu Moksham
I performed Jatayu Moksham under the guidance of Dr. Vaishnavi Poorna, Deputy Director, Ramana Sunritya Aalaya (RASA) and directed by Dr. Ambika Kameshwar, Founder and Director of RASA.
December 28, 2022
Krishna Dootam
I performed Krishna Dootham at Bapalal Bhavan in Chennai under the guidance of Dr. Vaishnavi Poorna, Deputy Director, Ramana Sunritya Aalaya (RASA) and directed by Dr. Ambika Kameshwar, Founder and Director of RASA.
February 23, 2023
Swami Vivekananda
I performed Swami Vivekananda at Narada Gana Sabha in Chennai under the guidance of Dr. Vaishnavi Poorna, Deputy Director, Ramana Sunritya Aalaya (RASA) and directed by Dr. Ambika Kameshwar, Founder and Director of RASA.
Started December 2, 2022
Story of the Month
On my 25th birthday (December 2, 2022), I narrated the story of The White Peacock under the guidance of Sri Ujwal Jagadesh at the Ramana Maharshi Center for Learning (RMCL). I enjoyed this experience and started narrating a story each month.
Started January 12, 2023
Ananth's Adventures
I launched my Youtube channel, Ananth's Adventures on January 12, 2023. I am creating many resources on narration using Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) developed by Dr. Ambika Kameshwar, Founder and Director of RASA.
Schedule 2023
Narration throughout the Day
Every experience is an opportunity for narration!
Activity 1
The Daily Mile
Activity 2
Smile Brightly and Dance
Activity 3
BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) Review
Activity 4
Web Development
Activity 5
Reading
Activity 6
Ananth's Adventures Digital Storytelling Project
Activity 7
Blogging
Activity 8
Around the House
Activity 9
Life skills
10:00 - 11:00 AM
Speaker
11:00 - 12:00 PM
Speaker
12:00 - 12:15 PM
Break
12:15 - 01:15 PM
Success Models - Employment under 1% reservation
01:15 - 02:00 PM
Lunch
02:00 - 03:00 PM
(Continued)
Success Models - Employment under 1% reservation
03:00 - 03:30 AM
Valedictory
Evolving our Narration Practice
Click on each project name to learn about our key projects and how they affect our narration practices.
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Smile Brightly and Dance Project
Sri Ujwal Jagadeesh often says that the purpose of dance is happiness. Smiling is emphasized in my dance class and we refer to our dance practice as Smile Brightly and Dance. Narration is not just words! Our Smile Brightly and Dance project provides a foundation for integrating body movements and emotional expressions in narration.
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Theater Arts for Holistic Development (TAHD) Projects
A variety of TAHD projects have influenced our narration practices. As seen in the journey section, I have learned Bharatanatyam for over 10 years and have participated in 3 theater performances through RASA. I learn dance with a teacher from RMCL. These experiences have transformed how I narrate ideas.
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Visual and Tactile Tools
My mother and I have explored a variety of visual and tactile tools for thinking, learning, and communication. These tools were listed in the tools section.
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Ananth's Adventures Digital Storytelling Project
Creating, posting, and sharing Youtube videos, building my website, and creating a story on kumu are some projects that are growing our narration practices. I am also a blogger for SpecialSaathi.
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100-Days of Narration
The 100-Days of Narration project is a vehicle for combining different ingredients and create a focused practice depending on our needs. Focusing on specific narration practices for a period of time embeds these practices practices in our daily routine. !
Have any questions?
Contact Us
Ananth Raghunandan
Dr. Dasaratha Rama
Email us at lifesmartlabs@gmail.com