Jaadui Pitara
An exemplar for Foundational Learning
The Jaadui Pitara has been developed as an exemplar of content that is needed in any school for the Foundational Stage. The National Curriculum Framework describes how children at this stage learn best through play – through activity and doing. Children enjoy learning through several ways – talking, listening, using toys, working with material, painting, and drawing, singing, dancing, running, and jumping.
The Pitara has toys, games, puzzles, puppets, posters, flashcards, story cards, playbooks for students, and handbooks for teachers. As you will discover, the content here represents what is needed to support pedagogy that will help achieve a broad range, though not the entirety, of Curricular Goals of NCF-FS, across the five developmental domains.
18 days. 20 designers & illustrators. 700 illustrations. 4 playbooks for students. 5 handbooks for teachers. 10 posters. 200 flash cards. 5 story cards. A gazillion stickers. Booklets. Pamphlets.And note cards. 1 magical box.
The Magical Box
It all started with a phone call on a Sunday afternoon, in January 2023. And after that, the next 18-20 days were a blur.We worked with Azim Premji Foundation to create the Jaadui Pitara – an exemplar for Foundation Learning across schools in India.'Jaadui Pitara' means Magical Box in Hindi. This is the story of pulling off a seemingly impossible task, in a very short duration, with zero compromises made in quality. This is the story of a project we're so proud of, and grateful to Azim Premji Foundation, that we got to participate in something that will transform early education in India.
What's in the box
The Pitara is a large cardboard box, comprising of two compartments. The compartment at the bottom focuses on learning through Play with Toys, Games, Puzzles and Puppets; across Cognitive Development, Language and Literacy Development, Physical Development and Aesthetic and Cultural Development.The compartment above contains learning material such as playbooks for students, flash cards, poetry posters, story posters, sequence cards; as well as handbooks for teachers.
नटखट: Playbooks for Students
'Natkhat' means naughty, in Hindi. We created a set of 4 Natkhat playbooks – for 3-6 years olds, and for 6-8 year olds, we did Maths, Hindi and English.Joy. Wonder. Curiousity. These three words were our design brief and starting point for our explorations. Children are natural learners. They are active, eager to learn and respond with interest to new things. They have an innate sense of curiosity - they wonder, question, explore, try out, and discover to make sense of the world.The Playbooks are bright, imaginative, and a joy to flip through. Animals wave at you, vegetables wink at you, and the flowers want to hug you.
खेल खेल में: Handbooks for Teachers
'Khel khel mein' means 'In Play/ Fun', in Hindi. We created a set of 5 books for teachers – for 3-6 years olds, and for 6-8 year olds, we did Maths, Hindi and English. We also designed an additional book for Teaching Learning Materials, which comprises of 120 play-based classroom activities.These books illustrate classroom scenarios, to help the teachers visualise and plan the activities. Group settings where students are immersed in their activity, and the role of the teacher in such scenarios.
Poetry Posters
The poetry posters trigger the imagination, and spark curiosity. These are meant to be pinned onto softboards, and pasted on the walls of the classroom. While we created these posters in Hindi, they have now been translated into 14+ Indian languages.
Story Posters
Short stories are visualised into easy-to-understand posters. These trigger interactions in the classroom, and become a learning aid during storytelling sessions between the teacher and students.
Flash Cards
Flash cards are learning tools to help children develop a deeper understanding of the world around them. On one side, the learning concept is shown. On the other side, the answer is revealed. For example, one side of a card may show a number and the opposite side of the card may have a visual representation of that number.We designed two sets of flash cards – numbers from 0-100, and theme-based cards for Animals, Flowers, Vegetables, Air, Water, and Plants.
Accessible and available freely
Digital versions of the handbooks, playbooks, posters, and flashcards are available at DIKSHA for free download. DIKSHA stands for Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing. It is the National Teacher Platform built to host open educational resources and tools for teachers.Each of the handbooks have instructions for the teachers which describes the spirit of the content.
Check out the Pitara on Diksha
India is a diverse country
Through the illustrations, we were mindful of featuring teachers from different parts of the country, while representing diversity in age, gender, and culture.
Every child is unique
Embracing and celebrating the uniqueness and diversity of the children of our country.
The Launch
In Feb 2023, the Education Minister of India launched the Jaadui Pitara in New Delhi. “It is a giant leap towards enriching the learning-teaching environment and making it more child-centric, lively and joyful."
Press & Media
Kindness. Trust. Strength. And a whole lot of adrenaline!
This project required us to piece together a team of 20, literally overnight. A desperate plea for help on Instagram, and the kindest set of designers and illustrators showed up, trusting us with the process. We will be eternally grateful to this team for creating this truly magical box alongside us.
Behind the Scenes
Team
Design Director
- Seema Seth
Illustrations
- Aakansha Menon
- Annada Menon
- Anjali
- Antra Khurana
- Anushka Bansal
- Jayesh Sivan
- Kajal Bhojawala
- Rashi Raizada
- Rucha Phadnis
- Shivani Danave
- Sudakshina Sridharan
- Trusha Sawant
- Vibha Surya
Design Support
- Aarya Dhuttargi
- Nitesh Verma
- Sanjana Venkat
- Shravani Gugale
- Shreshta Venkatesh
- Tanisha Ambegaokar
Client Team
- Bhawana Upadhyay
- Mini Bhandari
- Narayan Krishnaswamy
Moral Support & Cheerleader
- Narayan Krishnaswamy
