Comini Microschool Newsletter: February 2025
We are three!
We normally send these newsletters only to our Comini parents every month. But we decided to share this one with everyone. As we turn three and in keeping with our long-term goal to make learning accessible, we'll start sharing our wonderfully crafted newsletters :)
Hello hello
A newsletter that is on time! I’m really trying hard this year :) Also because I have so much to write home about - and so much I need your inputs on - I’m putting this newsletter to good use.
We are THREE!!
Just like our bigger Bombils at Comini, we’re growing more confident, getting better at communicating (sure, we might whine from time to time), and having an absolute blast discovering the wonders of the world. For us, that means witnessing unbridled play as the foundation of a joyful, meaningful education. It can be relentless—did you know we’ve never repeated a facilitated session (lesson) in the last three years! But when we see a bunch of happy, healthy, and curious kids walk through our doors every day, we know it’s all worth it.
We’re just as motivated, excited, and eager to learn as we were three years ago. And we’ll say it again—it takes the holy trinity of engaged parents who are collaborators rather than customers, facilitators who genuinely care and want to make a difference, and the incredible kids who make it all worthwhile. We’ve seen some of these kids (and you!) grow over three years, and it amazes us every day.
The month that was: Markets, Bazaars & FleaPlay!
January turned out to be a whirlwind of a month. We had initially planned for lots of field trips to different markets in Bombay, exploring how markets function and how some have evolved into e-commerce platforms. What we ended up doing was a deep dive into supply chains—and not much else!
FleaPlay also took up a fair share of our time, with the Big Kids enthusiastically setting up mini businesses and passion projects. They did learn a thing or two about concepts ranging from understanding supply demand, costing, inventory management, branding and marketing, and more. What started as a simple showcase of life at Comini turned into something much bigger!
A huge thank you to Aben and Ashwin for helping us put it all together, and to the entire Comini music collective—you guys totally rocked! Our facilitators did a fantastic job facilitating a great time as is second nature to them. And not to mention all the kids and their parents who worked really hard at their stalls. Special mention of the great job the kids did of their “presentations” after the event where they took stock of how much money they made, what their costs were and their experience and learning at FleaPlay.
What Went Well:
Free play flourished: January’s beautiful weather meant the kids spent hours soaking in the sun on the terrace. Their elaborate role-play setups were so immersive that we even canceled a few guided activities to let them continue!
Kids being their awesome, curious selves.
Paired and gamified activities worked really well.
Movement elements: energizers before class and movement breaks helped improve focus.
FleaPlay was a fantastic real-life learning experience.
Learner’s Collective essay competition: some of the BigKids participated voluntarily, and though it was challenging, it was a great learning opportunity.
Cohort socio-emotional challenges: kids are learning to resolve conflicts more independently.
Role-playing supply chains gave kids an in-depth understanding of market functions.
FarmSchool continues to be rewarding.
Former Bimblis are loving their Hindi writing classes.
Democratic school meetings restarted! The kids are older now, and we’re working towards making these meetings the foundation for decision-making at Comini. They were especially excited to learn that some schools even decide teacher-hiring and pay in these meetings!
What Didn’t Go So Well:
Kids breaking meeting agreements—but they’re figuring out how to sort it out as a group.
Theme exploration wasn’t as deep as planned—we’ll revert to letting kids fully. decide themes via voting in meetings. FYI their current interests for future themes: Cooking, Art, Bodies, and Fact vs. Fiction.
Socio-emotional challenges, particularly feeling left out—we discussed this with Jane (D’Silva, a seasoned elementary school teacher at the American School of Bombay) - turns out it’s not just a Comini problem :)
Pickup transitions—a reminder for parents to be on time for evening pickups! We’re also working with kids to ensure they’re ready to leave by 4:30 PM.
The month ahead : Cooking up a storm!
The kids voted, and “Cooking” won as February’s theme! We explored “Kitchen Science” last year, so we’re excited to see how this time differs.
We’ll start by linking our Market theme to cooking, discussing ingredients and how they transform into food with different textures, tastes, and smells. We’ll also dive into the science—heat transfer, fermentation (Gaytri is sharing some scoby for our ‘kombucha scoby hotel’!), pickling, and more. Our FarmSchool connections will come in handy since they produce jams, pickles, and dried fruit.
Practical action is also on the agenda—learning to prep ingredients, basic cooking skills, and kitchen hygiene. We’ll discuss how diets and local ingredients shape our food choices, and hopefully, sneak in a lesson on healthy eating (though credit where it’s due—Comini kids are pretty balanced eaters!).
Special Highlight: Levain Baking with Mem
Lulu’s dad, Mem, has generously offered to host a “levain baking” course. His introductory note for the lesson planning document was too wonderful not to share:
“The thing I find most interesting about cooking is the alchemy of turning one thing into a different thing—sloppy dough into firm, crusty bread; fresh cucumbers into ancient pickles; butter and flour into filmy laminated pastry. That’s a magic kids can easily appreciate, best communicated by doing.”
He plans to cover:
The rhythm of a sourdough starter (levain)
Baking various breads: focaccia, pizza, rolls, fougasse, English muffins, cinnamon rolls
Using levain “waste” for crumpets, pancakes, waffles
Experimenting with pastries like meringue, choux, puff pastry, and shortcrust
So excited about this!
Facilitator’s Corner: Kshama on Art @ Comini
I’m no expert in Art. But I’m fascinated by it. To me, it’s more than an activity—it’s a way to connect with the kids. Their interests become my topics; their individual styles become my lesson plan.
Traditional education often sidelines art as a “free-time” activity, but I’ve realized the opposite is true. Art helps children make sense of the world, and as a facilitator, my job is to honor that. My approach always starts with a few questions:
Is it open-ended enough?
Is it tangible and adaptable to each child’s style?
Is it coming from me, or from them?
There’s structure, but there’s also space—to take a different approach, to get lost in the process, and to feel content with the outcome. I don’t do this alone; the entire Comini team contributes ideas, making every activity something we co-create.
And when I leave out a bottle of paint, a few Legos, cotton balls, and toothpicks, I see:
A floating cloud garden
A football court capturing the impact of a kick
A girl who didn’t want night to come
A black sheet with green blotches matching the hands of its artist
Ask the kids about their work, let them unravel its meaning, and your mind will be blown.
Other Notes:
Comini PlayDates
We are attempting to put together Comini Playdates (working title) for our mini summer break in May (19th - 30th). Comini Playdates hopes to be a spin off of FleaPlay where we’re able to showcase what we do at Comini, or things we don’t have time or resources to do during our regular days. Will share details when we have them.
We’ve also been very interested in setting up Parent Playdates - scheduling workshops (think Mem’s Levain baking or a fabric block printing class) or just sports, puzzle evenings etc where grownups can also play. Putting it out there so we are compelled to make it happen.
Extra activities (sports)
We had a couple of sports coaches reach out to us wanting to do specialized sports training for the kids and offered trials this month. The first was the skateboarding session at the Carter road skatepark and the second was the Track and field trial at Joggers park this week. The kids seemed to have enjoyed both and both have very different flavours to it (skateboarding is specialized, more balance and control related, Track and field geared towards more generalized fitness and athleticism). We’d love to do both, or either, but frankly do not have the school budgets to take this on. And we don’t want to saddle parents with costs that they might be pressurized to absorb either. Have told the kids that we have to think of ways to collectively raise money for the school to be able to do classes like this. But anything (yardsales, bake sales etc) all require time and effort and people to run, and we’d need to set up a parent+facilitator committee to run these. Leaving it here to discuss at our next parent chat
Miscellaneous
Two things
Recently revisited the amazing Free to Learn by Peter Gray. We’re thinking of putting together a compilation of books and resources to become mandatory reading for Comini parents and this one is definitely making it to the list. The audiobook is available free in the Audible trial!
We are not a school. While we expand and grow the microschool, wanted to take a moment to clarify that we are not a school by any legal or statutory definition. We’ve included a clarification on our website. Please do read this carefully.
That’s it for now : )
Priyanka and Sai