The Decade Long Journey - From Preschool and Daycare to Online Homeschooling

Almost 11 years ago, a mother and daughter set out with a dream - to set out on a journey and build something together. But, the million dollar question was, what temple would they build? What could they do together which would take both their skill sets to complement each other? And then it hit them - the mother-daughter duo would embark on a journey to support other mothers and fathers and their loved ones, their little ones.

And so, after a period of much prep and love and labour, on 1 August 2011, Morning Glorie opened up her doors to welcome all little children and their parents, who were looking for a safe and loving space as they took the first steps towards their own new journey - a child learning to leave home for the first time to embark upon a learning journey, a parent looking to balance work with home, a parent looking to take the first step towards nudging their child into an unknown world.

   

At Morning Glorie, we grew along with each of our children. As they remained with us from infancy till they were much older, our hearts swelled with pride at witnessing the wonderful young children they were growing up to be.

We constantly tried to evolve our learning methodology to keep up with what children needed at each stage. We watched in pride as they graduated on to bigger spaces, while keeping the beautiful memories spent with them locked up in our hearts. 

But, at the core, we were always clear on who we are, and that has been a constant through all these years. We chose to be a space that children could call a second home, not just a preschool or day care. We chose to be a space where they could express themselves freely. We chose to be a space that tried to incorporate structure without being rigid. We chose to nurture our bonds with each one of our children and each one of our parents. We hope we have formed lasting relationships with each of our babies, today, there is definitely a hint of nostalgia as we reflect on the journey of a decade...

We ran into roadblocks, like any other journey. Not everything has always been the best, but every bump along the way has been a tremendous learning experience, for each and every member of our team. A team that is more a family, years of togetherness as we have all grown together with Morning Glorie. 

We have always tried to be close,, tight-knit unit as a team - we encourage and motivate each other, while making sure to keep each other grounded and cognizant of areas that need improvement too. In that space it does not matter who is the teacher and who is the principal, we are all there to make sure that every single one of us learns from our mistakes and keeps growing.

The years of togetherness has also made sure that we have formed loving friendships with each other, and team MG has not been averse to having fun whenever we can. Whether it has been team outings, or potlucks to celebrate special occasions at MG, and celebrating all our birthdays together :)

We have also witnessed the ups and downs in our personal lives, and I will forever be grateful for each one of the team to support each other whenever it was needed. 

The journey would not be as it was without the help of our support staff, and we always tried to make sure that our children learnt to respect the didis who took care of them. If anything, sometimes the bonds with their didis could far outshine their bonds with each other and their teachers.

When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, we had almost completed nine beautiful years of our journey. At a time, when the future looked almost bleak, we found the opportunity to try and reinvent ourselves. Just the way we tried to teach our children to constantly evolve and grow, it was time for Morning Glorie to take that plunge and grow in a new direction.

We launched our online homeschooling program in May 2020. As we took learning right into homes, we realized how important it was to make sure that the program was as simple and frill free as possible. We relied on the everyday household objects to make learning for our babies fun, while making sure that we did not burden our parents with scrambling for fancy learning aids as far as possible. At the core, our aim remained the same - we still wanted to support parents and their loved ones on this crucial phase of the children's lives.

While children were at home, it was still as important, if not even more, that they understood what they were doing, how different elements around them interacted with each other, and even though they were exposed to screen time, they had an interactive experience packed full of activities to ensure learning by doing. Experiential was the way to go, while ensuring that the program offered a blend of concrete as well as abstract learning.

At the same time, just because they were not in the same room as their friends and teachers, did not mean that we could not celebrate the special occasions together. From celebrating festivals to celebrating birthdays (including Morning Glorie's 10th!), we have done it all together.

And finally, we also launched our activity club Eggheads, so we could continue to interact and shape curious young minds. 

Our decade long journey has taught us how dynamic everything is, and how important it is to adapt to the changes that are sometimes thrown at us. Just like we try to get the children to adapt to this principle of life, the same holds true for us as well. And just like we have adapted to changes over this period, we hope to continue doing that in the next phase of our journey too.

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