Sonakshi Gulati Kakkar & Budding Box

 

                                

Sonakshi has been an Early Years Educator for over 8 years now. It was a fortunate quirk of fate which made her a teacher; something she is eternally grateful for. Sonakshi discovered her love and passion for teaching little ones; something which has only grown since then.

In 2015 Sonakshi started Budding Box. Budding Box is an activity center that facilitates active learning for children through ‘play’, proven to be the foundation of holistic development. The center indulges in hands-on learning and believes in ‘Teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.’ Over the years she has taught more than 100 children and says nothing is more satisfying than watching them learn and grow.

During the first lockdown as learning shifted online, Sonakshi started curating different bundles which included interactive activities that parents can do with their children. As an educator and a parent, she did not take to virtual learning too well and wanted to reach out to as many like-minded parents as she could who were looking at interactive ways of teaching their children.

Sonakshi’s core philosophy of teaching is child-led and learning through play and often faced a challenge in explaining this to parents. According to her, our education system has trained our minds in the other direction and found that parents kept returning with questions like “when will you do worksheets?”, “will you give homework?". Fortunately, Sonakshi feels that this is something which is gradually changing over the last few years and she now meets a lot more parents that resonate with her ideology.

Budding Box is a labour of love. It started out of Sonakshi's passion to teach, nurture and shape little minds and her passion has only grown multi-fold. She fondly recalls a special needs child who used to come to her, and she confesses to have struggled initially because it meant reading a lot more, designing different activities, making extra effort in making the child comfortable in a group of students and proudly boasts because it all worked with her persistence and dedication. Sonakshi and Budding Box were associated with that child for almost 4 years before he moved countries. She is still in touch with the mother and his progress gives Sonakshi an immense feeling of joy.

In the last 8 years Sonakshi has taught more than 100 children. Currently she has 30 children enrolled at Budding Box all between the age groups 2 and 4 years in a variety of batches.   

In her time away from the little ones, Sonakshi loves reading child psychology books and playing strategy games like Settlers of Catan. She has a 3-year-old daughter who thrives under Sonakshi’s child-led teaching. Sonakshi ensures that she divides her week in a way that she gets sufficient time with her daughter.

Follow her on

https://www.instagram.com/budding_box/