The India Habitat Centre has introduced some very innovative workshops in art and theatre for kids as well as their parents.

For instance, a cartooning workshop for Children and Parents to be held on May 22 and 23 and later on May 29 and 30 (between 10.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m.) is being organised by Rakesh Sahgal, an alumni of the St Martin's School of Art in London and is packaged for Rs 600. For creative learning and to remove Maths phobia in the children is a special Children's Maths Workshop, for the age-group 4 to 8 years (10 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.) and for the age-group 8 to 15 years (11.45 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.) which began today and is to continue till May 28. Then there is the Children's Creative Writing Workshop for the age-group 8 to 15 years by Shivani Dang, starting May 19 till May 28, all packaged at Rs 600 per head. For more creative fun (pricewise too), there's the new Child Creativity Centre called Crossweb in Vasant Vihar, where learning is made more fun through animation films on CDs on computers. ``There is one child per computer and assisted by an individual counsellor for personalised attention. And for the software, wehave the latest in the series, including the knowledge adventure and Jumpstart series, besides the Discovery and the BBC series. And the idea is to make learning easy, fun and creative,'' says Sundar Sippy. The price for the course is Rs 1,300 for eight hours a month (or two hours twice a week).

The summer workshop at the National School of Drama (NSD) began on May 17. Divided into two groups, for the age-groups 8 to 12 years and 12 to 16 years, these classes are being held at 8 different schools spread all over the city. ``The idea is to build personality through integration,'' says Abdul Latif Khatani, the Artistic Incharge of NSD, adding that ``these classes are aimed at making the child comfortable and to sensitise him through various theatre activities such as mime, music, drama, movements and silent exercises. Besides, there is also an interaction session with the parents to help them understand and relate to their child better.'' The course fee for the workshop is fixed at Rs 1,000 per head.

In sports, World Cup fever has gripped the kids, with as many as 60 children enrolling for the cricket workshop being organised under the supervision of Madan Lal in the Siri Fort Sports Complex. The package costs Rs 1,500 for 14 days for members and Rs 2,500 for non-members. The gear of course is extra. Besides this, there are classes for swimming, squash, skating, tennis and table tennis among others.