Cover of Manjhi Moves a Mountain
Manjhi Moves a Mountain
📚
Service 1st & 2nd Grade
By Nancy Churnin

Book Guide

Manjhi Moves a Mountain

A story that explores service and opens a conversation with your child.

★★★★★ Loved by families
Read the Guiding Questions Find this book →
♥ This book teaches: Service. using what you have to help others.

Before, During & After Reading

Guiding Questions for Parents.

Definition : Service is doing something nice or helpful for someone else. Summary: Manjhi lives in a village that is separated from the next village by a mountain. This is inconvenient for all the people who live in Manji’s town - it’s more rural and doesn’t have some of the medical and other services the more developed village has.  Manjhi decides to “move the mountain!“ He starts a project to cut a road through the mountain with simple tools.  After two decades Manjhi and helpers finish the task and the pass is open. The second resource has actual video footage of this inspirational project.   Lesson Objectives: 
  1. Students are inspired from Manjhi’s example to think about ways they can help their own community or even a community that is far away and needs assistance. 
  Guiding questions: 
  1. Who is Manjhi and why do people in India celebrate his life?  
  2. This story takes place in the country called India. Find India on a map. Do you live close to or far away from India? 
  3. Manjhi was motivated to create a road that would link his village to the one on the other side of the mountain because his wife had an accident on its steep cliffs when she was on her way to the neighboring village hospital. Manjhi wasn’t able to prevent what happened to his wife but he did make life better for his neighbors. Why do you think he never gave up even though it was really hard? 
  4. Was Manjhi rich or poor? Do you think he got paid for building the road? (No, he didn’t, he volunteered to do it) 
  5. What kind of tools did Manjhi use to cut through the mountain? 
  6. Did his people make fun of him at first? How do you know they changed their mind about him later on? 
  7. Have you ever tried to dig a hole in the ground? What did you use to dig with, and was it hard or easy? 
  8. Even though Manjhi didn’t get to go to school as much as you, do you think he was smart? Why or why not? 
  9. There was a movie made about Manjhi, called “Manjhi, the Mountain Man”. Why do you think they made a movie about his life? 
  10. Ask someone to help you find a community that could use your help. There are many ways for children your age to participate in helping communities around the world. 
 
🌿   Virtue Connection: Service means using what you have been given to help others.

Hands-On Practice

Activities for This Story.

 

Activity: Students act out the story. First they brainstorm with their teacher about making a script identifying main parts of the plot and creating characters. A student can narrate the story while student characters act it out. They can also create sounds (like the sound of a shovel) that go with the story and they can make props, such as cardboard tools like shovels and pick axes, and even items for a celebratory event once the road is finished.   

Materials needed: the read-aloud video or book; easel sized paper to write down a simple script; materials for creating sound, cardboard tools, celebratory items (like pompoms, fun hats, etc.); if possible, a videographer to videotape the production  

Directions: Introduce the video - “Let’s learn about service from someone who spent most of his life moving a mountain!” Show the video. Explain the activity - “Manjhi was so famous in India that they made a movie about him. I thought it might be fun to make our own production about his life. We’ll brainstorm and write a script together, listing the main parts of the story. We will also choose students to play the different characters. I’ll write down your ideas on this easel paper and that will be the script for the narrator. We can also make some cardboard tools. At the end of the story, everyone celebrates, so we can create our own version of that. We’ll need some sound to go with our production, like the sound of the shovel and pickaxe, and other sounds, so let’s think about what we could use for instruments.” This activity will probably take more than one session so plan ahead for 2 - 3 sessions and try to find an audience for the drama! As students are working on the project, keep bringing up the theme of service, and how it can apply to your students’ lives.   

Wrap it up: Explain: “Thank you for working on this project with me! If Manjhi was here with us, I think he’d really like your production.  When we’re given an opportunity to help others, we can think of his example, how he did the impossible and helped lots of people in both villages get medical care and other services.”  

About the Story.

This guide is part of the Values & Virtues library, a free collection of 400+ book guides and activities organized around 12 core virtues for children from pre-K to 6th grade. Each guide includes Guiding Questions designed to open a real conversation with your child in 10 minutes or less.

Read-aloud video · Best with headphones

Find this book at your library or bookstore →

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