namita's blog

Today we painted our own diyas, which we had dried very carefully, with different colours and of course, sparkles and chamkis. We landed up with some really wonderful patterns and designs on our diyas. This time the diyas at our home will shine brighter, because of the ones we made on our own!!!:)

Today we made our very own diyas with clay.We took our inspiration from a story 'Raghu ka diya', about a potter's son. We made them, without the potter's wheel and we were really proud of our work!! Two of us have experimented making diyas with plastic bowls, like we would make with paper mache. Results awaited next week.
We have also learned to resolve our own fights!!:)

Today we had a visitor with four paws, Lyka. We were eagerly waiting for the 'dog' and expected a 'puppy'. But when Lyka appeared, she 'surprised' everyone to say the least!! Lyka is HUGE, a golden retriever, 7 yrs old, more like a small bear. When we saw how lovable and cuddly she is, we thawed, and played with her- fed her biscuits, clapped for her tricks, threw ball for her to catch, etc. We all had fun, Lyka too!! We asked Kalpana Aunty, her mom, questions about what she ate and did, liked and disliked. We found a lot of similarities- we like vanilla icecream, biscuits, and chips too, and hated injections, and bitter medicine!! After she left, when we had a discussion about 'what animal would u like to be?', most of course wanted to be a dog,- because they are cute and soft, smooth, loved, eat biscuits, bark, and nice!!!!
Another thing I would like to mention- one of the children noted 4 hands on the clock!! The small pointy thing at the other end of the seconds hand!!!

Today we read stories about rescuing whales and endangered turtles. It was heartening to note the concern and interest in these stories. It was all in their expressions, nothing they said. The amazement and excitement that was generated when we saw pictures of rare sea creatures like jellyfish, sea horse, sharks, whales, starfish inspired us to make these creatures out of clay.

Today the excitement was in completing the fort and our colourful, 'chamki' crwons and wearing them. We also made puppets of Kings and Queens and had puppet shows using the fort. The stories went on and on with each member of the team adding his/her own twist to the story. Was thoroughly enjoyed by one and all!

Today we played with the Kitchen set, cooking and shopping. We also played tug-of-war and supermen.
Drawing inspiration from stories of Ancient Indian Kings from the Amar Chitra Kathas, we drew our own plans of forts. We then designed a single plan of a fort to make one. We shared painting the walls, designed doors (4 in all), made the towers(4 again) and a moat. We also designed crowns for ourselves, which we will decorate and paint next week. We painted our fingers (of course), and faces and clothes too!!! :) We had a busy merry time!

In 'my time' today, we wanted to make cards again. So we explored new topics and colours, tried drawing and writing with our left hands (since all of us are right handed). We did pretty well for ourselves!! Some of us also played with the mechanics kit and made helicopter etc.
After snack time, we entered the room/fort quietly, on a drawbridge taking care not to fall into the moat, looking around for enemy soldiers. We then saw actual Forts of India on the computer and discussed about them.
We cut out stencils of forts, and additions inside like people, trees, etc and made very beautiful spray paintings of these!! We will be getting them laminated too!! We proudly took home the spray painted forts though.

Most of us have been together for quite some time, and know each other quite well. So, we decided to give each other cards, to say why we like our friend/s. Some of us just coloured the card nice and bright and presented it with a big smile. Others wrote or said why or what we liked. It was cute.!

We also discussed the Olympic games and medals.
We then saw and read about sand sculptures, by an artist Sudarshan Patnaik. He had made one to congratulate the gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra, too. We saw he had used colours in sand and decided we would try designs like rangolis or sculptures. When we went down to the sand area, it was raining !
But we did not lose heart! We decided to make use of the colours anyway. So we played with colours and glue and made glue paintings...which turned out into wonderful abstract paintings!!

Today, the mood was all set for Independence Day! Everybody wished each other 'Happy Independence Day'. One of us started singing 'Vande Mataram' and the rest either hummed or sang along. Those who did not know were taught the words by the kids themselves. Impromptu like that, it was wonderful!!!
To learn about India, we started with a maze of a King who needs to find his palace. We took different colour crayons for each route and solved the maze.:)
Then we played another game of 'Discover India': through spot the differences, of costumes, dances, sculptures of different states, mazes, and other games. We did these in teams and individually. Then someone started the song 'Saare jahaan se achha' and all joined in, loud and clear. The atmosphere was very beautiful!!!

Today we made our own puppets, either standing ones or on sticks, or both!! We had fish, dwarf, rabbits, lions(flying ones too), trees, girls, dinosaurs etc with fun names like Turpatar, Poshko, etc. The stories and the puppet shows were even more amazing and interesting-rabbits stepping on each other, lions flying, being helped by monsters, fish who swam at the top of the ocean to be able to see the world, healing dwarfs living in trees, all told in unique styles!!! We all had a good time!:)