Work from home

Om: Ajji can we get a puppy home?

Ajji: No Omi its difficult for us manage one. It will dirty the place

Om: Ok, lets not keep it inside the house, lets keep him in parking porch.

Ajji: No, but Who will clean all the poo it does all over?

Om: I will. You give me two things to pick it up and I will clean it myself

Ajji: But you are going to be at school, how will you do it?

Om: I will do work from home :-D

Social Service

We are off for a 2 day trip to Chennai for some relief work. Baby has been upset that we are leaving her behind. She wants to be a part of it, but this weekend the kids are supposed to give compulsory attendance at school as its field day for them. We have been dropping notes within our friend circle to help us with relief material and generous donation. And the same I shared with baby so she could share with her friends. The request she made sounded so genuine and the message coming from a child in the way it was put across…touched us totally. A simple message “do whatever you can” can sound so powerful sometimes.

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Baby had been to a 3 day tour to Belur halebidu last week. Accomodation in Hotel Ashhok Hassan. The idea behind the tour was to do some social service in a Government school there.

So this is how it turned out I believe….1^st day of tour was about planning whats to be done next 2 days and then some group games. 2^nd day of tour was visiting the government school, playing village games like gilli danda with the school kids there, drinking Fresh tender coconut water, cleaning the school premises, painting the classroom walls and ending the day with some DJ and music. The 3^rd day was a morning walk towards the farms and village tour, milking the cow, planting saplings, guided tour to Belur & Halebidu and bus back to Bangalore.

What amazed me was how baby could adjust so easily to the village environment & activities done there. While I think that my 11yr old still needs to learn a lot of things, it was nice to know that she was the only one who thought of sharing the chocolates with the Government school kids which she had actually carried for her school mates. She was one of the few who tried their hand at milking the cow and again one of the few who dug up mother earth to plant the sapling. 

Learning in a child happens in different ways, or more when they are taken through reality rather than nurturing & protecting them under our care always. Real time Opportunities need to be provided to a child for better learning and to make them better human beings.

Season full of competitions

This year school has been sharing information on a lot of competitions happening around and I am trying to encourage kids into participating in whatever possible. 

Started with India Posts Childrens Day stamp design competition. Topic given was "A day in the rains"

Kids had a good time thinking and putting their heads into what to draw and which colors to use. After repeated number of drawing n coloring n losing patience kids have produced their final output which I have sent to the India Post. Will upload the pictures once the competition results are out. 

A day in the rain - Ahana

A day in the rain- Om

Next came the Nazariya 2015 competition which was conducted at school. Om had Water conservation & Ahana had Global warming again. This time since the kids had some time to prepare helped them with some ideas on what could be drawn. I dont have the picture of what the kids finally did at school and submitted..so have to wait for the results to be announced and see if theirs gets shortlisted.


Updated December 09, 2015- Om won 1st place in Nazariya art competition Sub-Junior School level.  

Updated February 13, 2016- Om won 3rd place in Nazariya art competition Sub-Junior National level. 

Water Conservation- Om

 Updated June 05, 2016- A mention of his drawing in the newspapers
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/550448/children-turn-green-ambassadors.html
Mangalore edition of deccan herald is supposed to have published a picture of his drawing too. 

Two weeks back kids submitted their art for Camlin color contest. For Om it was Incredible India and for Ahana it was Ganga- The river of life. Idea generation done in a days time. Kids had to be taken to one of the crossword centers and had to do their artwork there. Since the center we had chosen, had not been informed about the registration, we had to wait for close to 1 1/2 hrs, before the center manager finally allowed the kids to do their art and submit their paintings. Now although we've submitted, I am not sure if it will reach Camlin or if it will get misplaced. I am hoping that the effort the kids put in that day has not gone waste. Wondering what the problem is with blogger site..my images are getting turned when I post them here :-S Nevertheless as a record I am putting it up here.

From Om

From Ahana

Om was part of the Choral Recitation at school- The Mosquito by J Patrick Lewis. When the poem was first sent home, I was shocked to see the size of the poem and the words used in it. The kids were to bi-heart all the lines! After two days of trying, I gave up coz Om had managed to learn just 3-4 lines. After a week or so, he came home saying he's been selected for choral recitation competition and started reciting the whole poem with actions. A cute one, shall record the video and put up. His team got the 1st place :-)

Ahana got an opportunity to perform on August 30th with her indian music group at Shubha sadan. The opportunity was to render it in front of Guruji part of Sri Sringeri Shivaganga Math. The kids sang 25 songs, ranging from shlokas, carnatic classical songs to some sugam sangeet. It was a great experience for both the kids and us. Brought the children closer to our hindu culture. Not that I follow all the rituals, but I would certainly like the kids to know how to behave in a temple premises, or in front of a teacher or crowd. How to collect prasad/ teertha. How not to waste food...we had our dinner at the math without any wastage for the first time. Sometimes these cultural experiences are required to bring us closer to our roots. 

The Group with teacher Mrs.Rama K Murthy

 

Next...Saturday September 5th, kids had their Karate belt exam. Ahana moved from White belt to Yellow and Om from Green belt to Blue. Couldnt take any pictures as parents were not allowed in the premises this time.

Yesterday took the kids to Cubbon park for 10th National level students Arts competition-2015 conducted by Lalithakala Center for Visual Arts. Took Meera along. Since appaji had a breakfast ride to go to, I booked a cab (who wants to go through the painful search of a place to park). The cab guy promptly took us to venue by 10am. 3 rounds of artwork to be done. First one was Coloring competition, which had the maximum number of participants. 12.30 was the next round of Drawing & painting competition. By this time the number of children participating reduced. Mostly the younger ones did not participate. Ahana said that Om had done a fab job in the 1st round of coloring. 2nd round again Om had done a better job in terms of coloring. Ahana should have chosen color pencil to color, but since she felt she will be short of time she went in for painting, thereby missing the detailing that was expected out of her. Third round was Pencil shading. I think Ahana has done a good job on this one. By this time the number of kids participating dropped to just about 30-40. This round got over by 3.30 or so. Plan was to take the kids for a Toy train ride, but then ended up on one those dragon rides because of the rush. Quickly done with it, I booked another cab to take us back home. Although I didnt have any company to spend my time while the kids did their paintings, I had a good time watching what the participants were submitting.

Updated November 16, 2015- Ahana won Silver medal for her Pencil shading at the competition organised by Lalithakala Center for Visual arts.

Drawing n coloring round 

Drawing n painting

Pencil Shading

Fun at Cubbon Park

Next is the Doodle4Google. Topic given is "If I could create something for India, it would be..." . Got to see if the kids are interested in coming up with something and submit. 
December update....they didnt participate in Doodle4Google.

Updated February 2016 : Ahana also put in her efforts on another competition organised by India Post. Topic given was "Vibrant India". Though hers didnt get selected, she was happy with her creation.

Vibrant India- National Animal Tiger, National Flower-Lotus,India Dance, Speed Rail, Indian music, Mission to Mars, Indian colors & artists, Holi festival of colors, Olympics Boxing. We are everywhere.