Story telling

Anirudh participated in story telling competition in his school and came back super happy after coming in the 2nd position.

He had told me a week before about the competition and the story he plans to narrate. He then asked me to help him out in making the props of the characters in the story. After deciding that we shall get to it sometime later in the day, we both totally forgot about it until the evening before the competition.

So after finishing the dinner and putting Nishka to bed we got down to it. Thankfully Nishka was so co-operative that she went to sleep without a fuss that day.

So out came the white sheets, after some searching though. Out came the crayons, the pencil, the scissors. I drew out the outlines of the chracaters using pencil - A king and his three princes.

I then emphasized the outlines using a black sketch pen. As I kept completing one character I would pass it on to Anirudh for coloring them up.

We also needed to draw a dragon but I wasn't confident to draw it freehand. So I asked hubby to trace it on an A4 sheet using his laptop which we then pasted on the thicker sheet and then carried on to repeat the steps of outlining and coloring.

After all the coloring was done, we got down to cutting them to their shapes and then pasted ice cream sticks for holding the props during the story narration. I was surprised that we finished the whole of the activities in just about 40-45 minutes. That's a feat in itself!

I forgot to take pictures after we had done making the props and when Betu returned he had lost the props for one prince and the dragon. So here is the pic of what he brought back -

Since these were all drawn freehand, the shapes of face/eyes etc. may please be ignored.
I also want to capture here the story which he narrated  -

एक राजा था| उसके तीन बेटे थे - तरुण, वरुण और अरुण | तीनो बेटे बहुत आलसी थे| वो कुछ काम नही करते थे| सारा दिन बस सोते रहते थे| राजा ने एक दिन तीनो बेटो को बुलाया और कहा "कल मेरा ज्न्म दिन है| मैं तुम तीनो को रू100 देता हूँ और तुम लोग जाकर मेरे लिए एक तोहफ़ा लायो| तुम्हारे पास 1 दिन का समय हॅ|

तीनो बेटे चल दिए राजा के लिए तोहफ़ा लाने | तरुण जगह जगह घूमा. यहाँ गया. वहाँ गया | बहुत घूमने के बाद उसको एक कलाकार मिला | उसने बहुत सुंदर चित्र बनाए हुए थे | तरुण ने सोचा की राजा को यह खूबसूरत चित्र बहुत पसंद आएँगे | उसने सारे चित्र खरीद लिए और वापस महल की ओर चल दिया |

वरुण भी खूब इधर उधर घूमा पर उसको कुच्छ समझ नही आया. घूमते घूमते वो जंगल पहुँच गया. उसने वहाँ एक गुफा देखी. उसने देखा गुफा में कुछ चमक रहा है. वो गुफा के अंदर गया तो उसने देखा एक बहुत बड़ा ड्रॅगन बैठा है जिसके सिर पर एक बहुत बड़ा चमकदार मोती है. वरुण ने ड्रॅगन से पूछा "क्या तुम मुझे अपना यह मोती दोगे? मैं यह अपने पापा तो तोहफ़े में देना चाहता हूँ." तो ड्रॅगन बोला "अगर तुम यह वादा करो की तुम मुझे रोज़ मछली ला कर दोगे तो मैं यह मोती तुम्हे दे दूँगा." वरुण ने वादा करा और उसे मछली ला कर दे दी और ड्रॅगन ने अपना मोती उसको दे दिया. वरुण खुशी खुशी महल की ओर चल दिया.

अरुण भी अपने भाईयों की तरह इधर उधर खूब भटका पर उसे कुछ भी पसंद नही आया जिसे वो अपने पापा को जन्मदिन पर दे सके. घूमते घूमते वो इतना थाक गया की एक पेड़ के नीचे जा कर सो गया. जब वो सो कर उठा तो उसने देखा पास में कुच्छ ग़रीब बच्चे बैठे थे. वोह बहुत भूखे थे. अरुण ने अपने पैसो से उनके लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीद दिए. बच्चे बहुत खुश हुए. और अरुण वापस महल की ओर जाने लगा.

यह सब राजा के सिपाहियों ने देखा लिया और महल पहुँच कर राजा को सब बता दिया |

अगले दिन जब तीनो बेटे राजा के सामने आए | तरुण ने अपने खरीदे हुए चित्र राजा को दिए और राजा ने बहुत खुश हो कर वोह महल में लगवा दिए | वरुण ने अपना बड़ा चमकदार मोती राजा को दिया और बताया की वो कैसे उसने एक बड़े ड्रॅगन से लिया है | राजा बोला की वो उस मोटी को अपने मुकुट में लगवाएगा | जब अरुण की बारी आई तो उसने उदास हो कर बोला की मैं आपके लिए कोई तोहफा नही ला सका | तो राजा ने उससे पूछा की उसने दिए हुए पैसों का क्या करा तो उसने बताया की उसने गारीडब बच्चों के लिए खाना और कपड़े खरीदने में वो पैसे खर्च कर दिए | राजा यह सुन कर बहुत खुश हुया और बोला "यह मेरे लिए सबसे अच्छा तोहफा है" और फिर राजन ने अरुण को इनाम दिया |"

ह्में इस कहानी से यह शिक्षा मिलती है की तोहफा हमेशा पैसों से नही खरीदा जाता. और हम किसी के लिए अच्छा करते हैं तो उसमे हमारा भी अच्छा होता है |

I've no idea if he had read this story somewhere or was it a mix of his imagination and a previously read story. But I really liked the way he showed enthusiasm and participated.

P.S. Don't know why but hindi text is not legible in Chrome but appears fine in IE.

Summer holiday homework - Part 3

Here is the duck pond that we had made as part of his holiday homework. It was a bit difficult for him to do so Betu just painted the thermocol rocks and the pond. He also helped in sticking the cutouts and the rocks.

I forgot to take the pictures of the Rhino and the flash cards he had made for numbers 1-99 where he wrote the numerals on one side and the wrote them in words on the other side. He had also made flash cards for Hindi and English words where he wrote a word on one side and drew the picture of that word on the other side.

Craft activities

Till date whenever Anirudh goes to any birthday party, when the khoi bag is broken, he would still collect more of the confetti than the goodies. And so it happened too when we went for a birthday party this Sunday. He had collected plenty of colored thermocol balls this time and was asking me to do some craft with them. When I asked him for examples, he told me lets make a tree. But then we didn't have many green colored ones so then he suggested to make some flowers. And this is what we made using those thermocol balls and some paper cut-outs.

Betu and me both liked the output from this craft activity and now we are planning to buy a packet of these balls and made more things. Betu wants to make a rainbow, a butterfly, a house and so many more things using these thermocol balls.

Summer holiday homework - Part 2

We made this brown paper bag pillow yesterday.

First we decorated the paper bag with cutouts of flowers and butterflies which were colored by Anirudh and then cut to shape by me. Anirudh wanted some star shapes also so I took the easy way out and asked him to use his star shaped stickers. Lazy mumma ehh? :)

Then Anirudh made some crushed newspaper balls and we stuffed them inside the paper bag. Lastly we sealed the paper bag from the open end as well and voila..a beautiful paper pillow was ready!

Summer holiday homework - Part 1

One part of the craft work that we did from his holiday homework crafts last weekend:



We still have to make a Hippo (or was it a Rhino?) and a duck pond. Hopefully this weekend we should be done with it.

Looking at the output, Betu is now excited to do rest of the one quickly too! What else do I want :D

Craft time - Making a goat mask

On Tuesday evening I got a note in Anirudh's school diary that we have to send him dressed as a farm animal on Friday, Jan 30. So I asked Anirudh what he wanted to go as. Pat came the reply "Goat" along with the baa sounds. :)

So I started to think of the various ways I could manage that. The first thing that came to my mind was to make a goat face mask. And for the rest of the body I thought I can send him dressed in white or brown. Since I didn't have anything brown, I decided to go full white way. But by Wednesday morning the whole dress up activity was out of my mind until yesterday evening. And then I was kind of stuck what to do with so little time on my hands. I started to search the internet for goat masks outline. I managed to find only one decent mask but that was way too small. And then Photoshop came to the rescue and I enlarged it and did some tweaking and lo and behold I had a face mask which I could use for making one of my own. But somehow it wasn't looking good enough to me. And then I suddenly remembered Rohini's trysts in dressing up her son as a goat for his school activity. And there I found another goat mask which she had put together wonderfully by taking bits and pieces from 2-3 goat images off the internet. So when I saw this mask, I was sure I want to use this one and not the one I had found.

With the mask ticked off the list, now it was the turn of the dress. After humming and hawing I thought I will just send him in regular clothes. And then I remembered his dress from his annual day function at his earlier daycare "Pink Elephant". But that was 2 years ago. Since the dress was quite big (read that as 'QUITE BIG') for him that time I thought I will give it a try anyhow even if the chances of it fitting him were not even 5%. But the biggest hurdle was to find it. I vaguely remembered putting it in the loft of the guest bedroom. So when I reached home, I searched for it there and actually found it there!! I quickly undressed Betu to try on the dress and it was short at the legs and the arms. It was fitting just perfectly on the rest of the body. I heaved such a big sigh of relief.

So with everything in place, me and Betu went to the local stationer and got white ivory paper, traced the mask outline, cut it up and then colored it. This is how it looked once done.

And this is Betu err..a little cute goat today morning :D

When I was done coloring up the goat Betu said he didn't like it. I was pretty upset hearing this and said that he cam make his own and sat holding the mask with a pout. Within seconds he came to and hugged me and said "Yeh bahut achha hai. main isko hi pahnunga." Par main bhi kum nahi hoon. I told him "Nahi aapko pasand nahi hai ko mat pahno." but he insisted and we both smiled and hugged each other.

These are the sentences that I taught him to say

I'm a goat

baaaa..

I eat grass

I give milk

baaaa..

I kept telling Betu that he can slide up the mask a little up but he was adamant on wearing it on the face so I let him. I just hope he remembers to say these lines when his turn comes.

Here is the face mask that I used to make one -

And here is the other mask that I got from the net and modified to fit my requirements -

Making Pop-out cards

Me and Betu made these pop-out cards recently using rough paper. Betu was mighty thrilled while making these and even more thrilled to see how they finally turned out.

I would draw the outlines and he would color them up. And then it was my job to cut at the right places. I did get a good scolding when I didn't cut the aeroplane properly and actually snipped the plane.

We first made the Christmas tree and then all sorts of ideas kept popping in his head which I was totally incapable of making. His ideas included a frog, a a crocodile, a ship and this aeroplane also. ALthough I was not sure if I could make an aeroplane one but still tried. Although it didn't work out as expected but it was good enough to make him happy. Here is the pic of the ones that we made -

Next in our to-do list is to make a rocket and a dolphin. I will have to wrack this rusty brain of mine to figure out how to make these.

Drawing

This is what he drew yesterday morning. A rabbit with 'delishioush' (delicious) carrots and two trees. This coloring set he had received from his previous daycare supervisor on his birthday this year. These are water color crayons. Yup..water color crayons. First you draw using them and with just water and brush spread it to give an effect of water color painting :) Interesting isn't it? Even I was quite amused with it when I saw them first.

Coming back to the drawing, I found the rabbit quite cute and the overall drawing very nice. Well..this could be a Mom's partial heart speaking here but then I really find it pretty good :)

Making fridge magnets

Anirudh had received this box of "Create your own fridge magnets" as a return gift from a birthday party. Last week we finally got down to making them. The kit contained POP sachet, paints, brushes, moulds and magnets. Basically everything you needed to get to the job of making them. And so we did.

He wanted to take them out within minutes of pouring the paste in the moulds when the POP was still wet! It was such a task for me to keep him away from it. But I somehow managed that.

Here are the ones that we made and it was a combined painting effort of Betu and me which are beautifying what else but our fridge door :)

His first rangoli.

While I was making rangoli on the Diwali, Betu wanted to make one too. So I made an outline of a star and he filled it in. So here is the picture of his first attempt at making rangoli:
Quite a good job for first time..isn't it? :)

His creations!

Isn't this beautiful? I just loved the strokes and the combination of colors he used!

He really loves painting!

It was quite an enjoyable day!

Lot of you have been asking as to what we did on the day when Betu asked me to take chhutti as he wanted to be with me.

We did nothing as such but then we did a lot of things!

First he watched some cartoons on TV such as Oswald, Little Einstein. And then we both sat down and painted and painted and painted. Yes! It was like a paint day for us. I have written quite a bit of times that he loves to paint. You can read them here and here and here and here and here in case you missed them before. And it doesn't matter if its his face or a paper :D

I haven't taken pictures of what all we painted but we must have filled up about 20 sheets!

I had made different stamps using potato and he used to paint them as well. Here is one example from his summer homework that we did using these potato stamps!

We had long session of story time where in I completely made up various stories. I must have told him about 10-12 odd stories.

And then of course we snuggled into each other and dozed for good 2 hours as well :)

So a day well spent and thoroughly enjoyed by both of us!

Art work from school

Betu had got some art work to be done as summer holiday homework. Just about 8 activities. Some were mere coloring, some were tearing colored paper and sticking in the defined areas or alternating colors.

So here are 3 of these activities that I really liked :)

This is a handkerchief which we have painted using Fevicryl (fabric paints) from the sliced vegetables. And you can see the name in the bottom which he painted himself. I first wrote the name using a pencil and he painted over it. We used ladyfinger, bitter gourd and a leaf to make the patterns.

This one is supposedly a wiggly worm which he painted using finger painting and ear bud painting.

And this one is a sun, but obviously *wink*. We first painted the sky light blue and then we tore up yellow paper and red paper to give it a look of the sun!

Lego blocks garden

Can you make out the tree? And the man in blue pants? And the little red, yellow and orange flowers with green stems?

And can you make out the green bush on the other side of the garden?

:)


P.S. The idea to create this scene was mine. And I helped him in making bits and pieces.
~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

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His favourite these days..

...are the lego blocks that his Mausi got for him. So every single day they he spreads them all over the carpet and either makes us build something for him or builds something by himself. So last Sunday he was trying to make a really tall tower but it would just fall and break so he got really irritated and then I tried to help him make one. A tower much taller than him! :) Here is the pic of that tower -

Its craft time...

Anirudh was a bit cranky since evening. He kept complaining of ear ache. I gave him homeopathy medicines and it helped a bit it seems but till not his happy chirpy self.

So to distract him from his pain, I asked him if he wants to do some craft using egg carton that we had. When I asked him to paint them with whatever colors he wants, he was pretty excited. He has always loved to paint.

So I first cut up the egg cavities into flower shapes and then he painted them.

Then I cut up the leaves and he painted them green.

He had just finished a juice in the evening so I had a straw available from it.


Thus using just the carton and the colors and a straw we made these flowers!! It took us only about 20 min to make these.

So what started as an distracting activity turned out looking so nice :)

Some more sketches!

I think he has done a pretty good job at it. And I liked how he narrated us driving though the mountains as he had drawn!

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What ideas!!

Yesterday night he came to the living room carrying a bowl of water. I easily understood that he is going to start painting now.

The next minute he walked in with a dry broken branch, that he had been carrying as a prized possession since the past 2 days.

And then he started to paint. Paint not on paper but on the branch. You should have seen the concentration on his face. And when I clicked him, he turned towards me with his brows furrowed and anger look which said "Why are you disturbing me?"

His paintings

The two paintings that he made recently:

The one above, was given to his papa saying "Yeh aapka gift hai"(This is your gift). And when hubby said "thank you" he added "Abhi touch nahi karna. Abhi geela hai. Nahi to kharab ho jayega."(Do not touch it now. Its still wet. Else it will get spoilt.) :D

And this one he gave to me as my "gift" and when I asked him what has he drawn he said "Bahut saare red flowers!"(lots of red flowers) and waved his hands to show how many . :)

He really loves to dabble with paints. You give him a brush, a paper and paints anytime and he is ready to paint. Right now I can call all his paintings as the abstract kinds. And I like some of them a lot. Like the one he gave to his papa, its so colorful.

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Creativity!

On our recent trip he saw couple of trailers which were transporting cars and motorbikes. He was quite amused seeing so many cars atop a 'itna bada truck!!" (such a big truck) in his words :)

And yesterday, using his blocks, he made his own version of it:

Interesting, isn't it? :D