schooling – life under the sky

And when in love..

… with Cricket and the Cricketer Ashwin, everything gets painted blue. Including a school project. The convo went thus:

Varun: Amma, I’ve got to make a t-shirt from a chart. Need your help.

Me: Done. I’ll do the sketching.

Varun: Okay. A round-neck t-shirt, Okay?

Me: Can we do one with a cute collar?

Varun: No ma. You just draw the shape and cut. I’ll do the ‘detailing’. (he said that!)

Me: Alright. What ‘details’ are you going to add.

Varun: I have an idea. You first cut the shape.

I draw the outline, and cut the shape. And then this chap brings out the model t-shirt and takes my help with fine-tuning his drawing. We finally end up adding a collar too because the model t-shirt has one:)

And here is output:

School Stories

The six year old sometimes stumps us like a 16 year old.. Arguments, logics, thy name Varun.

He seems to be a big fan of shopping online, though we haven’t got a single toy for him online. For instance, he suddenly seems to think bracelets are cool on boys and has been pestering me to buy one. “Ma, check on Amazon.in”. I feign checking and tell him it isn’t available. “Okay, check on Flipkart. Else see on Snapdeal. Or on Ebay”, he adds. And these sites are getting poor ratings from my boy because they don’t stock bracelets.. Bad portals, I say!

The other day, he was generally being nice and asked me to show how I whatsapp his friend V’s mom. I did. The next thing I know is that he has clicked a selfie and has whatsapped it to that mom with a note that it was meant for his friend V. In an another instance, he whatsapps me from my co-bro’s mobile stating that ‘Vidya is a waste’. The reason can be attributed to the 100s of denials of the 1000s of demands he makes. He has whatsapped my friend’s son appreciating him on a recitation. He is the self-proclaimed *anna to that little boy and so thinks it is his place to acknowledge and encourage talent. I like that 🙂

When he wants his dad or me to get him something, the sentence almost always starts with: “Ma/Pa, I want to ask you something. But I’m sure you will say NO”. We politely tell him not to waste his breath. We are nice like that.

He has acquired some taste for Hindi and often experiments. He said, “Mein baath nahin karunga”. I had no clue why he was miffed. So I ask him, ‘Kyon? Kya hua?”. “Baath naheeeen”, he emphasised. “Water chill hai”, he added. It dawned on me a few seconds later that he was referring to the English word ‘bath’. And thus, our Hindi trysts continue.

He adores his friend’s baby brother and wonders why he was not born first so a baby bro or sis would’ve followed. He asks if he will ever have one. I tell him, I will only be a grandmother next and that he could cuddle the baby of my close friend C and that of another friend D who will pop in a few months.

The moment he wakes up, he emerges out of the bedroom, bowling like Ravinchandran Ashwin, but without the ball. His action is a perfect imitation of the said bowler. He is miffed that cricket camps in school or elsewhere wouldn’t take in 6 year olds.. “Not fair”, he mutters.

And in the most happening of the school events, he has found his first puppy love. A little girl called S, to whom our man has been blowing kisses and is not getting kissed in return. He has illustrated his love in his rough note book as well. And I thought some lessons in love could wait.. Boys!

PS: anna- Tamizh for bro

Gift of the gab

Varun: What?! U.K.G means going to school every day?! No way!

Me: Err… ummm.. It is not like….

Vyas (interrupting my defence): No da Varun.. You don’t have to go everyday. UKG means, 5 days school and 2 days holidays. And the process repeats. Again 5 days school and 2 days holidays and so on. After a few cycles like that, you’ll get about 50 days holidays and you’ll be in the 1st grade!

Varun is convinced. Only, I don’t know why!

Times now!

The V parents are still dearly holding on to some rules like no mobile phones or FB accounts for the kids. At least not yet. Maybe we’ll yield tomorrow. We are very much aware of that look the sonny occasionally gives us, which seems to say that we still belong in the T-rex age 😐

Anyways… When one door is closed, another opens right? Here is a recent episode, a convo between Vyas and his friend T at around 6 in the evening.

Friend T: (Calls my number): Aunty, can I talk to Vyas?

Me: Sure.. (I give the phone to Vyas)

Vyas: Tell da.

Friend T: (something from that end)

Vyas: Haan, ok. We’ll fix it for 7.30 PM? Shall we Hangout or Facetime da?

Friend T: (again something. looked like both options were ok!)

Vyas: Ok, we’ll Hangout at 7.30 then.
———–

At 7.30, the fellow is connected on Hangout and so is the T chap. He, sharing a logo sketch on a sheet of paper and asking for opinion from Vyas. The two exchange some notes and finalize the logo and the color/design for a T-shirt. When both are satisfied with the outcome, they decide to call it a day.

Apparently, the two were designing a logo for a jersey for an inter-class football match. Virtual world.

Some crafts and colors

Long pending. So bombarding you folks with them :

Ganesha- Drawing by yours truly (don’t smirk now!), colouring, the little fellow. The kids were asked to color a Ganesha pic during Ganesh Chathurti. So this:

Some wax crayon colourings he did in the class. Ever since, he’z been insisting that cakes MUST be like this, colour and all!:

This one is my favorite. A catterpillar craft he did in school:

Kavithe, Kavithe!

Sharing pics of what Vyas wrote in one of his prep classes in school for Young Learners Test (conducted by British Council). And the fella had not shown me what he’s been learning/writing in this program. On the day before the YLE test, I ransacked his folder and found this sheet!

To spare you some ‘squinting-grunting’ effort:

Friends are the best companies for life
Reading books, chatting together,
Interesting fun and frolic
Enjoy and stick together,
Never always shout at each other
Denser! Your friendship grows.

Says he tried hard to string the lines nicely and make it rhyme, but felt bored to rework!

Down the road
Bounces the ball
All so bright
And shiny overall
Bounces so freely
Without stopping at all.

This one, I looouved:)

A poetry-writing activity in the class! When asked if he enjoyed writing it (think of the stupid questions asked for the Ms/Mr.India contest), our man had to say this: “Wish I could time-travel. I want to meet the person whoever wrote the first poem and ask why the hell he started it! You have to think so much in so little time!”. [Rolls his eyes!] Bandha party!

Bird Collage

Vyas is programmed to remember school assignments delivery just on the day before the D-line. That is, if it involves any craft. He is probably aware that his mommy is wired not to refuse cooperation. He had to come up with 2 crafts involving birds and this is what we did.

Penguin

We used the box of a board puzzle game for the base. Idea courtesy- Vyas. Had not stocked up any charts and the colored scrap paper-book did not have one full decent page that was not cut up! Following are the materials used for filling:

1. An old pair of white socks – for the white-furred portion of the pingu’s body
2. A black satin band – for the black furred arm portion
3. M-seal – for the nails, feet & beak outline
4. Tea-dust – for the tail and filling the feet
5. Corn-rava plus yellow glass paint – for the yellow portion on the breast, neck and beak. Vyas kept saying it looked like butter-scotch ice-cream:). The book from which I lifted the drawing idea had the yellow-coloring. Not sure if all the penguins really have them. It looked nice and that is all that mattered:)
6. Black felt cloth cut into small pieces from an old un-finished embossed painting kit – for the pingu’s face.
7. Glue.

Yours truly did the drawing outline. The sticking was done by the junior. I helped with stretching the socks to fit the shape! Finally, we stuck a transparent glass sheet stretching on the entire box giving it a framed-photo look. I forgot to click a pic of the final product..

Time taken: 2 hours. Of which 1 hr was spent finalizing what kind of collage we need to come up with. The ideas from the master included one super bird with a lot of sub-sets of smaller ones, or sticking pics of various types or beaks and claws to form the body of a larger bird, a model of a bird with real feathers, ithyadi. I had to remind my fellow that a bird on paper/board was worth 10 in the mind! Well in this case, while all his ideas were awesome, something churned out quick and simple was the need of the hour! And it was decided we’ll do one easy bird and fill it up. Eagle, Kingfisher, Vulture, Woodpecker, Humming bird et al were in the reckoning and Pingu won. Another 30 mins was spent on turning the kitchen upside-down looking for things to fill the pic with. To our utter dismay we found only the corn-rava and tea dust there! And then some bulbs flashed and we quickly tore up an old pair of socks and a black band. Thus Pingu was born.

Mobile Birds

The next day, Vyas told be about another deadline the following day. And we had to make what he called ‘mobile birds’ and for reference, he showed a picture of something like a wind chime with birds hanging. “We’ll quickly go and buy few plastic birds and string them, okay? ” he said. It was 8.30 PM. He had to make good with few posture cards I’d stocked. I drew only one picture- the yellow woodpecker. He drew and colored the rest.

Materials used:

1. Posture cards (cards of thick chart paper used to make flash cards)
2. Crayon colors
3. Twine bits
4. Ice-cream sticks
5. Cello-tape
6. A curtain ring.
7. Glue

The picture explains the rest..

Afflictions – Causes and Cure

Me: Did you empty the snack-box today?

Vyas: No.

Me: Why?

Vyas: It had too many pieces of apple. I could not eat.

Me: But why? I manage to eat 2 or even 3 apples during snack time at work and here you are, sulking to eat just half an apple!

Vyas:That is because you have all the time in the world and I don’t. I have work to do.

Me to self: Serves you right!!
——————-

Vyas: I hate Hindi!

Me: Am tired of you hating it!

Vyas: Chumma eppoparu ling-badhlo, vachan-badhlo nnu!

Me: Dei! Tell me an alternative. We’ll go with that.

Vyas: I’d like to study Greek instead!

Really?

——————-

Me: What happened? You are looking dull?

Vyas: Nothing (says it with a drawl).

Me: You look a little tired. Are you feeling sick or something?

Vyas: Not sick actually. Nothing…

Me: Any problem at school? Were you an ‘outstanding’ student anytime this week?

Vyas: Yes, I have a problem with school. The class room in the 3rd floor is a bad idea. I’m tired!

Me: Hey, but you guys are the seniors in the block. So you need to be on the top floor right?

Vyas: Exactly! That is why am not complaining.. Just that there is a lot of writing too…

Oh yes! I was listening to somebody else all this while!!!

SShhhhabbaaa!!

Attitude or Luck?

Was talking to Vyas on how our efforts reflect in our work, and picked his recent test scores in the class tests as an example. Given the phobia he has for Hindi, he scored a decent 85%! This served as an example for the hard work he had put in, where it was more of a mental barrier that we had to break. On the day he took the Hindi test, he called me up to say that it was ‘dabba easy’ and that he’d score over 95%. I told him it didn’t matter if he scored less in the subject because I know he had put in his best effort and that he must not feel disappointed or build opinions around his score! As luck would have it, he scored lesser than he expected and I assured him that we’ll work a little more harder next time!

He had an excellent score in another subject and I attributed the reason again to his hard work plus his attitude towards the subject. This formula would work for just about any subject, I opined. Just when I think that my boy is a ‘balanced person’, he sends me rolling down a hill with something that isn’t quite like him! He appeared to give the formula a serious thought and a few seconds later he declared that he scored well in that particular paper because he closed his eyes and blew the lucky hair (from his eyelashes), wishing for a good score in the test! The boy is jinxed I tell ya! From where do the elves learn these? How can we make them ‘unlearn’? I felt like shaking him up thoroughly.

“Its in the mind. You liked what was taught in the subject, you enjoyed doing your lessons. You kept thinking that you must do well in the subject even as you were blowing that hair. Its the ‘positive attitude’ and it always works”, I reasoned. ‘No ma, its the power to wish. To wish for something to come true”, theorizes the man. “Its almost the same”, I say. “No ma, it brought me good luck. Really. You can try. Ippo, for example, wish that your manager doesn’t get annoyed if you go to work a little late”, he pouts. Now I wonder if it was his effort or he really got lucky with the questions! My impossible brat!