Memorable Teacher Appreciation gift

Teachers shape our lives
They make it bright
Teachers guide our ways
Saying thanks is right!

Every year we have a new teacher who does her/his part in molding our lives. Come year end, we move on to a higher level leaving the teacher behind. But they will stay in our hearts forever. How about giving them a small token of love and appreciation? That's what we do for the kids' teachers, most prevalently in the US. There is a Teachers Appreciation Week in the month of May. Apart from that we can also show our gratitude by the year end.  I took up that charge in my son's preschool in May 2012. We had two wonderful teachers.
Teachers' day is close by and I thought it would be appropriate to publish my long awaiting post.

Conscience

Image:Thanks Google

Is it right? Is it wrong?
Does it possess a moral sense?
What will he think?
What will she think?
Doesn't matter at all
What the conscience thinks
Is the most appropriate
Ethically, legally and morally!

Watermelon summer craft

I bought dates which was packed in a styrofoam tray. After transferring the dates to an air-tight box, I rinsed the styrofoam tray and let it dry thinking to do something with that later. Coincidentally I had bought watermelon that day. Something brightened inside me that I painted the tray red and let it dry. But I didn't do anything further because of other chores. Then I came across the summer food challenge in Open minded crafting challenges blog. Thereafter I finished my styrofoam watermelon.

And then I cut it into slices so that I get a nice shaped ones. And of course, Cinderella was happy to join me over tea watermelon. :)

Quench your thirst with watermelon this summer.

Linking this to Open Minded Crafting Fun Challenges challenge #16 - Summer food.

'A' words scrapbook - Kindergarten activity

My son who is in Kindergarten had a weekend assignment to make a scrapbook with 'a' vowel words. So we sat down with a bunch of newspapers and magazines. I helped him cut out the words by himself and paste in the 'A' shape papers I had cut out. I told him that we'll select a word that begins with 'a' and then do the scrapbook in that object's shape. But he opted to make it in 'A' shape itself and it sounded intelligent to me.

It was funny to watch him search for 'a' words while I could see many of them popping before my eyes. :) We absolutely loved making this project together. I actually want to do more ;-)

Bumblebee too was happy to see this :)

Newspaper Photo Frame - DIY

Cut out rectangular strips from newspaper. Roll them tightly with a pencil applying glue at the beginning and end. Remove the pencil. Many many such paper rolls. Then glue few of them together, (I glued 15 rolls) to make the base of the frame.

Paint it once dry. Then glue two on the lengthwise edges. Glue two over the breadth wise edges leaving gap on one side for a photo to be inserted. Paint these rolls too. Then cut out small circles from a paper roll and make a flower with those.

Use two rolls to make a stand at the back for the frame to stand. 

My son wanted a picture from TopGear mag to be displayed on his table.

Linking this to 

Paper Crafting Challenges Anything goes.

Anything but a card challenge #37

Pop-up Birthday Card - DIY

Birthday card for neighbouring princess Tweesha.
I made the pop-up card from cardboard and pasted red constructed paper on the outside. My son chose red color for his little friend Tweesha who is turning three today.
I made the flowers from the tie-and-die napkin which I had made earlier.

The card is handwritten by my younger son. He wanted to write "Happy Birthday Happy Journey". I asked, "Why journey?" He said, "Life is a journey"!! And he is just 5 years old!! :)
He also painted the little flower at the bottom. He wanted purple flowers because that's Tweesha's favorite colour. He was so excited to make the card and couldn't wait for the party time!!


Linking this to
Paper Crafting Challenges #13 Anything Goes.
Beyond Grey Challenges BGC#54 - Lets get Kiddish 

Paper napkin tie-and-die

Take a paper napkin and put rubber bands here and there. Draw around the rubber band with markers. Sprinkle drop of water over the marked area and leave it for sometime. The colour will spread. After sometime carefully remove the rubber bands and smooth out the paper napkin. You will see beautiful tie and die art.

Let your art take a shower

Draw any design you want with colour pencils, preferably dark colors. Use a thicker paper like cardstock.

Building with books - fun activity

 My kids' bookshelves were all mixed up and I've been getting uncomfortable seeing that. And today I asked my son to build a book bridge thinking that will lead to the books being arranged back again. My son was not interested in making a bridge, but to build a multistory house along with multistory car parking.

Caterpillar, Catepillar where were you hiding? - DIY

I had a bunch of these colorful plastic balls which my sons had outgrown. I tried giving those off to my neighbours, but they each had a set already. These light weight plastic balls are so universal, you see. :) Anyways, I found a boy in the neighbourhood who could play with these and gave a few to him. But few more had successfully been hiding for a while before I collected those and just put in a closet, thinking someday I will use those.

Scrap painting with crayons

Apply a light color as a first later. Here we made it colorful just for fun.









Cover the paper with a second color, a darker shade. Here we applied blue. You could try scraping the picture in this step, but since the bottom layer is thick we went on for a third layer of darker shade, black.

Tissue roll flowers - wall decor

I cut out a small piece from a kitchen roll and flattened it. Then I cut it breadth wise to get oval shapes as shown in the picture below.

I arranged these into flowers and liked the pattern. I planned to make some flower wall hanging, so I painted these in purple, both inside and outside. I chose between painting all in one color or one color for each flower. I decided to have my flowers in the same color, purple.

Owl hatched out of coconut shell

 Well, I grated half a coconut for a dish. You might think what is so special about it. But whatever switched on a LED inside my brain made it special. And now I have a wise owl perching on my tree. Doesn't that look wonderful?


Let me tell you how this owl hatched out of a coconut shell.

India Physical Features - Project

My son who is in fourth grade, had to do a project marking the physical features of India. So this past weekend, my son and my husband did this. They used spices and rice.

Fun sentence game

 I had bought this wonderful book titled 'Learning Fundamentals' by Colin Rose and Gorden Dryden (ages 3-6) when my elder son was three years old. I remember browsing through it, but I had to leave it behind during my travel abroad. So when I discovered this book in my small home library, a feeling of sadness passed through my mind, as I hadn't used the book.
Anyways, my younger one will be 6 this year. So I thought of checking if I'll get any new tip from the book.

To my joy, the book had few sets of flash cards which could be taken apart and used. It has three sets of keywords, two sets of phonic fun, and sentence game.

Ice and Salt - What a chemistry!

Its summer - its hot and also its vacation time. Kids are around the whole day and would like to be engaged too. What else can be more fun than playing with the ice? And how about adding some color to it...Voila!

All you need for this fun activity is water, salt and food coloring. Sounds easy, isnt't it? Just pour water in a container and freeze it. When it is frozen to ice, its activity time!!

Poem Ainkurunooru 25 from the Eight Anthologies

'Ettuththokai' meaning the Eight anthologies is a collection of poems from ancient Tami literature or the Sangam Literature. The lifestyle of the people was dependent on the nature of the landforms. Hence the poems are also categorized into five landforms typically called as five 'thinai's. Those are kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai. Kurinji refers to the mountains and adjoining lands. Mullai refers to the forests and adjoining lands. Marutham refers to the plains and adjoining lands. Neithal refers to the sea and adjoining lands. Palai doesn't have a separate landform, thereby the Kurinji and Mullai lands dried by drought were referred to as Paalai. This is just a small intruduction to get you all started. I will discuss more about these thinais in different posts from now on. Of the five, Marutham poems speak of the hero's infidelity and the heroine's sorrow.

Among the eight anthologies, Ainkurunooru is a collection of 500 short poems. Each thinai has 100 poems based on it. So a 100 poems numbered 1 to 100 are based on Marutham thinai which speak of the hero's infidelity. These poems were sung by a poet named Orampogiyaar.

Let us see one such poem, which is the 25th poem in the Ainkurunooru collection.

This poem is set as one which is spoken by the heroine's friend to the heroine.

Original Poem:

"puyal purandh thantha punitru valar painkaai
vayalaich senkodi kalvan arukkum
kazhani ooran maarbu palarkku
izhai negizh sellal aagum annaai"

 

Word meanings: puyal - storm, purandh thantha - let it sprout/grow, valar painkaai - growing green vegetables, vayalai senkodi - red purslane creeper, kalvan - crab, arukkum - severes, kazhani - field,  ooran - belonging to the place, maarbu - chest, izhai - jewels, negizh - loosen, sellal - making sorrowful, aagum - will be, annaai - mother (refers to the friend here)

Red purslane Pic:thanks google

Poem meaning: The hero's town has fields where crabs severe the red purslane creeper with fresh green vegetables, which had sprouted after the storm. The chest of the hero from such a town has made the jewels of many women loosen, my friend

Description: The crabs stop the creeper from flourishing more. Likewise the hero from such a town stops the heroine from being happy. He had been with many women and left them, thereby making them all sorrowful, such that their jewels get loosened. The heroine's friend says to the heroine that she is not the only one to be affected by the hero's infidelity. The poem is so rich in nature that it speaks of something happening in nature relating it to the life event.

My English version:

"Red purslane growing after the storm

Its fresh green sprouts severed by the crabs;

Man from such a town, my friend!

Makes jewels of many women loosen"

You can refer to the Tamil version of this poem with explanation in my Tamil blog. 

Please let me know your valuable comments which would help me take this translating work in the right path, to the glory of Tamil literature. Thanks!

Check for more such poems in my other blog Sangam Literature in English

Car parking DIY activity for boys

 We constructed a two level parking with cereal box and empty tissue rolls.  Cut out one side of the cereal box and use it as the base. Glue four tissue rolls cut in halves for the pillars, on four sides. Glue  the other part of the cereal box over the tissue rolls, as shown in the pictures. Then we marked the parking spaces with yellow masking tape.

Melting Crayon painting

What beautiful paintings does these crayons create, even while melting!! We attached a paper in the inside of a cardboard box with tape. Then we taped few crayons at the top. My son wanted to line up many crayons. I left to his choice, after all the activity was for him.

Empty paint bottles can make flowers too

My acrylic paint was getting over and I thought those bottles were cute. When I was turning a bottle around in my hand I noticed the beautiful texture at the bottom. I thought why don't I do some prints with it. And eventually it turned into beautiful flowers.

Its right to thank the teachers

My son wanted to make thank you cards  for his teachers. I told him to paint with water balloon. I forgot to take pictures of two more cards.

But here are two of the cards - with waterballoon painting on the outside and words inside.

Colorful crayon window to welcome Spring

 Draw your design in a white paper. It could be any design which you would love to display on the window.

Colour your picture with crayons. My elder son had selected to draw a color wheel. What a colorful display it would be!! I drew a flower pattern for my younger one to color.

Then turn your picture upside down. Rub vegetable oil on the backside of the paper with a piece of cotton. The oil makes the paper transparent and you can see the picture showing through.

Tab the extra oil with a tissue and then stick the paper on a window. What a lovely window art it makes!

Happy painting and decorating your windows for Spring!

Bye until next post.

Make your own gift wrapper

 My son made bracelets for his teacher before thanksgiving. And I thought it would be appealing to the teacher if he made the gift wrapper for the packing too. We made the gift wrapper in a fun way while playing with marbles. Tape the piece of paper inside a cardboard box as shown in the pic. Put few drops of paint randomly and then drop in a few marbles.

Then shake the box gently back and forth and sideways, as you like it. Watch the marbles roll and create patterns across the paper.

You can choose to use less or more paint and the number of colors. You can also choose to stop with few patterns on the sheet or entirely cover it up like my son did.

And here we are..., with colorful and beautiful gift wrappers. The teachers absolutely loved these. 

Bye until next post.

We polar bears go ice fishing

My sons and I decided that we'll go fishing, in the ice. We also decided what 'fish' should be there and so my sons put those in a chocolate tray (handy, isnt't it?) and poured water. The tray rested in the freezer for a day.

 Here they are, my sons are ready to go fishing with they fishing forks...

 
Do you see different fish sleeping in their own ice cubicle. They would be released sooner....

And here they are.....

It was absolute fun for us polar bears!!!!

Bye until next post.