India Blog 2018
Friday 16th February 2018
India Visitor (e.mathie) on: India Blog 2018
Today was ‘Sports assembly’ – and what a fantastic display of gymnastics, yoga, dancing and teamwork it was ! They have a new PE uniform so that they wear a coloured t shirt according to their allocated house team – red, blue, green or yellow. They used the colours to good effect in their formations – it was a bit like the opening ceremony at the Olympics ! The children all learn yoga here – in fact the school has to join in ‘National Yoga Day’ annually – and it means their flexibility is excellent and put to good use in gymnastics and acrobatic activity.
Today Eve taught some year 5 children about the parts of a circle and how to make patterns using a compass - just like our year 6 did at Christmas. Mrs Mathie did some final sessions of Tagtivate and Miss Prior did 2 more history lessons. We then did songs and stories with year 1 – who absolutely loved helping Eve ( the ghost) ‘Wake up Lydia Lou’ and learning our very own ‘Wind the Bobbin up.’ We visited the tiny children in Nursery who were all very brave and tried not to be frightened of us - although a few were ! We look very different to them, but after a while they were showing us their toys and coming to say hello .
Tonight we have a ‘Mixed Pot’ at Meena’s house, when the teachers will be coming over for the evening and bringing a dish of food they have made for us to try . The food has been absolutely delicious and we have had something different every day – Eve is a fabulous Indian food eater and I think they are enjoying trying as many things as they can out on her. Although yesterday she accidentally had a VERY hot green chilli and her whole head went scarlet – I think they were worried they’d broken her for a minute ! You will be glad to know she recovered………………to continue eating!
Thursday 15th February 2018
India Visitor (e.mathie) on: India Blog 2018
Today Bachpan children had an ‘Open Art’ session where they could bring their own equipment from home and complete a piece of art of their own choice. Our favourite was a beautiful pink sunset picture with a silhouette of birds.
Today the girls played Coco with our Bachpan friends and then did a maths activity to practise their tables using fortune tellers - they call them ‘Chip chops’ here ! They played ‘5 second rule’ - it got very loud! Then they played the ‘Yes/No’ game but they said they liked 5 second rule best.
As well as history and maths lessons today we had singing and story sessions with all the younger children. They really enjoyed ‘Doing The Animal Bop’ where they danced like lots of different animals. We did a crazy version of head shoulders knees and toes with about 200 year 2 children – I think you might have heard us singing it LOUDLY all the way from England!
We are off to the temple in a minute – will tell you about it tomorrow !
Wednesday 14th February 2018
India Visitor (e.mathie) on: India Blog 2018
We finally got into our beds after midnight last night after twirling and skipping our way through the energetic Gerba and then heading for another wonderful family meal at Jayesh’s house. It is so warm here that our dinner was taken on the roof terrace from where we could see far around us in Surrendragar.
This morning we were up early and teaching our lessons by 7.30 am .
The girls went off to learn how to play Langri with the Bachpan children, which is a hopping tig game played in a rectangle. This is an exhausting game where the hoppers have to swap in and out as they can’t put their foot down. After that they joined the children in an art workshop where they made a flying bird ( just like some the children have given us as gifts to bring back to Southroyd). They then had a cooking lesson with some year 5’s - they made very tasty sandwiches and salads using exotic ingredients like pomegranate, crispy noodles and coriander. We ate them for snack at recess – really tasty.
Mrs Mathie taught 6 lessons of tagtivate to year 6 groups. They thought it was really great fun and they practised their place value work as well as mental calculations. The children don’t usually get to do so much activity in their lessons and were very excited to be doing maths a little bit differently.
Miss Prior taught the children a bit more history. We talked about some of the history topics we do at Southoyd and thought about whatever we do, we can do it better by learning about how it was done in the past and improving it for the future. We thought about Isaac Newton who said : ” If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. ” The children then sorted some objects into chronological order – they were really surprised to find out that jeans were invented as early as 1873. They then played the Time Line games we have brought for them and will leave behind for them to enjoy.
We went to dinner with all our friends who visited Southroyd in the Autumn at Ishani’s house. Falak and Richa were there too with their families. We had a lovely evening and were treated to Ishani’s younger brother Vitan singing us some of the nursery rhymes he has learned. Guess what we had for pudding – cornetto style ice creams ! Yummy !
Wednesday 14th February
India Visitor (e.mathie) on: India Blog 2018
Vihan is 4 and sang us nursery rhymes that he learnt at Bachpan all evening - some of them were songs Southroyd will have shared with Bachpan over the years . He was very cute !
Today was also Pink Day in the Early Years at Bachpan.
Tuesday 13th February 2018
India Visitor (e.mathie) on: India Blog 2018
Today is Maha Shivrati ( the Great Night of Shiva ) which is the main festival of Lord Shiva and therefore a national holiday. It is a lucky day and so there are lots of weddings and people do things today that they want to be blessed with good luck – like opening a new business. A local shop is all decorated up and they are having a party for their first day of opening today. Tonight is Gurba night so we will be having a party of our own!
As it is a national holiday Bachpan is closed for classes – but instead it is open for a special event: a Science and Art fair. The children prepared science projects ( like learning logs) and Art works to exhibit and all the parents and local community were invited to come and see. It was very busy – at least 200 exhibits . It took us 3 hours to walk around and see - and we still couldn’t do everything! There was lots of wow science on show – one of the most dramatic was the potato gun which was fired very loudly from the roof across the neighbouring streets and I am fairly sure has caused some damage half a mile away as a large potato landed ( I hope not on someone’s head). There were lots of exhibits of the digestive system ( just like year 4 do) and exploding volcanoes ( just like year 3). The art work was, as usual, of a very high standard. The children spend a lot of time on craft and it shows as they are experts with modelling, drawing and creating beautiful objects. The origami on display was awesome ! We have asked for a lesson on making pop up flowers so we can teach you and you can use them in your own celebration cards.
Tonight is Gurba night so we have come home to try on some outfits …… and rest !
