Read-aloud through March - Day 8

It was a working & busy day so we had just one book at bedtime. I was hoping to pick up something like "Goodnight Moon" but Kuhu decided on "Dear Father Christmas".... Christmas & snow when you want bright & hot sun !! She said.. "may be we can Santa to bring us summer as we read" ... I so wish.

Read-aloud through March - Day 7

Yaay ! It is Saturday so it ought to be books and more books. While we are waiting for summer to begin, we read "Frosty the snowman", "Frosty & his new friends", "The Susu pals" and "Minu & her hair". While I can read all these, "Minu & her hair" is read best with Dadda is what my little girl thinks.

Read-aloud through March - Day 6

Both Kuhu and I had a day-off yesterday so it was raining books since morning....

We read marathi books together after a long time. What fun! We should read these small gems more often. 

Read-aloud through March - Day 5

Yesterday Kuhu wanted to read with her Dadda and the pick was "The dot" by Peter Reynolds. We love to look through Vashti's different dots and draw inspiration from those to make our own.

Kuhu and her Dadda's favorites pass-time on a lazy Sunday morning is to spread the sheets, pick some papers, water colors and brushes. Both of them are busy making her masterpiece. Ever since we read the book, Kuhu wants to sign every painting of hers (even if it is just something scribbled!!). She hasn't mastered signing herself so she passes it on to her Dadda to sign it rather perfectly.

Here is her dot (signed on her own !)

Read-aloud through March - Day 4

We read throughout the day yesterday... one in the morning while waiting for the school van, three in the evening with आजी and two at bedtime with mumma. I love when we can squeeze in reading while we do tons of other things. That way we read more and a variety of books...

We read "Tsomo & the momo" again in the morning. Kuhu's little friend Gia returned Mickey and Minnie board books ( Ballerina Minnie, Farmer Mickey and Mealtime fun) and since we hadn't read it for long, she rushed to her आजी to read while I finished my conference call. 

At bedtime, she wanted to read two books so I asked if we could read one English and one Marathi. Keeping that in mind, she picked - "The Duckling gets the cookie!?" and "गोड भेट".

I wrote about "Tsomo & the momo" and "The Duckling gets the cookie!?" here.

Mickey and Minnie board books are fun things that Mickey, Minnie and their friends do. These are short and simple fun stories.... something that Kuhu relates to.

"गोड भेट" was our pick from a recent book-fair. It is a Marathi translation of The Watermelon route (Author / Illustrator Quentin Greban) by Rama Hardikar. I personally love this book so a separate post on it coming soon....

Read-aloud through March - Day 3

It was bedtime, Kuhu was tired so was I and we had not read anything yesterday. I was worried we might miss the day but just as I was putting on her blanket, she said - आपण रात्री वाचतो ना ? I jumped out to pull a book but she wanted to read two books, so we read two - "Silly Sara" and How to catch a star.

Silly Sara by Anna Jane Hays is a Phonics book with lot of rhyming words. More than the story of Silly Sara going on to become Super Sara, we love the rhyming words. Illustrations by Sylvie Wickstrom are go well with the book.

How to catch a star by Oliver Jeffers  is one of our favorites. The boy's imagination, his effort and the result are just too good. Kuhu relates to it as she tries to do some off-beat things like the boy. Illustrations by the author are superb.

Read-aloud through March - Day 1

Last year I edited the same post to maintain our reads. This year, however, I'll write one post everyday telling you what we read. 

So here we start......

Today we read मुखवटे(Masks), मोठी शाला(big school) by Madhuri Purandare. These are two of the six books from Yash series by the author. The series is about different experiences of a preschooler Yash. The author has captured the feelings of a preschooler wonderfully   Kids of that age connect with the stories as these are incidents that happen with them or around them everyday. The illustrations also done by the author are simple yet effective. The books are originally written in Marathi but I recently found English version and we loved that too. We love these books so much that whenever I ask what should I gift your friend, यशची बुक्स (Yash books) is Kuhu's response. Here is Kuhu showing today's reads -

Read-aloud through March - Day 2

Yesterday we got our monthly package from Little Reader's Nook. The theme for the month was food. Kuhu was excited to see her gift and wanted to read it... So all the four books were our reads for Day 2 : Balu's Basket / बालू की टोकरी, The scarecrows on parade, Tsomo and the momo & The Duckling gets the cookie!?

Balu's Basket by Chitra Soundar is bilingual book with a beautiful story about Balu, his basket and how he fills it up. Illustrations by Uttara Sivadas are colorful and bright. We loved this book for the simple story line and taking my city-kid to a wonderful village setting.

Why should scarecrows always look scary and ugly? What if they looked pretty and went on a parade rather than standing still in the field? The scarecrows on parade by Shamim Padamsee takes us on a scarecrows parade with Gauri. Nice story with bright illustrations by Tanaya Vyas. Kuhu loved making me to show how a scarecrow should look just as Gauri's Ma showed her in the story !

Tsomo and the momo by Nivedita Subramaniam is a delightful story of Tsomo and biiig momo that she wants. The illustrations are very soft and lively. Kuhu wanted me to make a momo for her just like Tsomo and sing a song like Tsomo's mom. :-)

The Duckling gets the cookie!? by Mo Willems - "Oh that pigeon is back !" Kuhu exclaimed as soon as she saw the book... She surely was expecting some rant from the pigeon through the story and she was not disappointed at all. When we finished, she asked - मी "politely" मागितलं तर देशील का ? Oh man... how can I even say no to this??

This monthly package came with a Little Chef activity - assemble food cards for different dishes.  Kuhu and I enjoyed it too...

March - Read aloud Month

Last year this month we participated in "30 books in 30 days" challenge. It was in  super fun to track what we were reading, getting to know so many new books,  and sharing with book loving moms. Winning the challenge was icing on the cake. You can read on our take-away here.

I was thinking if we should do it again sometime in 2015. Before I could even think through, one of my book-loving-mom friend Veena, who writes at Our Ordinary life, told us that March is "Read aloud Month" and we could share what we read with each other. So there we are doing it again. Yay!

See you through this month with at least one book every day. 

Book Fair

Last week some of my FB friends visited World Book Fair in New Delhi. It dawned upon me that I have not been to one for a very long time. And..... I just remembered having seen a tiny banner pointing to a book fair "Sahitya Darbaar" close to my place. The fair was running for almost a week then and I didnt visit thinking it wouldn't have anything of my interest. Such small fairs usually sport only cookery or self-help or religious books... I've enough cookery books to experiment and the other two don't fit my taste.

Saturday afternoon, when Kuhu was in a mood to play with her grandpa and nothing (and no one ) demanded my urgent attention, I decided to check on the book fair. It was wonderful to be surrounded by books.... virtually no one around. Outwardly it looked like a book fair for Marathi books and so it was with an exception of few management & self-help books. However, the kids section had a good mix of Marathi  and English titles. I enjoyed flipping through the books, reading some, looking for some and finding treasures. Here is what I picked -

I shared this with my friends and a couple of them wanted some titles that seemed interesting...so I headed to the fair again on Sunday, this time with Kuhu. She was so excited to see the books, some of which she already has and wanted me to read to her there. She is learning to differentiate between Roman and Devnagari script and had fun recognizing each book's script. She even tried to remember if she had the English or Marathi version of the books. One grandma was looking at the "Yash" series for her grandchildren and was surprised to hear Kuhu talk animatedly about those books.

I'm glad I visited Sahitya Darbaar else would have missed on some good reads.... more on that later.

Book Review - Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen / Kevin Hawkes

I got this book in Best Books deals group on Facebook. The title and cover looked interesting and I picked it up. My impression was it was about a lion who loved to read or someone who would talk about books.

The book is about a lion who comes into a library and is allowed to stay on if he does not break the rules of the library (no roaring.. no running..). He goes on to help everyone - from children to visitors to librarian and enjoys the story hour. What does he do when he wants to help a friend but the library staff doesn't understand and breaks the rule? What's punishment and who punishes him?

The illustrations are the highlight of the book. They are soft and warm each one conveying the emotions wonderfully at different points in the story.They build the excitement as the story unfolds. This is one of the books that I didn't have to translate to my 3yr old in Marathi ... pictures said it all.

I liked the book for the brilliant illustrations and story that talks about going by the rules and being responsible for what you do. Every time I read it I discover something new that the story has to tell.

It is a wonderfully entertaining read for young and old.

Busy bags for road trips

When we decided to take a road trip with our 3-yr old this December, I started to look around for ways to keep her busy on the road. In our previous trip earlier this year, she played a lot with stickers and I was skeptical if she would play with just stickers for long. That's when I came across  the concept of "busy bag". Basically it is just a small bag containing a re-usable activity that can be done independently. I found tons of ideas here and I put together quite a few for our recent trip like -

1. drawing book and crayons
2. paper and scissors
3. beads and pipecleaners
4. decorate your ice cream sticks / any design with stickers
5. Make your tree with crepe paper and cotton.
I also used some of the activity kits that come with our monthly subscription of Little Readers' Nook. 

 

Some of our busy-bags

 

One of the activity my daughter did on the way

This was the first time I made something like this and it was a big hit with my daughter (and us).  I made about 12 bags and split those into 2 sets of 6 each - one for onward journey and one for return. With all the bags placed in her back-pack, she could pull out one and entertain herself and us too. Since all activities were in separate bags, every bag was a surprise and we played guessing game to see if she could identify whats in the bag by touching it before pulling it out. It was also easier to clean up when she was done with one activity. Added plus was that I didn't have to spend huge time to put them all together and can surely be reused & replenished when required.

The busy bags were a huge relief for us as we didn't have to entertain her all the time and the journey was almost screen-free (only 40 mins of screen time in 16-hr journey !).

We loved these. Hope you like it too.

A round up of 2014

2014 was an interesting year... I did a lot of new things, made new friends and explored new areas. Overall it was a satisfying year I must say.

I enjoyed setting up our new home where we moved in late 2013. Having built a new house, 2014 saw a lot of guests dropping by. This was a year of meeting everyone (well almost..) from our extended family. We also have new, young and enthu neighbors so our apartment was buzzing with events through the year like Ganapati Utsav, Bhondla / Dandiya / Diwali / Christmas party. It was fun.

Kuhu started formal schooling in 2014. I was surprised to see her adjust so quickly and so well in her new school, making new friends and enjoying her day. A report from her teacher saying "she is a happy child and enjoys coming to school" made me happier. She also had a annual concert at school. It was so satisfying to see her dance to a nursery rhyme on stage (this was her first time). Overall schooling started on a good note for us.

Given that Kuhu started school, we had wonderful vacations in 2014 planned in line with her schedule. Our Goa trip in the summer, impromptu Mahabaleshwar trip and Dhamapur trip in winter were just wonderful. Totally relaxing and refreshing. We went back to long-drives with these and am so glad Kuhu enjoyed that too. Goa trip is so itched into her memory that I'm surprised and happy beyond words.

Kuhu and I read a lot together in 2014. Although I had not made a resolution to do so, but I definitely wanted to do it more than we did in 2013 and so we did. I lost the count of how many books we read but we participated (and won) in 30-books-in-30-days challenge, we did #lovebooks exchange and found a fantastic group of reading mommies  on FB who introduced us to new titles and authors. This was apart from our monthly dose of books from Little Readers' Nook managed by a fantastic mom-entreprenur Devaki. A big thanks to all who enriched me and Kuhu with lovely books, exchanges, interactions .. we loved it all.

On the work front, the year was good. I got to do some interesting work, learnt a few new things, had a good team to interact and support. I'm happy to be ready to take more responsibilities after going slow for 3 yrs. 

Another highlight of the year was starting to learn dance again after good 15 years ! I and my sis' learnt Bharatnatyam from my Mom while we were kids. We continued while in school and I can't remember why but I left it. My sis' continued for a few more years but left too. It left so good to be back, learning again from basics with little kids and added bonus is seeing Kuhu enjoy the class !

Health-wise, we did pretty well this. All of us were fit-n-fine .. so all is well.

With a wonderful year behind us, looking forward to yet another exciting year 2015... Happy New Year !

Diwali is coming....

Oh my ... I'm off-track by 8 days ... oops... I had decided to blog every day this month but derailed with no post for last 8 days :(

But I'm now back and here is what we did over the last week...

Rangoli, Tealight holders, Diyas and Fort

We got this wonderful craft kit for making Rangoli from Creative Bits and Kuhu enjoyed thinking about the design to make, sticking the beads and the mirror. She is now eagerly waiting for Diwali to put these to use. The craft kit had everything needed to make the Rangoli... the foam base designs, beads of different shapes (even a few extra ones), mirrors and glue. This made it so easy to get started and finish in one shot... we loved it. Thanks Creative Bits !

Sunday evening, Kuhu declared that she wanted to paint so we pulled out the earthen diyas (left from last Diwali) to paint. When she was done painting those, she was in no mood to hang up the brush and paint so I pulled out old coffee jars to make tea-light holders and the old glasses followed. :)

Last Diwali, Kuhu went to see the fort making competition cum exhibition with her cousin Shubhankar. This year we were recounting that experience when she said she wants to make a killa (fort) of her own. That got us started. Kuhu's dad assembled the fort and her Sangeeta maushi made the steps with Kuhu helping them with fetching water and throwing in mustard seeds to grow forest surrounding the killa.

Hope you like it and make your own too.

DIY - Hairband holder

Pre-diwali days at my granny's and mom's place  were days to clean, organize and rearrange. I remember organizing my books for Saraswati pujan on Dassera day and wardrobe and the rest of the house followed till a week before Diwali. It was a fun time with my little sister where we found some hidden treasures ... books, collectibles, frocks, cards... what not !

This weekend I started this pre-diwali cleaning/organizing with my little daughter's stuff assuming it would finish quickly... how off I was in my estimation !! I opened her drawers to be greeted with a bunch of hairbands tangled with each other, screaming to be managed better. So I had to make a holder for those right away. There are tons of tutorials / DIY projects for making these. I choose one that could be a space-saver. But all that I had bookmarked needed a hot glue gun. Only one used a stapler but that didnt give enough strength to hold a dozen (and counting) hairbands. So here is my improvised version of this one... just in case some one needs it.

Materials Needed -

1. Strip of cloth (preferably cotton) of the length of the holder you want to make. (I re-purposed the border from my old Saree to give the holder a rich and ethnic look.)
2. Thread and needle.
3. Satin ribbon or a contrast piece of cloth for the loops.
4. Circular loop to hang the holder. (I used my daughter's used metal bangle.)

Steps-

1. Hand stitch the cotton strip borders to make the base for the holder.
2. Hand stitch the circular loop at the top of the base.
3. Make the loops from satin ribbon  big enough to remove the hairband easily.
4. Hand stitch the satin ribbon loops on the base.

Variations -
You could add a big towel ring on the lower end of the holder to hang stretchable hairbands.

You're done ! This was one of the simplest and quickest project I did off-late. It took me just 30 mins to make one. Here is how the finished one looked -

This also seems like a good DIY gift for my nieces. So looking forward to making a few more..

Our first report day

First Report day for my kindergartener... Oh my she has grown so quickly! We saw what she was up to over the last couple of months when we met her teachers. One comment that I liked was "she is very happy child". I'm going to make every effort to help her retain this and would love to hear this from her teachers on every report day! 

So we girls were in a happy mood and what better way to enjoy than shopping !! So we three- my mother-in-law, my daughter & myself, went out to have fun. Wish there was a coffee shop around to end our shopping spree. 

Dasshera

Happy Dassera to all!

The day began with preparation for the festival with rangoli, garlands and all. Food was the next in line to be enjoyed. 

One of the best time of the day was with my dance teacher enjoying the performance of all. The senior students did superbly and rookies were good too. 

The next best was meeting an old friend from Bangalore. We were hoping to meet  one but met many more and that was the best. 

Let our days be satisfying and fun-filled as today. 

What a day it was....

Late last night, I knew today won't be a day off for me and my team. We were up for a challenge where we were forced to test all that we had in theory and to prove it. While we knew we had to do this some day, we didn't expect it to come at a notice of 6 hrs! And the outcome .....we did it, proved our theory right to ourselves and the rest. This near-24 hour work day was full of excitement, anxiety, coordination, hand-off, huge learning and satisfaction. Loved it.

Today it was great catching up with my parents over lunch. Small pleasures !

Write 31 Days: One good thing a day !

Every day presents something that makes me smile, laugh and feel-good about myself. I've been meaning to capture it for long... finally starting today... So for the next 31 days, I will be posting just-about-anything that made my day.

Here is one from today -
It was my day to drop my daughter and her friend to school today. Being girls, we three chat a lot on our 20-min drive, usually about what they did at school the previous day. Today, both the girls demanded that I tell them a story. And that seemed like a planned thing as Kuhu had brought along retell-the-story page from one of her books in her bag! So there I was ... caught in a spot...I was apprehensive honestly.... will I be able to recollect the story? will I be able to make it interesting?  will the girls get the story without any pictures? Oh so many questions ran in my head ! I had never done it before. But I managed...and managed well. Yoohoo.... I could see the excitement in their eyes to know what happened next in the story.  Felt superb.... Loved it... Enjoyed it.... I must do a story-session for kiddos soon...

Sunday morning breakfast - Appe

This post is for ED (one if the groups I am a part of on FB) friends who post lovely food pics and recipes that you are tempted to go beyond routine cooking. Thanks to all my ED friends for this push. 

So, having pushed to make something different, I planned the long weekend to have mini uttapam, sambhar, chutney and tomato-pudina rice for independent day dinner (I know I know I don't have any pictures because there wasn't anything left by the time I realised that I had forgotten to take pictures) and Appe with chutney got Sunday morning breakfast. 

Here goes the recipe for Appe and chutney -

Makes: 48 Appe 

Ingredients:

Dals (urad, green moong, yellow moong, chana) - 1.5 cups total 

Idli rava - 1/2 cup

Dhaniya powder - 2 tbsp

Jeera powder - 1 tbsp

Coriander - 2 tbsp chopped 

Oil - 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

For chutney - 

Coriander - 2 cups chopped

Dry coconut - 1 cup grated

Jeera - 1 tsp

Green chilli - 1

Salt & sugar to taste

Recipe:

1. Soak all dals together for 4 hrs. Drain water and grind into smooth paste. 

2. Add idli rava to it and mix well. 

3. Ferment it overnight. 

4. Add dhaniya powder, jeera powder, salt, coriander and oil. 

5. Mix well and make Appe using Appe pan. 

6. Serve hot with chutney or sauce. 

Chutney:

Grind all the ingredients into a smooth paste. 

Tips: 

• the more this ferments, fluffier are Appe. 

• I add onion & fresh coconut pieces to the batter for variety. 

• this batter makes equally tasty uttapam or dosa.