Under The Banyan Tree » (Desi)Mom’s Guide To

Standing Up For Our Children

utbt — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:30:54 +0000

K’s mom, I would do rebuttal posts only with a handful of people and do I need to mention that I feel comfortable enough to do it with you?

You have touched upon a couple of things that I have in my mind for the past six years. Let me go paragraph by paragraph. Any one else from the blog-mom-o-sphere, please participate. Comment, do a post, what ever works for you.

Chula has been fitting in a size or two bigger clothing since she was four. It is the hips that take the blame. Till I shopped in the ‘toddler’ section(US size 2 – 5) life was peachy. When I ventured in to the ‘girls’ section (US size 5 – 14) I vividly remember being alarmed. Many of the clothes were inappropriately designed. I mean who ever came with this low rise jeans idea?! Shouldn’t designers have some basic sense about hip size : crotch-to-waist length holy ratio? One moron comes up with a design that would fit stick figures and the all major departmental chains go ballistic and stock ONLY low rise hip huggers. I mean these are 5 and 6 year old children who run and climb things. I tried buying two sizes bigger and altering the length, but eventually gave up buying jeans for my children. Since 2008, all they wear are cotton pants with elastic at the hips that covers the butt crack. Yes, the clothing section is brimming, but if you are looking for non-pink, non-Disney characters, slightly loose, appropriate clothing, something that will withstand the running and climbing, something that is not a mini version of adult clothing you might as well grow you own cotton and weave your own clothes.

Do I need to write anything about swim suits? Target has decided that if you are looking for 8+ size swim suit, it has to be three piece – a mini bra, a bottom that will fit inside a match box, a small match box that is, and a shirt. Mind you, none of these three pieces of clothing solve the purpose of covering your child’s body and it costs a about $50. If not, you can buy wet suits for double the prize. Finally after three months of searching I found swim shorts(low rise of course) and swim shirt at Old Navy, that too only because Feb is the time the stores stock swim wear.

Yes, that is the trend now good people. The thinking is no more, ‘This is current fashion’/‘this is swim season’ -> let us buy a little more in case there is a demand. The selling no longer caters to the different sets of people, with different shapes of bodies, buying a variety of things. For all that talk and noise about uniqueness, the only message clothing industry gives my children is to conform. Stores sell one standard thing at one standard time and you better stock up. If they sell low rise jeans, fit your body in to it. If they sell swim suits from Feb – July, buy at that time. If you think your child might grow out of the swim suit before, what stores perceive as, the next swim season, you stock up or you don’t get any. All in the name of popular demand!

Not exactly clothes, but while on the topic, I might as well spill my angst. If you are following this blog you will know that we just moved continents. Moving two children from one country to another, for good, is not fun. I wanted to cheer the children up and the bulb in my head switched on. ‘Hey, let me buy the children their own pull along suitcases.’ Again if you don’t endorse Disney or Barbie, then your choices are practically non existent. For boys it is easy, buy a pull along suitcase with Lightning McQueen and you are done. At least that is what it looks to me as a mother of two girls. What I buy is what I endorse to my girls. I do not want to endorse Disney Princesses, Bartz, Barbie and such. I found that if I have certain principles, then I enter in to the exclusive realm and I need to shell out the money even if I am not ready. Finally this came home, with a hefty price tag, of course, the most I have ever spent on a piece of luggage and my heart bleeds a little bit every time the children pull it a little too hard.

Good teachers/guides(parents are the first teachers and guides of young children) have this philosophy, to balance out the classroom and to maintain harmony in the classroom, they pair up children with opposing qualities. It is purely trial and error and if it clicks, they compliment each other very well. Now a small diversion. Children are born with no clue what so ever about the XX and XY factor. Finally they figure out that there is a divide called girls and boys. They look in the society and look for external signs and qualities that define what is a boy and what is a girl. Unfortunately society tells that girls NEED to wear pink, wear dresses, must giggle, form sisterhood, like chocolates, must be super sensitive, swing between extreme emotions, be delicate, do art work, talk about their feelings, give up things for the greater good, be responsible, be gentle, be caring…… Back to good teachers/guides, these good adults must bear in mind that young children gravitate to pink and pretty because in their flexible minds, if they do not they are not girls. Unfortunately the adults, innocently endorse this thinking that it is a phase. Yes it is a phase, but if dealt blindly becomes a way of being, way of existence. All it takes -sensible adults to keep reassuring that sex is a biological thing and does not change no matter what. Just like good teachers, good parents must expose their children to both ‘boy stuff’ and ‘girlie stuff’.
Media, again like the departmental stores works with the sole principle of making money. Boys play rough/girls read books and do crafts -> publish more books for girls with girls as central characters and balls/blocks and video games for boys. Now come in the unsuspecting adults, who look at the choices available – ‘Make your own friendship bracelets kit with pictures of a pretty girl’, Cam Jansen, Fancy Nancy in full splendor, ‘Monopoly in pink – special girls edition with boutiques and malls instead of hotels and houses’, designer edition pink Scrabble, Uno special pink edition… and end up thinking this is what girls need and inadvertently end up feeding the loop. Whose brilliant idea is it to sell Monopoly in pink? What is this message that girls must shop and spend money at the mall while boys get to do large motor activity, running around, playing regular Monopoly and developing their spacial skills? Why define pink is for girls and then sell pink board games and giving the message that girls play with girls and boy play with boys? Who exactly dictates that boys need to be powerful and play ball while girls need to be passive aggressive and shop?

Then this unique Indian message. The MIL switches the TV on and there is a lady lecturing that, the woman’s place is behind the man and by supporting the man she can better herself. She goes on telling the story of Valluvar’s wife Vasuki who defied gravity. At a point it gets to me, the mother of two girls and I end up buying Paper Bag Princess where the Princess not only saves the goofball of a prince but also ends up calling him a bum and walks out alone. Do I want to my daughters to end up alone? No, but I feel that is much better than being a Vasuki or a dainty princess. This is exactly how aggressive feminism grows. The past six years I have heard nothing but the roles and duties girls. Come on, my child is still pooping in her diapers and you tell me, ‘It is good to have a girl child first, she will be responsible and take care of the boy who will come next’?

That is why K’s mom, it is up to us, parents to stand up for our children, so that they can be well rounded individuals, have a full life, without any hatred for the opposite sex, choose professions that they are passionate about rather than to fit the bill and be sensitive. We as parents must put thought in to what we buy and what we endorse. Rather than picking the best of the worst, we must demand quality. If we let the advertising industry and corporates dictate what we need to buy for our children, we(men and women) might as well part ways, move to Mars and Venus and live happily ever after.

Reading suggestions: CINDERELLA ATE MY DAUGHTER by PEGGY ORENSTEIN. Words can’t tell how much I enjoyed and learned from this book. Five stars and a must read for all parents, irrespective of the sex of your child.

Previously blogged

Sexualization Of Young Children

Are men really from Mars and women from Venus?

XX vs XY

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Creating Art Space For Children

utbt — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:43:57 +0000

Part 7 of many.

All posts from this series.

Tharini, this is for you. What now seems like ages ago, I promised you that I will do a post on setting up an art space for children. Months passed and you have already created an art space for the boys….Better late than never and never to break promises….so here it goes.

Let us begin with the basic premises:
- It is the process, not the product.
- You are aware of your child’s age, capabilities and interests.

Age: Which means that your very young child will not have a sense of boundary. Provide her with a big canvas. Do not give her a 8 X 11 and expect her to create within it.
Interest: Some children do not like wet paint. It does not make them any less of an artist.

In my opinion for children age 2yrs – 6yrs, the popular art activities are play dough, cutting, pasting, crayons, wet paint, shaving cream, stamping. I have two or three variations of these in my art shelf and keep rotating them. A simple change paves way for new creative energy. Some typical things I rotate are

Playdough
Week1 – Play dough + roller and cookie cutter
Week2 – Play dough + moulds
Week3 – Playdough + extruder

Wet paint variations
Week1 – finger painting
Week2 – brushes
Week3 – spin art
Week4 – liquid water color

Regarding colors, there are philosophies about what we must give children. Montessori believes in starting with one color at a time, because the children must enjoy the process – fluidity of paint, hand eye coordination, brush control and learn their boundaries. Giving them too many colors distracts them from the process. The second step would be to give them the primary colors ONLY and let them create the secondary colors. Waldorf believes in chunky crayons in all colors and emphasizes pastels in their environment. So pick something practical that would work for you.

I knocked off the doors of a dining nook, which gave me two decent sized shelves. To organize, I picked up four file trays from IKEA. Right next to the shelves I placed our IKEA easel. Voila, our art space. Now some pictures for you.

Dining nook and file trays

Dining nook loaded with file trays

Dot colors in primary colors, regular markers, glitter markers, pencil, sharpner, flower paper puncher, eraser, scissors, tape

My dear green tub!

Crayons	Pencils
Play-doh	Stamps

One side printed paper, some collage material I find interesting, paper grocer bags cut and flattened, construction paper are the other supplies I have in the trays.

Good luck with your art space peeps!

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M Is For Montessori

utbt — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 06:09:41 +0000

Montessori is a philosophy. I consider it as a ‘way of life’ as opposed to ‘alternate schooling method’.

Magic number in Montessori – 3.

Montessori believes that children’s development is in stages of three. 0-3 is the infant/toddler stage or the unconscious absorbent mind, 3-6 is the conscious absorbent mind. The 6-9(lower elementary) and 9-12(upper elementary) phases in a Montessori elementary focuses on helping children organize his/her thoughts internally. It is considered the period for social development and evolving a sense of justice.
Even the lessons that are taught to children are taught in a format called ‘three period lessons’. The first period is the teacher introducing the child to the work. The second period is the teacher assessing how much the child retained from the first period and how much the child recognizes the elements of the lesson. During the third period the child is encouraged to do the lesson by herself, recalling all the elements and the vocabulary. If desired results are achieved, the lesson is considered complete. From this point onwards the child can repeat the work as and when desired.
In the very core, Montessori regards a human brain to have three components – reptilian, mammalian and evolved. This is true to all human beings. What we exhibit is a complicated interplay of all these three tendencies.
Shelves that are partitioned in to three levels with three objects/work displayed in each level.

Mixed age classrooms. Younger children and older children working together is a typical trait of a Montessori classroom.

Montessori classroom, often called as an environment, is divided in to practical life area, sensorial area, language area, cultural area and math area. In practical life children learn things like pouring from one cup to another, the hand control and hand-eye coordination learnt from this process is later applied to writing. Every area is interlinked. Though a typical Montessori classroom is a big hall with 50 – 55 children of mixed age, the children magically segregate themselves in to age appropriate areas. Younger children are almost always found in the practical life area, the older children in the math area and such.

Motto behind the Montessori environment is ‘everything has a place and everything in its place’. Same applies for children and teachers in the environment. The teacher’s place - to observe and to guide. The children find their own place in the environment. Coming in to a Montessori environment the children are taught by modeling – by both the adults and the other children in the environment. The new child finds where she fits in this well organized environment and slowly grows from a novice to a leader.

Montessori considers 0-6 years of age as a unique window. It is known as ‘sensitive period’. Through her environment, the child is forming experiences which play a major role in how the neural networks are formed in the brain. By four these neural networks are precipitating and it becomes increasing difficult to rewrite the neural patterns. That is why many Montessori schools have an age limit after which they do not take non-Montessori children in to their environment.

Montessori places great deal of respect on sense of order, which is innate in a child. The first three years, all the child does is to make sense of the world and create order within herself. Sense of order in simple words can be explained as ‘where everything goes and when everything happens’. Though she cannot tell time, the child has a concept of time. Example, nap after lunch, dinner after going to the park, read books before bed etc. When the environment is predictable – few things, each in its place, well displayed, the child is more confident in the environment. Care must be taken to respect the child’s sense of order.

Many steps exist in a work and this is called cycle of work. If the child wants to paint, the cycle is -> get the apron on -> get paper -> pick paint -> paint -> place art work on drying shelf -> get water in a pail/container to clean easel -> dry the easel with a towel -> dump dirty water -> dry the container -> place all material in respective places (used towel in laundry basket, hang apron on peg, used paint cup and brushes in the sink). Every adult unfamiliar with Montessori to whom I have explained this cycle, have expressed doubts like , ‘this is too restrictive/child will feel burdened/are you for real?/this will never work’ etc. But I have seen 18 month – two year old children who do this without missing a beat. The main thing to recognize is that the doubt lies not within the child, but within the adult. The adult’s contribution to make sure that the child progresses successively without breaking the cycle of work is, to do the work once herself, think through the steps bearing in mind the age of the child, make sure that everything is available in the right place in the environment – like the paper is trimmed to size and placed on the paper tray, paints are filled regularly, dirty paint cups/brushes are cleaned and replaced, art work drying rack is accessible, towels are filled in the hamper, sink/faucet is easily accessible. I have also heard arguments that it is too much to expect from a child. I disagree. We talk about gratification and this is how a child learns gratification. Children learn their boundaries, which is not at all negative. Not to mention they expand their mind to the thinking that a certain problem has many steps and vice versa are aware that the small steps lead to a bigger picture.

Montessori environment places high emphasis on grace and courtesy. The idea is to teach through example that every person, every object, every process needs to be respected. This simple thing has deeper spiritual meaning. I can almost draw a curriculum web based on this.

Montessori, considers everything as work and every work is done in a certain way. In a manner of speaking even play is work and children are expected to play without harming themselves or their friends.

Montessori is based on reasoning and believes that fantasy can wait till the child is six and is capable of recognizing fantasy. As I have told many times, this does not make the children deficit of imagination and creative thinking. If a child is inclined to enjoying fantasy, even if they are Montessori schooled, they grow in to adults with logically sound fantasies. My most famous argument, ‘logic can exist without fantasy, but fantasy cannot exist without logic’. As an extension of this, tech toys, the iPads, iPhone apps and such are frowned upon. Because a young child needs to recognize not just cause and effect, but also a reason for this. All tech toys do is to teach children that things happen, take it for granted and don’t ever try to open your toy and analyze why and how.

Movement is incorporated in to the process of learning. Movement molds brain development in wondrous ways.

Montessori environment is filled with non-plastic objects, earth tones, no bright over stimulating colors, wooden materials, natural fabrics and such.

Montessori is neither strict nor all play. I like to think of it as flexibility within a structure.

Many more things to say, but I leave you all with this: any philosophy is only as sound as the adult who implements it.

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Of Extra Classes, Pushing Kids And Parenting Styles

utbt — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:27:54 +0000

Yesterday was Chula and Mieja’s first day taking swim lessons. I posted in the school’s parent yahoo groups, made couple of phone calls and registered them in a highly recommended swim school. They have classes once a week for 30 min. So I was fully aware that the money spent is for them to monkey around in water, which they did and had lots of fun. Well, I can dream that they freestyle across the Suez canal after these ten, once a week, thirty min classes, but again it will be just a dream.

Now I have to mention that of my M.A.N.Y pet peeves, one that will rank number one is my obsession towards maintaining a schedule and the other one that will be in the top ten is public water facilities.

My schedule goes like this:

- Swim class at 5.30PM = We have to leave home at 5.00PM.
-Leave home at 5.00PM = we must be ready dressed + kids’ back packs packed + their after swim snack ready + boots on + jackets on + customary potty round etc done by 4.55PM.
-Back pack ready at 4.55PM = start packing back pack at 4.30PM.
-They need to have a substantial snack before swim and it must be at least 90 min before the swim. So biggish snack/light early dinner at 4.00PM.
-Eat at 4.00PM = dinner, snack all done by 2.00PM. So I can go pick them up at 3.00PM. (Now if some one points out to me that we live exactly 1.8 miles away from school and it takes exactly 6 minutes one way even if all the four traffic lights are on, I will have to ask you to shut up and refer you to my pet peeve # 1. It has to be like this only.)
-I can hear the clock ticking, every second passes with an ominous thud, I am moving at warp speed, but the rest of family is not. So I feel this enormous pressure of carrying every one through my schedule in order to achieve the deliverable. Working on that folks…. might take a life time though.

Now to my next pet peeve about public water facilities. My most traumatic life experience so far, is that I had to dip in sea at Rameshwaram in order to ward off the ill effect of some planet in my husband’s birth chart. I consider it atrocious that I had to do it with him just because we are married. The very fact that I was forced to do it, created many ill effects for the husband that were not in his birth chart. Pity-huh?!

I see in water, things that no one can possibly see with their normal eye. I imagine one person swallowing water and coughing it out and their germs coming to me/my children crawling in slow motion with Jaws music playing inside my head. The funny thing is that I am not your typical Purell worshipper. Water just seems to enhance my out of the box thinking.

So after the swim class, I washed, dried, dressed, blow dried the girls’ hair once at the pool side. Brought them home, dumped them directly in to the tub, shampooed their hair, scrubbed the top layer of skin off, rinse, repeat, ditto at home. Then the usual smahan after hair bath, churanam to clear sinus, blow dry their hair, moisturize etc etc ritual followed. Of course, I have a target bed time, so all this scrubbing activities have to be reverse engineered and timed accordingly. You all get a fair idea of how things roll right?

By 8.00PM, I was a wreck. I felt like eating murukku….. chewing the crispy, fried, oily snack seems to be the perfect solution to get rid of all that stress. Unfortunately there was no murukku at home and so the husband was collateral damage to the process of de-stressing.

The bigger point to all this is……. (yes, however pointless all this seems there is a point peeps) taking the children to an activity that I am not comfortable in is ‘this’ hard for me. I usually stick to my comfort zone of art, dance and dabble a little bit in music. The rest is like pulling a huge stone uphill by tying it to my hair. So hats off to the parents, Chinese and others, who are very sure about their choices for their kids and go through the hassle of taking them to various classes and putting in the grueling hours of practice and such. Amy Chua might call me lazy, but it is like that only. I just want to choose my battles.

PS: My opinion about Amy Chua’s article:
I didn’t like the stereotyping. For example, Asian kids play video games, do sleep overs and have extra curricular activities that Amy Chua may not approve of. She just translated what she did at home to all Asians.

I admire her guts for telling out in the open what she believes in.

I agree that Asian parents have high expectations on their children, while some non-Asian parents might be afraid to have any kind of expectations on their children. It is not wrong to have expectations.

I also agree that children need to be presented the same activity many many times before they master it and are very comfortable in it. But every parent does ‘the presentation’ in different ways. Not all Asian parents yell and go on a war path.

God give me strength to not call my children garbage, however testing their behavior is.

Whatever you do, do it with conviction. Example, the worst will be a ‘typical’ Asian parent parenting the ‘typical’ western way and expecting the result of ‘typical’ Asian parenting and vice versa.

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Gandhiji’s Birthday

utbt — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:18:06 +0000

Gandhiji’s birthday is a big deal in our school. We start with International Peace Day on Sept 21, then we do Pennies For Peace, then we talk about Gandhiji – the peaceful warrior and end the peace/non-violence theme by celebrating United Nations Day. Our school is closed for Gandhiji’s birthday every year.

This has been our routine for the three years we have been with this school. But the girls are growing and this Oct 1st and Oct 2nd we had a lot of talk about Gandhiji at home.

Mieja’s questions:
Did a english man shooted Gandhiji?
An Indian man did? But, why Amma? Gandhiji is the father of India. Why would the ‘goat person’ kill his own dad?
Did Gandhiji die in the darkness or something? What time of the day was it?
When he was shooted, how did he fall?
Why is he dressed like that? He has no shirts? Was Gandhi poor? He had no money to buy shirts? Is that why he is naked?

Chula’s questions:
Why do you say Gandhi Jayanthi Amma?
Is it like Krishna Jayanthi? Does Jayanthi mean birthday? Chadurthi is Ganesha’s birthday too. So why are we not saying Gandhi Chadurthi?

Chula had her shower almost by herself and dressed up in a pattu pavadai. Then she came running to me and said that she was ready. When I asked her ready for what, she replied that she is ready to celebrate the jayanthi or chadurthi or whatever it is, demanded why I haven’t set up Gandhiji’s picture, decked it with flowers and wanted to know what special Gandhi food I had cooked.

I promised her we will do something special in an hour and quickly planned some art work, books, songs and special food.

The food part was the easiest – peanut sundal and milk. One more thing to love about Gandhi, it is so easy-peasy to prepare his favorite food. Chula wanted to sing Ragupathi Raghava, so we did that. We read Marching To Freedom By Pratham, (special thanks to Chox aunty for sending special books to the girls) and Dandi March is making quite an effect in Mieja’s mind. I can sense questions brewing. We also have Picture Gandhi by Tulika, The Story Of Dandi March by Tulika and Gandhi: His Life In Pictures. We thumbed through all the books.

I have to admit that I was a little lost for the art part. Then I decided to talk about how simple lines can form a drawing, profile vs front view. I showed then the famous question mark profile drawing of Gandhi, how such simple lines can be representative of Gandhi. Mieja wanted to draw and Chula wanted to write an essay. So this is what we ended up doing.

I had been wanting to introduce the liquid water colors that I had purchased a few weeks back. So I did white on white crayon resist and told them that if they paint the canvas they will discover a surprise. They were kicked when they saw Gandhi on their canvas.

They wanted to experiment on crayon resist and this is what they came up with. They can draw themselves with long hair and long curly eye lashes even when they cannot see what they were drawing. LOL!

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I Know What We Did This Summer – 1

utbt — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:33:19 +0000

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Art Games

utbt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:22:39 +0000

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Jokes And Riddles

utbt — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 08:19:32 +0000

Mieja sits on her chair, holding FUNTIME RIDDLES ( by Marilyn Helmer and Jane Kurisu ) and with 150% focus reads:

What ship do prize winning athletes sail on?
Championship.

What is common to a cake and a baseball game?
They both need a good batter.

Why are basketball courts wet?
Because all the players dribble.

Why are football stadiums always cool?
Because the seats are filled with fans.

She is very calm, very composed. There are no pauses and no laughs. Because she does not understand. Heck she can’t even read! She repeats entirely from memory, from what she has recorded away in her brain by listening to what her older sister has read to her. Its hilarious to watch this child read a jokes and riddles book like some one reading SUN TV news.

BTW the riddle book is good. Do check it out.

Chula understands the jokes, I can tell. She is at a stage where she understands both slapstick as well as the subtle semantic/phonological jokes. We also picked up from the library SILLY KNOCK-KNOCKS( author Joseph Rosenbloom, illustrated by Steve Harpster ) and all of the jokes are subtle phonological ones and go right over my head, but Chula gets it. I will give you a sample:
Knock-Knock
Who’s there?
Canoe.
Canoe who?
Canoe please get off my foot?
( Ammmmaaaa… *some serious eye rolling* it is just like CAN YOU please get off my foot. Did you even think about that? *sending more attitude my way* ) For my part, I irritate her further by saying that I understand the wordplay, but what is so funny in a knock-knock joke?

Tell me folks, is it a cultural thing? I don’t get it. Probably will never, because I did not grow up with it?

PS: Recordings of Mieja “reading” books.

PPS: A riddle for you all. Who can jump taller than the tall mountain? ( Clue: If you are a Dora enthusiast or have one at home, you will know the answer. )

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Chapter Books For Early Readers Demystified

utbt — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:46:55 +0000

Picture books are an essential component to developing early literacy skills. One might come up with numerous adult oriented reasonings, beyond that picture books are pure fun. How else a child, who by nature is an active participant in the learning process, sits down and listens to something read to her? The illustrations in the picture books play a key role bridging the gap and provide the sensory input that rivets the child to the book.

But like everything one thing evolves in to another. Picture books eventually give way to chapter books. To ease the transition from understanding with aid to following the subject content by creating mental pictures, there are several easy reader books.

These easy readers books are classified in to different levels. In general I do not go by the age recommendation for each level. Combining age and the skill level only puts unfair pressure on the child.

Over time I see some patterns developing at home. I see strong likes in each of the above levels.

Just wanted to make a list of the books we read at home.

(1)Sometimes called pre-level as in for pre-readers. The author still relies largely on pictures. Many a times there is no story. The focus is on words. Select keywords are repeated again and again throughout the few pages of the book, supported with pictures. The sentences with keywords are simple, basic three word or two word sentences. The idea is to help the child understand the keyword, train the child to familiarize the keyword, reinforce the keyword with pictures. All this leads to the child recognizing the word, written or spoken, stand alone or in a different context.

See Pip Point series (by David Milgrim) in which the protagonists are Pip the mouse and his friend, Otto the robot. Names Pip and Otto are repeated in almost every sentence in the book. The names being phonetic are easy to read. The rest of the words are mostly sight words like ‘the’, ‘there’, ‘you’ with few rhymes like see-bee, few action words and couple of new words thrown in.

Biscuit series (by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, illlustrations by Pat Schories). The main character is an adorable puppy named Biscuit. Some pages do not have any print on them, just the pictures and the illustrations are tell-tale of what is happening in every page. “we can feed the hens Biscuit” is illustrated by the puppy’s owner, a small girl feeding the hens. Every book has a theme, a farm theme, where all animals are introduced. A school theme which talks about school and so on.

Mittens series (by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrations by Susan Kathleen Hartung). Where there is a puppy, there is a kitten and it attracts young readers all the same. The author picks a noun and verb, example a butterfly flying, and introduces prepositions that are associated with the noun and verb, example ‘the butterfly flew up’, ‘Mitten ran under the bridge’, ‘butterfly landed on a flower’ etc.

Elephant and Piggies series (by Mo Willems). Why leave pigs and elephants? This is least of MY favorites, but the young readers do not mind. Well it is MY blog and here is My honest opinion. The piggie is over hyper, unrealistic reminds me of Kareena Kapoor in Jab we met. The elephant is over sensitive and super stressed, reminds me of Nicolas Cage with his standard constipated look. These books are not your typical 15-20 page three word sentences. It is 50+ pages of a pig who wants to fly and keeps going Fly! Fly! Fly! Yes! Yes! Yes! Fly! Fly! Fly! and the elephant going No! No! No! You jumped! You can’t fly! Yes, every other word ends with exclamation. But as I said the girls seem to enjoy it. Chula can read, Mieja reads from memory, I don’t have to read it to them. Good.

(2)Pictures are still a bigger part of the book. There is a very simple story that can be summed up by an adult in one or two sentences. There are slightly larger sentences and lesser keyword repetition. The prime objective is to make sure that the child follows the story line.

Max And Mo series (by Patricia Lakin, Illustrated by Brian Floca) is about two hamsters(I think, may be they are some other kind of rodent pets) who live in a school in a cage. The series is about the adventures of Max and Mo. One we particularly enjoyed at home is MAX AND MO GO APPLE PICKING. After getting tired of being fed corn, Max and Mo escape their cage and have fun with the apples they find in the school.

(3)This is a flavor of what an young reader will experience in the future. There are chapters and each chapter is representative of introduction, plot and an ending. There is an index to every chapter. There are not just sentences, but paragraphs.

Mr.Putter and Tabby series (by Cynthia Rylant, illustrations by Arthur Howard) Mr.Putter is a senior citizen who lives in a neighborhood with other senior citizens. Mr.Putter finds in Tabby a companion. The stories are not just about the aches and ailments of being old and living alone, but are tasteful snippets in to the lives of old people, that evoke a myriad of feelings and makes the young readers wanting for more.

Also by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Sucie Stevenson are the Henry and Mudge series and easy read about a young boy Henry, his 180 pound dog Mudge and the adventures they share.

Cynthia Rylant (illustrated by G.Brian Karas) also has the High Rise Private Eyes series, about a boy and girl detective pair. For some reason, I found the pair to be sassy. We read about a couple of books and did not take much to the private eyes.

Amelia Bedelia (by Peggy Parish, illustrated by Lynn Sweat). Amelia Bedelia can be easily equated to our good old Suppandi. Amelia Bedelia is maid who manages to mess up every instruction given by her employers. If you tell Ameila Bedelia to clear the weeds in the garden, you must tell her ‘Unweed the garden’, for if you tell her just ‘weed the garden’, she would bring more weeds from your neighbor’s garden and lay it around in your garden. But in the end, she wins over her employers with her awesome teacakes and mouth watering cookies. She is quite a character.

Magic School Bus series by Scholastic. The level 2 books are the ones I find appropriate for the 4-6 year old age group. Mrs.Frizzle, the teacher takes her class on a ride in the magic school bus. They can travel to the past, the future, in to the human body and in to outer space and the children learn first hand how circulation works, about the dinosaurs, how snow is made etc.

Fancy Nancy series (by Jane O’ Connor, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasner) The girls go ga-ga over Fancy Nancy may be because the protagonist is a girl. Or may be because, true to her name, Fancy Nancy is very fancy. Nancy is the fashion diva born to two plain parents. She has a chic BFF, a teacher who is always in vogue and a neighbor who can give models a run for their money, but her own parents and her sibling are so simple that they don’t even ask for sprinkles on their plain vanilla ice cream. The adventures of Nancy are about a variety of subjects like Nancy getting over her jealousy and sharing her best friend with another girl, trouble writing a book report etc. I like the fact that Fancy Nancy is always introducing new words.

“… we shout in unison. (That’s a fancy word for all together.)”

“…That makes me unique.(You say it like this: you-NEEK.)”

Young Cam Jansen series (by David.A. Adler, illustrated by Susanna Natti). Jeniffer, has a photographic memory and is nicknamed Cam, short for camera. She solves mysteries with her friends and is good at it because of her photographic memory. At thirty pages, it makes a good light read. For the young boys, David A.Adler also has the Bones series in which boy detective Bones is in charge.

There are many more like Poppleton the pig, Amanda Pig, Charlie and Lola, Nate the grate, Dick and Jane etc that we have read on and off.

(4) This is a complex form of the previous level. The shift from pictures to the written word is explicit. Rainbow Fairies, Cam Jansen, Akimbo series by Alexander McCall Smith, books by Roald Dahl and The Magic Tree house are some examples. So far, I read these books, few chapters at a time during bed time and the girls listen.

Happy reading young readers.

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Technorati Tags: Akimbo, Amelia Bedelia, Biscuit series for early readers, Bones, chapter books for early readers, Cynthia Rylant, early reader books, Elephant and piggie series, Fancy Nancy, Henry and Puppy Mudge, Magic school bus, magic tree house, Max and Mo series, mittens series for early readers, Mr.Putter and tabby, rainbow fairies, Roald Dahl, See Pip Point, top, Young Cam Jansen

Treasure From Trash

utbt — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:20:23 +0000

Says Shruthi and it truly is a subject close to my heart.

My worst nightmare is all the trash collecting to heaps and humankind drowning in it. Before throwing things, I try my hand on turning them in to something that can be reused. Some of these are imitation of what serious crafters have done, some are my versions of what I read.

I would like to dedicate all these projects to my wonderful glue gun without which many of these projects would not have been possible. My colleague encouraged me to get a glue gun and once I used it there was no turning back. Spread news papers to cover working surface, gather the materials and lock ‘n’ load glue gun, every single time I feel like Laura Croft

Created so far…..

CD Many Ways

(1)CD Coasters1: Children’s art work on one side(cut to size and laminated) and left over flannel scraps on the other side. A birthday gift for the children’s teacher.

CDArt1

(2)CD Coasters2: I am having a serious love affair with burlap these days. I have been saving the burlap bags in which they sell rice. The big idea was to make a bag. But considering my non existent needle skills, I decided to turn them in to coasters. I loved the result. Especially the coasters that show tamil letters and words such as INDIA and IDLY put a smile on my face.

BurlapCoasters

(3)CD Coasters3: I made some ‘very Indian’ art work on these CDs. I had to sand and prime the CDs for the acrylic paint to stick on the CDs. The big idea is to make these in to ornaments for the children’s teacher’s christmas tree.

CDArt

(4)Another CD project: The girls painted a ready made bird house(thanks Reva) and I just added this to the birdhouse and hung it.

CDBirdHouse

Gerber Bottle Many Ways
(1)It’s A Boy Party Favor: R’s nephew had a baby boy in May and I mailed these party favors for their baby announcement. I sterilized the bottle and the lids, painted the lids, added some IT’S A BOY ribbon and buttons on the top.

ItsABoy

(2)Party Favors-Candle and Candy Jars: We had so much baby food bottles that I was looking for something else to do with it and I stumbled on this. Loved it. The candle votive holders looked really pretty with vibrant yarn. But I decided to use the left over baby blanket/sweater yarn I had.

PartyFavors

Tetra Pak Containers – Tetra Paks cannot be recycled or composted. I try to buy the gallon cans, but sometimes, cannot avoid tetra paks. When I throw them in to the trash can, I feel guilty. I saw this simple project in FamilyFun magazine. All it requires is hardy scissors and sticky back velcro. I use these as food containers, especially when I want to give a friend some food without having to chase the person to get my containers back.

TetraPakContainers

Brown Bags To Envelopes: I carry my own bags for bringing back groceries, but paper grocery bags tend to collect over a period of time. Brown bags are pretty hardy and are perfect for little hands that learn to wield a brush. But the girls are grown up and want real paper for painting. So I converted my collection of brown bags to envelopes.

GroceryBagEnvelope

Fuse Bead Greeting Cards: The girls do fuse bead work. We have a ton of fuse bead art work, which I am turning in to hand made greeting cards.

FuseBeadCards

Soup Can Pencil Holders and Big Metal Can Planters: This is just for home use and I used them as is.

CanHolders

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