Children's Day

After thinking that Children’s Day was on the 20^th of November, it turns out that in India it’s on the 14^th November instead. (Everything’s different in India.)  And it’s a big deal.  It’s on the birthday of a former president of who really liked children, therefore, his birthday is now celebrated as Children’s Day.  The kids were really quite excited about it as well.  They were talking about what they were doing and what they were wearing for it for days.  Sarah and I were told something vague about doing a dance programme but nothing was really explained.  So on the Thursday night before Children’s Day, we still had no idea what was going on, or what we were going to wear because all of the kids were dressing up in lovely clothes.  But on Thursday night, we were told we could wear some of Shobitha’s saris!  Yay!  Which is really exciting because we still haven’t been taken to buy our own.  But it’s okay, we’re going this weekend by ourselves.   

After a few sari blouse issues in the morning, I went off to children’s day!  I went by myself because Sarah wasn’t well and was just going to sleep in the morning and she came in the afternoon.   I still had no idea what was happening when I got to the school.  But all the kids looked absolutely amazing!  All dressed up in traditional Indian dress.  I was rather proud of my sari but after seeing all the girls looking so pretty in their saris I felt ridiculously inadequate.  And pale. 

The 10th Standard girls

8th Standard girls

Two of the 8th Standard boys

2nd Standard Girls

Because I had no idea what was going on I just wandered about the classrooms for a while admiring all the outfits and wondering what to do.  So I just took lots of photos and tried to get embarrassed when they said I looked “super miss”

"Smile Preetika!"

"Akil, do not give Lavanya a fright.  Please"

Blessy Sara as something.. I think Gandhi's daughter.  

I can confirm that I was still sweating and they were in balaclavas.

3rd Standard girls

3rd Standard boys

1st Standard girls

Pragathi the bride

6th Standard girls

Swetha and Priya

Reena and Sri Lakshmi

Clinton and Sam

This is the way they treat teachers in India.  I love it.  We were all handed a rose by some of the 10th Standard boys.  It was beautiful.

The boys who delivered the roses. 

There was lots of dancing and singing competitions.  The kids had been practicing for ages so it was really nice to see it properly.  And they were all amazing!  I’m still rather jealous of their dancing skills. 

6th Standard

3rd Standard

10th Standard

There was also a fashion show.  It was hilarious.  Especially some of the boys in 10^th Standard.  

"So what are you?"  "Goa Miss." "Goa?"  "Yes Miss" "The State...?"  "Yes Miss"  "Okay..."

"I'm a fashion show." "The whole fashion show...?" 

I was told they were "the gang miss"

Anusha from 9th

Annie in 6th

Another wee boy from 6th

It was a really good day and the kids really enjoyed it.  They were all so excited the whole day and loved doing something with everyone not in the classroom.  The day was also made better because I got a parcel from my mum and dad, which was amazing.  The postman was asking for a chocolate from it though… Also, my sari had become a bit loose in the day and two of the girls from 9^th Standard redressed me.  The whole time commenting on how white I was.  

Halloween/Bonfire Night/Remembrance Day

In the past few weeks we’ve been doing lots of crafts and things with the kids because we were running out of worksheets to do with them and there were three very important dates which we felt had to be celebrated.  Halloween, which we thought the kids knew but they didn’t, Bonfire Night, we said it was like Diwali, and Remembrance Day. 

Halloween was a fun one.  I explained to the kids what it was in the morning, which was interesting.   I don’t think they got it.  But I showed them some pictures of me dressing up and they told me I looked “super.”   Then it was Halloween game time!  If I mention the word “game” in the class room they kind of explode so I’m very wary with my wording.   But we played Pin the Tail on the (neon orange) Cat.  Making the kids required so much artistic skill that I just don’t have so I’m very pleased with the result. 

I made some Halloween masks in third and they really enjoyed that.  I was just stupid enough not to bring string so they just had to hold the masks to their faces. 

In first we made some handprint bats!  They really liked them, but trying to get them to sit still to have their hands drawn around was actually quite painful. 

Bonfire Night was surprisingly hard to explain.  So I decided just to say that it was just like Diwali with the fireworks and we also have a big fire as well.  Which they seemed to understand. 

First just did some handprint bonfires which was really good!

This photo is amazing because it shows the typical chaos in the first standard classroom.

And then third did some chalk firework pictures! 

Remembrance Day was a lot harder to explain.  We knew that they didn’t commemorate Remembrance Day in the same way as back home but we didn’t realise that they hadn’t even heard of the First World War.  As a proper History Geek that actually made me really angry and then as a person I was disappointed.  It was a massive event that completely changed history and the world which Indian men fought and died in, yet they had no idea what it was.  Even the older class I sometimes teach, 5^th Standard, didn’t know what it was.  They were also trying to tell me that Gandhi stopped it.  As amazing as Gandhi was, I’m 100% sure that he wasn’t the one responsible for the end of the First World War.   So for our Remembrance Day, we made lots of poppies.

Punith Kumar, Satik Joshua and Chandana from 1st Standard

Third Standard with their poppies.

Parminas really likes orange.