Compering KG Awards Day Function

Speech on Onion in Hindi

Compering her KG Assenbly

First Prize - District Level - Story Telling

About the Competition:

This was a District level competition held in a school called Nehru Vidyalaya. This is exclusive for KG kids. Totally 35schools from Coimbatore district participated in this competition called 'Reflection 2014'. This seems to be the 9th year for this district level competition conducted by Nehru Vidyalaya.

Totally some 25 competitions held like rhymes singing, story telling, singling,dancing, coloring, english & hindi speech etc etc. Two from each school are allowed to participate in any competition. So selection was done at school level initially. For this story telling competition alone, nearly 70 children participated from different schools.

The theme for story telling was 'tales from deep wood stories'. A couple of months back, Manasa participated in fancy dress competition. She dressed like Prahladha and told Narasimha Avatar story. Manu's class teacher, inspired from this and asked me if I can take a story from Ramayana and that should describe forest nicely and also it should have a moral. So I prepared the story and got approval from school also.

The story will narrate the beautiful relationship between Rama & Sabari. The properties she used for the competition are 1. A beautiful painting from school 2. carried few berries & some flowers. 3. She was dressed like Valmiki and narrated a story from Ramayana.

This is the painting:

Photos when she received the medal & certificate:

 

The medal & certificate:

Manasa's officialname is Sai varshini :-)

The story which she told:

I am Sai Varshini from Amrita Vidyalaya. Do you know Rama spent 14 years in the deep woods of Chitrakoot, Dhandakaranya & Panchavati forests? Today I am going to tell a nice story from Aranya Khaand of Ramayana. Aranya Khaand speaks about the forest life of Rama, Sita & Lakshmana.

After several years of exile, they crossed river Godavari and reached Panchavati. Panchavati was a beautiful forest with many trees and streams. The air was fragrant with the smell of flowers. Fruits grew on every vine. Birds sang happily. The streams and mountains were surrounded by blooming trees. The animals like deers, rabbits & squirrels and the birds like peacocks, parrots & ducks were visual treat.

They lived peacefully in Panchavati until Ravana kidnapped Sita. This made Rama & Lakshmana so sad. With tears in eyes & broken heart, they started searching Sita.

On the way, they reached an ashram where Shabari was living. Shabari was an old lady who waited several years to meet Rama. When she met Rama, she was too happy. She plucked berries from vine, tasted it one by one and said “Oh, this berry is so sweet. I shall offer it to the Lord” and gave only the sweetened ones to Rama. Rama knows her affection & devotion. So he ate those berries without complaining.

Till today Rama & Shabari are the best examples of God-Devotee relationship.

Moral of the story: Understand & respect the real affection & devotion.

5th Birth Day

My Ba(by)rbie turns 5 today
-----------------------------------

I am glad to share a few words about her on this day.

She is my mom as she says no to even onions, as it makes me cry. 
She is my dad as she never enjoys alone which makes me glad, be it eating an ice-cream or watching a song.
She is my fan as she recognizes and admires whatever new I wear, be it a new dress or an ear-ring. 
She is my friend as she giggles with me, cracks jokes to make me laugh and shares her lil secrets with me.

Maanu, you brought meaning to our life, making every day so interesting and beautiful. We are proud parents indeed.

A very Happy Birthday to you darling.

P.S: My husband too has a similar list. But this is just our version, not sure of hers though.  :-p

News Reading

She read news for her KG assembly.

Teachers Day 2014

Hand made Greeting card and a gift for Anu ma'am,he UKG miss for Teachers Day.

Her first stage performance witnessed by me

In her LKG, she has appeared on stage twice for rhymes and storytelling competitions. But they did not allow parents to view it. But the audiences for both these were just co-competing children and few judging teachers. And there was no mike also.

Even in this Coimbatore school, she has performed a speech on Truthfulness with all KG students & teachers as audience. But I was not allowed to see it and I could not get a photo too.    

So technically this is her first stage performance with entire primary school students, teachers & many parents as audience. It happened on the school stage with full mike set & speakers. And me witnessing my daughter first time ever in such a lively atmosphere.

Krishna Jeyanthi was celebrated at her school on 20^th Aug and she participated in fancy dress competition & Quiz competition. The theme for fancy dress was Dasavatharam story characters. She dressed like Prahalladh and gave a speech on Narasimhavatharam. It was indeed an emotional moment for me. She did it very well. The results are not out yet.

I just saw roughly 10 performances out of 50 and 5 of them were performed great like Manasa. So I will not get disappointed, even if she doesn't get any prize. I am completely satisfied with her excellent performance.

Next is Quiz. The syllabus for this competition was Krishna’s story since birth till Kamsa’s vadh, identification of dasavatharams, Bagavathgeetha chapter 15 – first 5 slokas and 10 slokas from her text book. She did prepare well on all these.

The quiz also happened on the same stage with similar audiences & atmosphere like above. There were totally four groups and four children in each group. Let me tell the result first, manasa’s group won the competition (1^st prize), but only a boy in her group was dominating more and contributing much. He was seated in left corner and Manasa on the right, so there was a couple of student’s gap between them. As he was more enthusiastic, bright & instant with all answers, the quiz conductor (a secondary school boy) was pointing the mike only to the boy and my poor fellow was waiting for the mike to come to her. But she knows all the answers. Next time very importantly I have to teach her more about how to participate actively in the quiz. But she spent solid time in school & at home for this preparation and she improved herself step by step in the process. Anyhow she will be awarded a prize (not sure when) and I am sure she is indeed qualified for it.

Fancy dress:

Quiz: 

Quiz on Krishna's Story

Slokas

Colours Day

Colours day was celebrated on 09.07.14 in her school. Just a day before, they informed us to prepare a banana in chart and a two-lines of speech on the same. She learned exactly two lines. :D Also she spoke about Truthfulness in today's celebration. Updated speech than the last video.

Speech for School Assembly

Her class ma'am told me that she is personally telling me prepare Manasa for a simple 4/5lines of speech on Truthfulness, which she practiced well. She taught the same to her dad. Here is the video of both dad & DD's speech.
When happened?: UKG. 3rd week of her UKG life.

First two weeks of Coimbatore school

I never thought our Manasa would cry for going to school. But she surprised us by crying (it is not just a cry, it is a too very pathetic cry) for two full weeks in the new school. The cry will start in the previous night itself. She used to keep repeating touchingly ‘amma…pls allow for leave today alone (aaje ek deevsa leave sodsuda)… tomorrow I will go’. We used to feel totally helpless.

I believed at least 2^nd week she is going to be fine. But because of her too much of cry, on the second week’s Monday, we allowed her to take leave. But when the next day also she cried the same way, I thought ‘chalo, let her be at home’. But her father did not want to encourage this behavior and so we left her in school. 

The comments uttered by her after school hours:

“Yesterday I was crying, but miss did not console me and today she was comforting a boy who was crying”.

“When I am not crying, miss is not telling me ‘good girl’. When I am crying, that time alone she says that I am a good girl and good girls are not supposed to cry.”

When I asked her ‘maanu, will you cry again tomorrow?’. She said ’only for minimum period of time maa, then I won’t cry’.

Next day when I asked the same question, her reply was ’still the school is new to me. Once the school becomes old, then I won’t cry’.

On another day she said ‘I was crying till i entered the class. After sitting in my place, I tried many times to cry, but I could not cry. So I left the idea’.

She is very frank,isn't it? :D

BTW yesterday (2nd week's friday), she did not cry much. She cried only when getting ready, but on the way to school, inside campus and all, she did not cry. Fingers crossed for coming Monday. :-(