Butterfly garden is a new passion we developed at the end of 2008. Since last month we all spent morning in garden...planning,digging,plantation,capturing butterfly pictures etc. Megh is more interested in digging, enjoys soil with all senses and very much surprised by growth of bamboo. He takes everyone to show how tall is bamboo today!Since last two days he dig and then by putting wooden stick across pit makes bridge, fill pit with water and surprisingly notice how speedily water absorb and then enjoy playing with mud. Ashna learned surface water and underground water previous day,so she got exact idea how soil absorb rain water and it becomes underground water. She is more interested in different flowers ,plantation and making mud puddle. We learnt from butterfly park that ripen fruits are butterfly delight and we already managing garbage dump (for compost) which almost always have peels and ripen fruits. So our butterfly garden is about to complete and many butterflies visits our garden during sunlight and found fluttering around us. New interest developed is identifying butterflies and capture their images. Butterfly garden is our team work and we all are enjoying it. Along with enjoyment children acquire many useful skills and knowledge.
Since this month Ash joined drawing class , so her saturday,sunday schedule became bit tight but as she enjoys all three activities kathak,drawing and gymnastics she don't mind it and waits for weekend. Drawing and gymnastics are her natural interests and interest for kathak cultivated by efforts. She was never interested in classical dance or any form of dance...before joining kathak shown her famous hindi film kathak dances. Earlier she formed idea that because mummy could not learn it so she wish that I go for dance,then one morning we have long discussion on our culture and heritage,what we need to change and what we should preserve,and advantages of learning classical dance and most important that because it is good for her she is learning kathak not only for mumma's wish. Our discussion started from use of vibrant colours in our dressing which is different from European countries. Touch of truly devoted Gurus (Smruti & Paresh Vora) to this art is helping lot to cultivate it. This month we attended our first classical dance program and she enjoyed Odissie.
Celebrating Uttrayan is special in Surat and Ash is very passionate about colourful different kites. Though could not succeed to fly kite she tried hard for 3-4 days and confident that upto next year she will learn it.
Ash's gymnastics coach Bharat Patel is gujarati-hindi teacher in his school and he has given some tips for teaching language. It is working and her reading-writing Gujarati is improved. In maths,learned division and introduced fraction. She developed interest in phonics and reading simple english so brought some good books.
Megh is enjoying Gijubhai's stories and "Undar bhai ne aankho aavi" from Dr. I.K.Vijaliwala nowadays. Some story books from National book trust are his fav. He is introduced to Gujarati alphabets this month using Navneet's hard cover book and sand paper letters. Now wherever finds them, point them enthusiastically and love catching letters in newspapers. He loves to sing english alphabet song and identify some of them too. Sometimes writing urges high,comes with pencil and paper and try to write or draw something,get excited if found some shape and enjoy Dora's magic pad and paint with water book.
