Like It Or Nautical

I have a deep, abiding love for all things black and white. Particularly when it comes to my wardrobe. I'm not sure how happy I am about it, though. Every time I step into a shop, I remind myself that my wardrobe is begging pitifully for more colour. And an hour or so later I walk away with more black and white stuff. Always.

A few days ago I had set aside a rather battered pair of flats to be thrown / given away. But then last night, for some reason, I decided to try my hand at jazzing it up. I used a simple tape resist method - hey, if it is something my 3 yr old can do, I should be able to pull it off. And the results were brilliant!

Materials Required

1) Shoes

2) Acrylic paint and brush

3) Scotch tape

How To Go From Boring To Ba-Da-Boom!

Tape off sections on your shoe. I tried to keep the lines even, although asymmetrical would look gorgeous as well. Now all you have to do is fill in the spaces between the scotch tape with a colour of your choice

You may need a couple of coats of paint, depending on how you want your shoes to look. Just give each coat at least an hour to dry before you layer another one on top.

And this is what I ended up with. Not bad for an easy peasy craft with stuff lying around the house.

Not. Bad. At. All!

I'm madly, MADLY in love with them already!

Review - Freedom Run - Subhadra Sen Gupta, Tapas Guha

Jr and I have amassed an incredible arsenal of picture books. And most of them are absolute joys to read over and over again. As a mother reading aloud to her toddler I find myself drawn to themes that reassure, that talk about unconditional love and acceptance. One of the many lessons in books like the delightful The Odd Egg (about a duck that patiently hatches a crocodile egg) and Fox's Garden (a wordless picture book about a little boy looking out for a vixen and her newborn cubs on a snowy night) is about the unreserved love that children of all kinds are entitled to.

That could be why Freedom Run by Subhadra Sen Gupta came as jolt out of the blue.

Freedom Run is the story of three young children who have been forced into child labour to pay off the debts incurred by adults in their families. They spend their days weaving carpets for their barbarous malik, never daring to hope for a better life. They are frequently beaten up till they bleed, and many of them receive no pay for the hours of backbreaking work they do.

But despite the horrors portrayed in this book, Freedom Run is at its heart a tale of hope and courage. How the children contrive to escape from the brutal malik forms the crux of the plot. And the ending is all the more powerful for the horrors shown earlier.

No, I did not pick this book for my 2 1/2 year old. It is intended for older children who can understand the many layers of the plot,and appreciate how beautifully the images play up the powerful text. I grabbed Freedom Run because I have never yet come across another comic for children that is as gritty and hard hitting as this.

The story holds you in a tight grip from beginning to end, despairing for the children and rooting for them in the end. I found it noteworthy that the book begins with the senior children imitating the harsh ways of their malik, but the intrinsic goodness of children finally takes over. While the language is taut, it is the evocative images by Tapas Guha that add layers of complexity to this slim volume. The warp of the wool that mirrors the bars on the window, the way adults often seem to tower over the children, the palpable joy on a child's face as his brother comes looking for him.... all these and more add subtle nuances that make this story so thrilling.

This is no candy fluff story. But it is the reality of hundreds of children around the country, and it is an important story that needs to be told.

Presenting * Insert Drumroll * Book Reviews!

Over the past 2 1/2 years I have found myself drowning delightedly in children's books, particularly picture books. Growing up, I somehow bypassed this genre entirely (the first book I ever 'read' was Children of Willow farm by Enid Blyton). But Jr's arrival opened my eyes to the incredible range that children's literature boasts of today. We started reading to him when he was about three months old, and by now we have amassed a wonderful collection of books of every description.

Until last month, most of the books we owned and loved were by foreign authors. Albie and The Space Rocket by Andy Cutbill and The Story Machine by Tom McLaughlin have been read so many times, it is a wonder they aren't in shreds. I adore the works of Emily Gravett, Oliver Jeffers and Lemony Snicket, and have added them to my picture book collection (not my son's, mind you! :P ) All these books are absolutely captivating, and we have spent many delightful hours poring over them.

But no matter how much I enjoyed these books (or maybe precisely because I enjoyed them so much) it used to annoy me no end that I could not find one more suited to the Indian context. The only books that I had come across were ones that dealt with Hindu mythology, Jataka tales or some version of Indian history. And I do not care for such books at all! Hoping to remedy this, Jr and I caught a taxi, the metro and an auto to get to the World Book Fair in Delhi. And how we were rewarded for our trouble!

Jr and I spent a couple of wonderful hours roaming from stall to stall, sniffing through brand new books to our hearts content (Ok fine... my heart's content!). We came back armed with several incredible books by Indian authors, and I intend to review a few of them here. I am no expert on childrens' books, I have not worked in any capacity in this genre. But what I do have is truck loads of experience in reading aloud to a staunch book lover.

Needless to say, I'm super excited about this :D

Lunar Lesson Part 2 - Paper Mache Moon

This week, Jr and I kept ourselves busy with all things Moon related. As always, Albie and the Space Rocket and Moon, Ramu and I have been read over and over and over again. We also kept ourselves busy with our Phases of the Moon Hopscotch game (more on that later).

I was about to move on to another topic when I came across this rather cool paper mache craft that I thought could be stretched to fit our theme for the week. This activity was far easier than I had assumed it would be, and Jr had a blast! 

Paper Mache Moon 

Materials Needed

• Balloon
• Glue
• Disposable bowl and stirrer or paint brush
• Newspaper
• Tissue Paper (optional)
• Lights (optional)

How to make it

Begin by tearing the newspaper into small strips. Jr initially couldn't understand why I wanted him to rip paper, considering I've generally made it very clear that paper must be treated with respect. That perhaps explains the slightly doubtful look on his face :)

In the disposable bowl, mix two parts glue to one part water. This is the paper mache paste.

Next, dunk the strips of paper into this paste and wipe off the excess. Then stick these on to the balloon. Jr happily joined in all of these steps.

This is what our balloon looked like once we were done smothering it in newspaper bits.

I also gave it another layer of tissue paper. But you could opt to skip this part.

We then dried it over night. And this morning, Jr and I popped the balloon rather ceremoniously. We then stuck our Moon on an unused lamp - and voila!

Ok..Ok... so it doesn't really look like the Moon! :D But Jr and I are super thrilled with it! We also loved the way it looked with fairy lights inside it. And now I'm seriously considering making a more colourful, refined version of this to hang in our balcony :)

One simple craft, so much joy!

Lunar Lesson Part 1 - The Phases of The Moon

These days, Jr seems to be reading a lot of books that deal with the moon. Albie and the Space Rocket by Andy Cutbill has been a favourite for some time now. But now it seems Moon, Ramu and I by Geeta Dharmarajan has also been added to his bedtime reading list.

So it made perfect sense to plan today's activities around the phases of the moon, edited to suit my 2 1/2 yr old. We watered it down to feature just the Full Moon, Crescent and New Moon.

                                                         
                                                          Scotch Tape Resist Painting


This has long been a favourite activity of ours. But this time, we modified it to suit our theme. Also, I've come to finally accept that Jr simply Does.Not. have the patience to fill up a whole page with finger painting. And that prodded me to invent the (*drumroll please*) Bubble Wrap Bom Bom! Or that's what my son calls it :) It is simply a wad of newspaper scrunched up and wrapped with bubble wrap. When dipped in paint and dabbed on paper it leaves the most satisfying circular patterns, much like finger painting.

So without further ado, here's how we did it.

Materials Needed

1. Paper and pencil
2. Stencil to trace out a circle
3. Colours of your choice. I picked out some black and blue paints and crayons in shades of blue and white
4. Scotch Tape
5. Bubble Wrap (optional)
6. Glitter and Glow - in- the - dark  paints (optional)

Now let's do this!

Begin by tracing out the shape of the moon. I used the lid of a Pearlpet jar as template. Once that's done, stick Scotch Tape all over the 'moon', making sure that you stay as close to the borders of the 'moon' as possible. The point is to make sure that your 'moon' is completely protected from a toddler going berserk with paint.

Once that's done, tape your paper down to the floor or table. It helps to make a sort of border with the Scotch Tape because that will end up looking like a 'frame' once you're done (you'll see what I mean in the final pictures). Then let your kid go wild with the paints! We started out with blue before moving on to black. Jr was completely grossed out at the very idea of finger painting and after trying for about 40 seconds he yelled for a paintbrush.

Once it was time to use the bubble wrap though he really got stuck into it. He climbed right onto the table and whacked that "Bubble Wrap Bom Bom" around for all it was worth. Extra points every time the bubbles popped! :D

Once I managed to wrest the paper from my over enthusiastic son, I peeled off the Scotch Tape over the moon. That's the tape on the white triangle between the two sheets of paper.You can see how it has been painted over like the rest of the paper. The moon is speckled in the places that were not covered by the tape. But I think it looks super pretty!

We then peeled off the Scotch Tape 'frame' around the papers, and used crayons to fill up whatever blank spaces we could find. And finally Jr got busy putting glitter stars all over his paintings. I then took over and painted the moons with Glow - in - the - dark paint for good measure.

                                               
                                                       And these are our final paintings!

I'm planning on using the Scotch Tape 'moon' we peeled off in another painting, as the New Moon. Jr sat with these two paintings for about an hour, and no force or Earth could have made him stick around to paint another moon!

As always, I'm more excited about our artwork than my son is. I've been moving them around the house all morning... from the fridge to the living room to our bedroom. They are currently in Jr's playroom with his astronauts and rockets.

These pictures sure are ghastly! Blame them on a smart phone that has been battered senseless by Amma and toddler. I'll update with better pictures as soon as I can. 

Our experiments with Flintobox

Jr is a relatively quiet fellow who definitely prefers his books and cars to running around on the playground with friends. He also loves watching the same rhymes over and over again on my phone, curled up in the fetal position on the cold floor. While we have significantly reduced the amount of time he spends with my phone, I despaired of ever finding another activity that kept him as hooked as mindless rhymes on cracked cell phone screens.

And then I stumbled upon Flintobox on Facebook. "No more struggles to keep your child away from TV or gadgets while preparing dinner or quickly finishing up an office file" declared the website. And I was immediately hooked. Anything that promised to get my son away from my phone had my attention. 

Flintobox is an award winning startup that sends you gorgeous, well thought-out activity boxes every month. Each month deals with a specific theme (colours, space etc). These boxes are packed with fun activities that children from 3-7 can either do on their own or spend quality time with their parents over. That sounded right up my alley so I wasted no time in ordering February's box as a sample.

About 10 days later we received a beautifully packed Flintobox with Jr's name emblazoned on the side. The theme for the month was Space, and each item in the box was specifically designed to teach young kids more about things space-related in a fun and engaging way. The box contained :

• Two cardboard tubes, concave and convex lenses for a DIY telescope.
• A fun jigsaw puzzle full of planets and rockets.
• A box, rechargeable flashlight, stickers and printouts of constellations that can be put together to make a projector.
• A story book about space.

I was very impressed by all the items in it, and couldn't wait to get started. The instructions provided were clear and simple, the pictures were bright and engaging and everything was beautifully packed. So our Valentine's day was spent with Flintobox as Jr and his father happily assembled the telescope. The skills required for this were too much for my 2 1/2 yr old, and he had his work cut out for him simply trying to peer through his "teyekkope" with one eye closed.

However the Build Your Own Projector was a huge hit with him. He had absolutely no trouble in following every step -  from punching out the stars in the constellations to decorating the "projector" with the stickers provided. He absolutely loves this, and we have spent many happy moments projecting constellations to our walls and ceilings. The kit also comes with blank papers that we can punch our own designs on, and Jr has really gone to town on them!

The jigsaw puzzle was a little beyond his abilities too, but I loved it.It was evident that each box contained activities suitable for kids of different age groups, and different interests. However the story book wasn't up to scratch.

So although we still have a long way to go before my son is fully weaned from my cell phone, I would say the Flintobox was pretty much a hit with Amma and Jr. I have packed away everything except the projector for now, to be taken out once Jr is a few months older. 

But we will be having a lot more Flintoboxes around for sure!

That's Jr and his father using our Flintobox telescope to check out the neighbour's Valentine's Day activities :) 

Details

1 Month's subscription - Rs 1095

3 Month's subscription - Rs 2985

6 Month's subscription - Rs 5370

The Flinto Blog is also a great resource for entertaining, educational activities to do with your child. The Moon-Phase Hopscotch game looks like a fun way to spend the afternoon with Jr.

Dipping my toes in blogging waters. Again!

Hello,


So I've been gone a long time. Almost 2 years or so. And in the mean time, my son has grown into a bright, curious toddler who absolutely loves books, cars and possibly plants. So this means I (like most mothers of toddlers) have had to morph into librarian, gardener, engineer, teacher, inventor and scientist. Or something along those lines.

It has been a fun journey so far, with more flops than successes. But these days the successes have slowly begun to outnumber the failures, to my unrestrained delight. Jr may or may not share my enthusiasm, but I am positively thrilled at the strides I am making. Hey... I can finally do a craft intended for a 3 year old! Those who know me know what an achievement that it.

So here in these pages I hope to keep track of the activities we do, the products we love and the books we adore. And maybe, just maybe, I can find the time to do this on a regular basis.

Gotta go now. Jr is trying to figure out how the gas cylinder works.