Evoking Creativity

The school scene has improved now- in terms of Ojas & Tejas actually missing school when they have to give it a miss due to illness. They are reciting poems that have been taught, the prayer that is done every morning and discussing shapes like circle & triangle - one thing that I never taught them.
They bring home library books every weekend and while some of them are new ones many of them are copies of what they already have at home. Now what do I tell my Hubby who suspects that the teacher sends books home so that our kids may spoil them and then we have to cough up a fine for them!
The swimming classes have started - once a week and there have been a few outbound trips like beach house, farm house etc.
They have started Hindi lessons from this month (yay) and to encourage practise at home, I am going to pick up the Hindi puzzle boards.
Each month beginning the parents are given a sheet of paper outlining the lesson plan for the month.
There are a lot of paper craft/ painting activities done- I am glad because this is one thing I am unable to do due to lack of my own creativity and patience, much as I plan to try my best.
They have had special days like-
Beach Day- they had to go to school in beach wear- Dalmatian Day- They had to dress up as a dalmatian- I assumed it was more of concept rather than looks so I bought a cheap t- shirt which coincidentally had a pattern of rows of dogs and patiently pasted 12 packs of black bindis on them- Well, my only regret is that I should have asked them to paste the bindis but I lacked the patience and time to involve them. But I made it up by allowing them to detach the bindis from the T-shirt and stick it on a paper and earned a look of - "very smart, give us the dirty work."

And just as I finished gloating over my success at managing the dalmatian job easily and cheaply I get another note- this time to dress them as a dog and a cow for an animal farm song. Now this had to be as realistic as possible. So first I downloaded pictures of animal masks from child craft. Then I thought of painting a t shirt like a cow & a dog in patches of black or brown. But then gave up the idea and settled for a painting of the mask on a cloth and attaching on the front of the T-shirt. Thankfully Grandma volunteered to do the art work and the job was taken away from my klutzy hands.

And they also go dressed up in 2 of the colours of the flag