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Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Golden Bead is a Montessori School for children between the age of 2 1/2 years (Pre-Primary) and 12years (Primary).The School was started with the aim of providing a healthy environment for children to engage in interactive learning, carefully prepared by the trained Montessori educator. In Golden Bead the environment provided is to facilitate thinking, imagination and creativity to remove the fear of learning and foster a confident child. You are welcome to call/set up a visit: Golden Bead Montessori House of Children 157,Richmond Road, Rathna Avenue(Behind old Kids Kemp, MG Road), Bangalore-560 025. PH: +91 9739905787 - 9916915092

January 14, 2011

Makar Sankranti

Watching the Pongal cook
Makar Sankranti marks the northward movement of the Sun from Dhanu rashi(Sagitarius) to Makar rashi(Capricorn) and is celebrated 3 weeks after the Winter solstice. Unlike most Hindu festivals that follow the lunar calender, Sankranti, being a solar event remains relatively fixed on the Gregorian calender at Jan 14th.



At Golden Bead, Sankranti or Pongal is a time for fun and traditional festive food - yella, bella, piping hot pongal (salty Ven Pongal and sweet Chakra Pongal), roasted peanuts, sweet potato. Anita aunty explained the significance of the festival to the children : how Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over" or "spill over" and the boiling over of milk in a clay pot symbolizes material abundance for the household.
Aunties cooked the salty & sweet pongal by boiling rice & lentils with slat or jaggery in new clay pots & later topping the sweet pongal with brown sugar, ghee, cashew nuts and raisins. The elementary children formed small groups and got to roast and cook their own peanuts, averekai and sweet potato on small open stoves using the coal and dry sticks they had collected. Of course, keeping the fire alive wasn't as easy as it looked!
The pre- primary children watched the elementary children cooking and also made a salad using the lentils and vegetables. Finally everyone sat down to a delicious festival lunch on banana leaf !
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January 11, 2011

Golden Bead COLOURS OF INDIA Mela

On Saturday Jan 22 2011, Golden Bead hosted the annual school Mela at the school grounds - this time with a "Colours of India' theme.
Many of the parents put up stalls selling  food, clothes and various other artifacts.
There were various games stalls that kept visitors occupied as well as various creative activities for children such as block printing, tile mosaic making.
There were puppet shows held in the morning and afternoon with traditional string puppets entertaining the crowds to filmi folks tunes.
Youngsters from Kinderdance gave a small performance in the morning.
The food stalls catered to different tastes with dosa, biriyani, Sri Lankan buns, cakes, cotton candy & coffee.
All in all we think everyone left with their stomachs full and pockets empty :-) !


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