Metamorphosis 2011

On Feb 6, Golden Bead participated at Metamorphosis 2011 - a festival organized by IIMS (Indian Institute of Montessori Studies) bringing together Montessori educators and schools from across Bangalore. There was an exhibition of resource materials, childrens work, presentations and performances by children.
 Golden Bead elementary children presented an abbreviated version of their Christmas Play.

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 !

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 :-) !

Christmas 2010

As has become the tradition, Christmas was celebrated at Golden Bead with great gusto on Dec 15 before the holiday break - there was a Christmas play put up by the elementary Golden Bead children and carol singing, followed by a pot luck dinner for all.
The play began with the creation of the Universe starting with the Big Bang and the coming of life on earth. The children showed how A.D, B.C became an important landmark in the history timeline with events before the birth of Christ denoted as B.C and the events after Christ denoted as A.D. The children unraveled the timeline and explained the sequencing of each era. Also the time line of life was put up and highlighted with the eras.

 The later part of the show traced the origin of man to the Mesopotamian Civilization starting from Abraham, the 14 generations from Abraham to David, the 14 generations from David to Josepho, Moses & the exile in Babylon and 14 generations from the exile to the Birth of Christ the Messiah ! The children sang many songs including The animals went in two by two, Father Abraham had many sons, Joseph and the amazing Technicolor Dream coat, When Israel was in Egypt's land, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, By the rivers of Babylon and Joy to the World. After the play, Manya thanked the faculty involved in helping stage the play and Raya invited the pre-primary children on stage to join the carol singing. The children waited expectantly for their secret gift from Santa beforeheading off to dig in to the scrumptious spread that followed. A collection box was passed around to collect donations to gift to the domestic help that help keep the school environment neat and tidy.

The happy occasion was made possible thanks to the cooperation between the parent body and the Golden Bead staff and we hope the tradition will survive the coming years.

RamRam Ashram Trip

Hillock

 The elementary children visited the Ashram in December. Ram Ram ashram supports destitutes and village discards . This organisation was founded by Ram Ram 10 years back and his inspiration is carried on by his son Vinod. Here is one of the children(Ananya)’s account of the trip :

The village pond

Up the hill to the ashram

RamRam Ashram is located on a rocky hillock off Kanakpura Road. We drove there by car. On the way, we listened to a lot of songs and played games.

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Enthusiastic trekkers

The enthusiastic group of trekkers were all excited to explore the rugged beauty of the lofty hills. the weather was favourable. Thorny shrubs cover the hill,huge boulders scattered all over.

 

After reaching there we climbed a small hill. Once there if you go straight you reach a temple with a well. It was a very pretty place and was full of nice paintings. We went inside the temple, played a little and then went to climb the hills. Nikita made friends with a girl on the hill. Some of us went quite far and some stayed behind.

View from the top

On the way we found many types of stones. We lost our way and Krishna came to help us and pointed the way back to us and then went to help the others. Sania and I helped show the others the way back & we came back to the ashram first. The others had a lot more thorns stuck on them then us. I helped Thea take the thorns out of her clothes. All the girls washed their hair to cool off. Ambar and Trilok even had a bath.

At the ashram we met the ashram children and the uncle who looks after them.
After coming back we enjoyed a snack of vada and payasam. Then we played a little.

Watching the stone grinder

Later we visited a cave which was the samadhi that the villagers had made for RamRam. Some of the villagers sang folk songs for us. And we sand 'When Israel was in Egypt's land' for them. Then Krishna showed us another interesting cave. We all went in one way and there was another way to come out. Then Krishna showed us the trees.

At the ashram

After this we left for school in our cars. Again we played games on our way home in the car. We reached back at 5.30pm and then all of us went home.

Hundred Hands Exhibition

The elementary children had the opportunity to visit the 'Hundred Hands' handicraft workshop on Nov 25, where they learned about recycling and saw a host of eco-friendly products like bags, soaps, handmade paper, ahimsa silk, food items & more made of materials like bamboo, beeswax, sabaii grass, natural vegetable dyes, etc.

Childrens Day Trip to Lalbagh

 

On Children's Day (Nov 15th), the elementary kids visited Lalbagh to say hello to some feathery friends.

Grey Pelicans are usually spotted in Bangalore till the first week of December after which they fly away to Kokkare Bellur or Rangana Thittu bird sanctuary near Mysore. They are migratory and mostly come in from Sri Lanka, Nicobar Islands and other South East Asian countries. 

 

Pelicans





Grey Heron

Purple rumped Sunbird

  Other common birds at Lalbagh - some of which the children saw were the grey heron, pond heron, common egret, cormorant, marsh harrier and purple rumped sunbird.The trip was a time for birdwatching, exploring the undergrowth, taking pictures and a nice outdoor lunch!

Later the children drew pictures of what they had seen at Lalbagh some of which are shown below.