Welcome to the Jungle

Teaching is just oodles of fun. I'm finding this out more and more the longer I teach. In my opinion, it is one of the most creative professions because you are always creating new projects and lessons for the kids. It's also great because half the time the projects and lessons are fun for you too--who doesn't love acting like a 10 year old again??

The past couple weeks in my sixth standard class we have been working on a big writing project. All the kids were asked to write an essay about an animals and what the animal sees, hears, and does. They wrote in essay format (with an introduction and conclusion and everything) and really took their time going through all parts of the writing process. For the final drafts of their essay they made them into books and colored them and made cover pages and everything. For the "publish" step in the writing process, the kids all made masks to match the animal they wrote about. Then, this past Friday, we invited Jim and Pam (the RSO directors), Celina (the principal), and a few other volunteers to come watch as each of the kids read their essay. The kids were seriously SO EXCITED to read their essays for the other volunteers and Jim and Pam. I even had housemothers coming up and asking me what sixth standard was up to cause they had been so excited telling their housemothers about it.

 V. Devi was just about the cutest giraffe I've ever seen

Tamilselvi was one of four ferocious lions in the class 

 Savitha the cat

Ragu the cheetah

Some of the jungle cats aka the boys

Nagaraj was a very brave tiger and the first to come up and share his essay

Naveenraj the leopard

This is Vimalkanth reading his essay about being a monkey. He did a great job thinking of specific things his monkey would see, hear and do :)

All the kids did an amazing job on their essay, masks, and their "performance". Some of the kids in this class are at about a second standard reading level and for them to come up in front of the class and principal and RSO directors was a huge accomplishment for them. They were all absolutely spectacular!! 

I am one proud mama bear :)

Vanakkam

PONGAL!

So, on January 14-16, we celebrated Pongal--the biggest Indian holiday next to Diwali. It's a three day celebration all about renewal, cows, agriculture....all kinds of fun stuff! Pongal is a harvest festival celebrated only in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Pongal takes place right around the winter solstice and is a holiday dedicated to the sun god, Surya. Each day of the festival there are different traditions and meanings but in an effort to not be too long-winded, you can go read about them in depth here.

The main traditions we celebrated at Rising Star were making Kolums and eating sugarcane and Pongal. All of the kids and volunteers also attended a function on the second day of Pongal in the village near Rising Star, Thottanaval. The function in the village celebrated cattle and having a prosperous year this next year. All of the cows are washed and dressed to impress with painted horns and big flower wreaths around their necks. It was a great little field trip taking all the kids into the village to see the decorated cows and all the Pongal festivities.

The kids dressed in their very best walking into the village

On our way, we passed TONS of beautiful Kolum outside the village houses.

Here's a closer look

All the housemothers also dressed to impress for the Pongal function

We had to wait awhile for the function to start...it was the perfect time to take pictures of the kiddos all dressed up! From left: Theresa, Pavithra, Jessy, Jennifer, Tamilselvi and Theerthi

The boys were lookin mighty handsome :)

I have said it before but I will say it again, Kala is awesome. Case and point: she dressed all the boys in her house in matching outfits (the old Rising Star uniform) to go into the village for the festival. They all looked so nice!

Tamilarasi (a housemother) and some of the girls hangin out waiting for the function to start.

These drummers played throughout the whole function. They definitely kept the party goin.

This cow was especially decked out with balloons on its horns.

A proud villager showing off his cattle.

Another proud villager showing off his fancy cattle.

They have even modernized Pongal a bit by also celebrating and decorating the tractors that help for a successful harvest. The two tractors in the village both had big flower wreaths across the front.

My walking buddy on the way back to Rising Star was Mr. Sanjay in UKG--he sure is a cutie.

It was tons of fun to celebrate a new holiday with the Rising Star family. On the last day of Pongal we had a big water fight with the kids that was AWESOME!! We had music and dancing and water balloons....it doesn't get more awesome than that! Pongal was the last big holiday/break from school until the kids go home. My time is really starting to wind down here and I'm getting more and more nervous everyday about saying good-bye to the kids and people here. Hopefully the next three months don't go by too fast :)

Vanakkam

These Faces...

Make everyday really awesome :)

Vanakkam

Happy New Year!

So I'm a week late in my New Year's post but now that all the kiddos are back time is a touch more scarce. Anyways, New Years here at Rising Star was awesome (as are all the holidays with the kids). We had the volunteers here from the Christmas session, as well as all the new longterm volunteers so it was a full house! The Christmas volunteers were awesome and brought noisemakers, silly string, mini glowsticks, and all kinds of other fun things for the kids to ring in the New Year with. We had TONS of fireworks and an awesome dance party--we know how to do New Years right at Rising Star.

The bag of fireworks aka the bag of awesome-ness

we only use the legit stuff

photo credit: M. Vignesh (6th Standard)

The girls waiting for the fireworks show

one of the volunteers brought 2012 silly bandz--they were a hit.

After the fireworks/dance party, we all went and ate dinner in the dining hall and then had a special late night movie night and watched "The Grinch". I have said this many a time but I will say it again: watching movies with the kids is the best way to watch a movie. They really get entrenched in the story and characters--they laugh really loud at the funny parts, they get really tense and focus on the suspense/action parts, and they always cheer and clap when the "hero" (good guy) wins.

After the movie Vinodhini (one of the housemothers) had little masks for all her girls. Jessy was just as cute as can be.

Jessy and Amirtham going to sleep on New Years Ee with their masks.

So after another very successful movie night, the kids headed to bed....except the older boys. Seven of the oldest boys were allowed to stay up until midnight and party in the dining hall with Derek and I. It was the perfect way to ring in the New Year. We danced, had headstand competitions, made a Happy New Year sign made out of flower petals--it was an awesome New Years to say the least.

The boys dancin the night away

I forgot who won this but it was legit nonetheless

The boys took quite awhile making sure this flower sign was perfect.

Happy New Year from Rising Star! The boys from left: Rajesh, Ashok, Deepenraj, Shankar, Krishnamoorthy, and Joseph

I am forever grateful that I get to spend the first four months of 2012 here at Rising Star with these kids--I'm thinkin the rest of the year is gonna have to be amazing if it's off to such a good start. :)

Vanakkam