Jalsa Pannungada!

My Dance on Stage for DTEC - CTA 2012 - Annual Day

Ofcourse choreographed by Mommy Dear.

This time it is for the song: Jalsa Pannungada from Movie Chennai 600028.

Sky Diving Indoors

Multiplication War

Mom and I played Multiplication war after a very long time.. say years!
It was an exciting game and was very fun reliving our old school (homeschool) days.
We were thrilled to discover that our passion for homeschooling is still thriving in some corner of the hearts.
huh.. mom is feeling nostalgic!
Well well.. do I even have to say that I won the game?! We played for an hour and mom lost all - I repeat.. ALL of her cards to me and we declared that I won. Waiting to play the game with dad sometime sooner. ROFL!
He is sure to see me as a winner again.
Now for the rules of the game:
All you need is a deck of multiplication facts flash cards. You may even make your own.

• You can play this with any number of players. (even you can make it a single player game)
• Deal out equal number of cards to each player
• Players take turns to draw a card from their stack. When they drop the card to the center pile, they have to say the product/answer for the fact in that card. For example, if player 1 draws out a card with Q: 5X1, he has to say 5 and drop the card in the center.
• Next player does the same to his top card in the stack.
• Player with the greatest number/product wins all the cards in the center.
• Game goes on till you anyone runs out of cards or the game runs out of time.

We introduced new rules like if you say the wrong answer, the opponent gets the cards, or if you miss to identify that your answer is greater than the previous one, then you miss out on a chance to grab the cards, and to practice speed, we even made another rule like whoever shouts the answer first can grab the cards if the answer is greater than the previous one..
We enjoyed the game as the challenges increased.
Have fun playing the game and practice your facts the fun way!

Tamil Academy - 2011 - Annual Day - My dance (Ninaivellam Nithya - Tholin Mele Baram ille)

Watch the fruit of my 20 hr practice over 10 weeks putting up with mommy and her so-called choreography. ;)

A Diorama on Australia

Thanks to Mrs.Hong for introducing us to the world of Dioramas..

Thanks to Bhuvana Aunty for the Stunning Australia pictures..

Thanks to Ranjani Aunty for her Cute Kangaroo..

Thanks to Lakshmi  Aunty for the moral support..

Thanks to my wonderful DAD for shopping around for the project items..

Thanks to my Mommy for helping me put together the diorama with that 3D effect..

And ofcourse, Thanks to ME for without me, there is no need for a diorama on Australia here. ;)

THANK GOD!

Project Writeup:

STAY TUNED.........



My Dance on Stage for Vada Vada Thozha

That's me in mommy's choreography - for vada Vada Thozha from Sivakasi.

ALOHA from Hawaii..

My Leprechaun Trap

My USA - State Coin Collection

Arkansas & Minnesota Quarters are missing.. Hope I will get them in the near future..

Virtual Reality World - A Lego Model

A Virtual Reality Theme Park in My imagination.
The Virtual Reality Simulator is movable and is on a slider..
and has seats inside..
The park is complete with Emergency Exits, Food Court and all amenities.

Magnetix Mania

Lego House - Novel Roof

Halloween Inspiration

A random design using a slingy and a spring fish that I won during the fall festival at school.

Robot on Roller Skates

Design Mania

Title 'em

It was lunch time and one thing led to another and we found ourselves inventing a new game! Mom was asking me to describe the household items in one or 2 words and soon we realised this could very well be a game on the go. I call it "Title Them".
Yes, simply go about 'titling' anything and everything under the sun. Soon the poet in you will be set free.This is a good stepping stone to poetry and paragraph writing.
Some of the titles I came up with on the spot are:
* The Cake pan on the dining table : Cake Land
* Noodles on the table : Noodle Plaza
* Mom's Paintings : Forever Auroras
* The fan : Summer Friend

Try Title 'em and poem the Poems!

Brain Teaser for the week

Try to solve this:
A parking lot has 4 bikes in next to one another in an order.
1) The White bike is not next to the Red or the Yellow one
2) The Red bike is not the first or the last one
3) The 1st bike is a Yellow one
Find out the order of the bikes.
Click to see the solution:

The order is : Y-R-G-W

Binoculars with built in Camera - Paper Roll Craft

Offlate I am drawn towards binoculars and can't wait to get a working one for myself. Couple of weeks back I saw a real one in a store but it did not appeal to Appa so he promised me to get a different one pretty soon. But then it occured to me - why wait when I can make my own?  I asked Amma to save 2 of the toilet paper rolls which she normally trashes.
Once I got them, I quickly put a rubber band to hold them together and there it is..my pretend Binoculars! Then I saw the small flash light that I got as a goody bag gift from my friend Bastle's birthday Yesterday..I just put that between the 2 paper rolls so that the flash light's switch is on top - oh yeah..there it is.. my very own Binoculars with 'built in camera'!
Amma (mom) got carried away and she was head over heels to get the camera (the real one) to shot a picture. :-)
I am happy to share my simple easy cool project idea that you could do all by yourself. I am sure you will like it - I know my friend Muaaz liked it so much that he did one for himself!

Letter Race - Dictionary Skills Game

Looking up words in a dictionary is an interesting task. You may consider yourself as a detective searching for clues to find wherein that dictionary is that mystery word. The alphabetical order is the sole and sufficient clue. Mom cooked up a game to improvise my dictionary look up skill.
We used the 'Smart Mouth' Letter Getter and Alphabet tiles for this game which I call "Letter Race". The rule is pretty simple: Slide the getter and look at the 2 letters. Shout out the letter that comes first in the alphabetical order. Say, you get 'R' and 'M', the first one to call out 'M' gets a point (or collects the 2 tiles). The one with many points (or many tiles) at the end of the game is the winner. Another variation for a one player game is to recite the alphabets in the order starting from the first tile..say you get 'R' and 'M', player has to quickly say 'R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z'. This will be a practice to be able to say the alphabets from the middle - Some can say alphabets only from the beginning everytime starting from 'A'..this variation will be a good practice for them. Hope you enjoy playing this simple game and love your dictionary time.

Addition War

It is bedtime but the deck of cards that mom & dad had dispersed on the floor after a hand of RUMMY lured me. I played Addition War with mom. Ofcourse I won - do you even have to ask?!

Graminos - Nouns & Pronouns

I revised Nouns and revisited Pronouns. I encountered a word that can be a Noun as well as a Verb..Can you find that out from the picture? And I earned more money for my next toy at the end of the game. Mom offered bonus points if I could tell the missing pronouns and I came up with a couple more like him, her.. Mom plans to make a complete list of pronouns as our current word pool does not cover all.

Graminos - Flavor: Pronouns

I liked our newly invented Graminos game and Today we tweaked the rules and came up with a version for Pronouns. Like our Food Pyramid game, this Graminos is also very extensible to cover many elements in Grammar. We plan to play all possible versions of Graminos in the next few days - ie until I get bored with the game.

By the way, I like to nickname Pronouns as "Professional Nouns" - don't ask me the reason..I just felt like it.

My trip to the Tech Museum

I went to the local Tech Museum Yesterday. I went to the IMAX theater and watched "Forces of Nature". I also made a souvenier coin.I even designed a bike. I experienced the Turkey earthquake simulation. I programmed a microchip for Mr.Potato Head!

I liked going to the Tech Museum. Going to the Tech Museum is one of the best ways to spend your summer weekend.

And FYI: The above paragraph was written all by myself and Mom just blogged it on my behalf. U know instead of scanning my journal on this trip, she decided to type it down in my own words though.. That said, include your local Tech Museums, if any, to your places of interest. It is worth your time.

Graminos - Noun Game

Vacationing..

My summer is going awesome with weekend day trips to theme parks & beaches and all day play with friends in the neighborhood, pool parties and so on..
We stayed in an Ocean Front vacation home in Mendocino, located north of CA for the long weekend. It had been a while we even talked about our game school.
After enough refreshment, we are slowly being drawn to our 'Play it! Learn It! club.
We are thinking of reinstating our game spirit. :) Let us see..
Last night, I asked Mom to come up with a learning game using Dominos. She discussed a game idea with me and got my approval. I call it 'Graminos'. Can you guess the game from the name? We will be playing it Today. Stay Tuned..

A trip to the Aquarium

After over 2 years, I visited the Aquarium again. Last time I went, we ended up making this lapbook on sea animals. This year, mommy suggests a journal on the trip..Not a bad idea. Shall update my journal in a shortwhile. My favorite part of the trip was playing various games there like helping the sea horses camouflage by changing their size, color and texture. And ofcourse the follow up dinner at my home with my friend Varun and all Aunties/Uncles.

Got my Bakugans!

Yesterday Mom and Dad took me to ToysRus to honor my game dollars. Yes, I bought 3 Bakugan Balls with Gate cards and ability cards - one from each planet Haos, Darkus, SubTeraa. I will be collecting 3 more Bakugan balls from the rest of the 3 planets when I earn some more Homeschool Gameschool dollars.

Sentence Sorting - Grammar Game

Mom cooked up a game to identify the 4 types of sentences. We cut out strips of sentences from old books and magazines. I assigned values to each type of sentence. For instance, an imperative sentence is worth 25cents, an exclamatory is 10cents, an interrogative is 5cents and the declarative is worth 1cent. I then drew each sentence strip from the pile and identified the type. If identified correctly, I get the assigned money. At the end of the game, I earned a total of $4.59 which I will be using to buy my favorite Bakugan Toy. Ofcourse mom will pitch in $10 more for the toy and also I have about $5 left in my Food Pyramid Game Locker.

This game introduced me to the sentence types all the while reinforcing my reading skill as I have to read out the sentences. And since mom had not sorted the coins, I had to pick the right coin from the coin tray for each sentence type - there I goes my money skills. And at the end of the game, I counted the money I made through this fun activity and oh yeah, that was money math! Above all, I earned my toy..there goes the lesson on life and practicality:You got to earn your bread!

Wonder how many declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative sentences are in this post?! Play this game and think through it.