GPB Writers Contest Win!!!

Story title

It was the year 2013 and we were living in Nashville. My older son Aarav was about 9 months. We had the very basic Comcast TV service where you got the very basic free channels to watch. We barely watched any TV and one random day while he was crawling around and fidgeting with the remote, he hit a button and the PBS channel number 9, I so well remember, came on. 

There was a show called Super Why going on and he got hooked on to it so quickly; these characters with big eyes and it was a wonderful show teaching about letters and building small words and the sounds of each letter! So, I figured out that it came at certain times during the day, twice actually and I would selectively put on the TV for him to watch because he really got engrossed into it.

So that's how our relationship with PBS started. From there and of course we moved on to other shows also like Daniel tiger, Curious George, and the dinosaur show.

The Monster Blackhole

 And cut to 8 years now, we got to know about the GPB writers contest which is held from kindergarten till third grade and my son was in second grade this summer. So, one month before the submit date, we got to know about the contest and we thought, sure we can give it a try. Why not!

Planets meeting for the escape plan

Some of Aarav's fav subjects are space, maps, music, reading books!!! 

So, I pushed him a bit saying he's read so many books until now, he can easily come up with something... Anything using his fav topic. 

From there he quickly thought of space and planets and black holes. And soon he had a rough idea of what's the plot of the story. The technicalities are known best to him. He built the story around the plot - How to escape a black hole monster! 

A fictional story of all the planets and Sun planning how to escape a black hole monster!  

At the onset only, I really loved his story. I deeply wished for him to win. And if he didn't win, at least get his handwritten story back.

And guess what! Aarav won! 1st place in second grade! How proud and elated we are to share this! 😃

He won a certificate, a medal n lot of goodies from PBS!

Back in 2013, I would've never thought of being so closely connected with PBS in future! 

This was a great opportunity for Aarav, and we are glad he participated! 

Here is a link to his story in his own voice!

2021 Winner: 2nd Grade 1st Place – "How to Escape a Black Hole Monster" by Aarav Dharmaraj | Georgia Public Broadcasting (gpb.org)

 And her is the link to his story pdf!

Meet The Winners Of GPB's 2021 PBS KIDS Writers Contest | Georgia Public Broadcasting

Thank you PBS and GPB!🙏

Wheels on the bus – 1st Birthday theme

Center stage for cake cutting.

Hello all! Since the recent birthday theme of continents was so popular, I am back with another birthday theme! I designed a “Wheels on the bus” theme for my second son, Amay’s first birthday in 2019. 🚌🚏

At age 1, he was fond of Wheels on the bus song. We have seen so many versions of them on youtube!!! So, I had to search a lot on Pinterest and google for ideas! What you find mostly is the school bus theme online. So, I made it work for my theme of colorful bus around the town.

Bus table for cake cutting

Again, a whole lot of paper cutting DIY to do. The birthday banner was to look like a road with HAPPY BIRTHDAY letters. I chose a blue sheet for sky, pasted strip of black sheet with white bits for representing road. Drew the letters on each sheet and then put them thru a string. At the beginning and end of this banner I added a bus cutout made from thin craft foam sheets, drew windows and doors in it to look like a bus. I cut out his name using Styrofoam that I had at home.

Theme words

I mostly make stuff with whatever I have at hand and buy craft things as I need.😁

So, next was the theme specific words like BEEP BEEP, DING DING. I cut out these 
letters using poster sheets. Basically, I chose the smallest words from the song. I used regular white stitching thread to make the streamer. Because it’s a road theme, there’s a lot of sign boards that can be made. Along with the words, I made signal light streamers with octagon shaped STOP fillers. I used regular construction paper for this.

All signs ready to go

I used pizza boxes to make the sign boards. The words were party specific like DUMP GIFTS HERE, PARTY ZONE for lunchroom, STOP and AMAY IS ONE. Sprayed the yellow and used markers to write. Painted the STOP board and AMAY boards.

Next was the cutest task of making bus cut outs. I used entire poster sheets. Drew a light outline of a bus such that there was minimal cutting and wastage of paper. I used black and white sheets for making the window shields, eyes, bumper, smile, and tires; drew whatever was needed on them with sketch pens and crayons.

Photo frame prop

For the cake cutting table, I decorated it to look like a bus. Used a blue table cover, pasted white paper using black masking tape to make door and windows and used 2 round boards to make wheels. 

The last thing to make was a photo frame prop. I used a foam poster sheet. Cut out two large window shields for people to pose through. Painted it with yellow color and added the other details like lights, tires, and mirrors; I used aluminum sheets to make it look like mirrors.

 

Bus stapled to spirals

To add more buses to the room, I cut out small sized foam sheet buses and stapled them to the decorative party spirals and hung them from the ceiling, windows etc.

The cake was bus theme too. I just placed a toy bus on it to complete the theme. I also kept a tray of chocolate donuts with a label of ‘Extra Tires’!😄😄

The entrance door of our house had the signs – STOP the BUS AMAY is ONE!

The photo frame and the donuts were a hit. And because most of the kids visiting were my older son’s friends, I had rented a jumping house for their entertainment in our backyard.

I hope you enjoy this theme and the work done and find these ideas useful. Thank you for reading.😊

 

 

Around the world through 7 continents – Birthday Party

Cake Cutting - North America station

My eldest son Aarav turned 8 this year and I had planned this birthday theme for last year on his 7^th birthday – Travel the 7 continents. You see, 7^th birthday and 7 continents would have been such a wonderful coincidence. But along came Covid in 2020 and it were the initial scary months . I had to scrap off the whole celebration. I had finished a bunch of DIY decorations, ready to print material I created on my PC. I didn’t feel like wasting all that effort.

So, 8^th birthday was “Around the 7 continents”, instead of 8 planets, another favorite topic of Aarav.

To me this theme was so much fun that I decided to share it, for anybody who’d like to use it. I shall link the items I got from Amazon and OrientalTrading.com.

So here goes the whole plan and execution.

7 continents = 7 table stations. Each table would be unique in décor to represent the continent. Each table would have some interactive games or activities and as we leave each station, the kids get a souvenir, just like we do on vacations 😊 Easy!

Passport prep

Before any vacation you’d need a passport, a boarding pass, a suitcase of course to load up the souvenirs and a stamp on your passport indicating you visited!

Placards for each station

First I started with the labels for each station. I used carboard boxes to cut out the large placards for each continent name.  Painted each in an obvious theme color representing the continent (that came to my mind) like ex. Europe is a lovely pink board with letters written in red.

Continent	Décor	Activity	Souvenir
Australia	Koalas, brown table cover	Kangaroo hop race	Boomerangs
Asia	Chinese doll, dragon, elephant, buddha etc	Pick gummy fish with chopsticks in 30 sec	Paper fans
Africa	Pyramid, hieroglyphs chart	Animal bingo	Hieroglyph bookmarks for each kid’s name
Europe	Eifel tower, Pisa tower, valentine décor	Lunch – pizza	Eifel tower painting kit
South America	Multi color décor, skull	Making Maracas	Carnival eye masks
Antarctica	Paper Penguins and whale, white table cover	De-freeze frozen dinosaurs	Arctic animal string bags
North America	Globe, birthday banner, flags streamer	Cake cutting	Flag Pencil and erasers

DIY Pyramid for Egypt

Then I decided the décor and activities for each, that relate to the continent. Luckily, my parents have been touring around the world since couple of years. And I have free souvenirs from them!!! 😄

Africa and Antarctica are where they haven’t visited and those I really had to create something from scratch.

Passport, boarding pass and pretend suitcase

On the event day, I used my Instax camera to click instant photos of each kid and paste them on each passport, that I had ready with their name and other common details in the passport for them to fill later. I had made sure to label pages with each continent name so it would be easy to paste the stamps on the go. I designed and printed boarding passes which were the invite to the party. Stapled those to each passport! 

Boarding pass

I prepared pretend suitcases using brown gift bags,  labelled their names and stamped some pictures for beauty effect!

Australia Station

1st Stop: Australia – Koala show pieces. Kangaroos belong there, so the activity was Kangaroo hop race using pillow covers in the backyard on lawn, so we have no scratches on driveways and kids are safe! Souvenir was plastic boomerangs I got from Oriental trading site. Candies for being a sport! Stamp on passport and move on!

Asia Station

2nd Stop: Asia – I have lots of Indian and Chinese dragon décor. I used my colorful dupattas to decorate the wall and the table! Activity was a game of chopsticks used to fish out “fish gummies” in 30 seconds! Must say kids are good at using chopsticks! Souvenir was handmade paper fans (I made them) because paper was invented in China – Asia! Stamp on passport and move on!

Africa Station

3rd Stop: Africa – no ready décor, so I had to make my own pyramid using 4 ‘Your Pie’ pizza boxes!!! Picked the easiest design on the internet and added the brick details using markers! Done! Activity was animal bingo sheets that I created on my laptop such that everyone is a winner in the end! Basically, same animals shuffled around to make different combinations of sheets! Candies to ALL winners! Africa = Egypt = hieroglyphs. So, I created, printed and laminated personalized bookmarks for each kid using the symbols and setup a poster for all the letter symbols for each kid to identify their name in the form of hieroglyphs! That’s their souvenir! Stamp on passport and move on!

Europe Station

4^th Stop: Europe – This is the land of love. So, I bought some heart shaped doilies a month ago during Valentine’s month! Pasted them on pink sheets and they made wonderful wall décor. I had leaning tower of Pisa and Eifel Tower show pieces. So, décor was done. Italy = Pizza so, Europe was a pit stop to have lunch!!! 

Souvenir was a 5x7 canvas boards with Eifel Tower drawn on them by me, paint, and a heart candy! Stamp on passport and move on!

South America Station

5th Stop: South America – It was colorful shimmery floor-length wall streamers! Just a pottery skull décor my son had made a while ago! Used a colorful dupatta to cover the table! Activity was using the plastic Easter eggs I had, to make maracas. I drew designs on them using permanent markers. Spoons, beads, tape and voilà-  you have maracas ready! Souvenir was carnival eye masks ! Stamp on passport and move on!

6^th Stop: Antarctica – Again no ready décor, so I made simple penguins and drew a cute whale using cereal boxes! Used a white tablecloth. Activity was excavation. I used small sized paper cups and inserted small plastic dinosaurs, poured water, and froze them! The kids had to crack the ice to discover the dinosaurs. Souvenir was these arctic animal string bags! Stamp on passport and move on!

Birthday cake from Walmart - Edible map

7^th Stop: North America –   This was our final party place where we cut the cake because, we are literally in N America! Décor was a globe, a liberty statue craft my son made in the past and the entire party wall décor! Activity was cake cutting and souvenir was flag printed pencils and eraser!

DIY road map banner

Cake cutting décor – I made the birthday banner using simple black poster sheets, pasted the highway road maps on each and then painted each letter of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Bought the flag streamer and taped Aarav’s world map sheet on the wall!

 

Note: Thru the party, between each continent I sanitized the kid’s hands! They were provided inflight refreshments like chips and juice at different stops!

The kids had a great time. I was nervous if even one kid would get bored, but luckily no one was bored. They were excited for every next continent. It worked out perfectly because it was one of a kind party! No one could guess what to expect next! Kudos to all kids for their full participation and enjoyment! 

DIY souvenirs

Party Invite

It was a whole lot of DIY work for this party, but at the end of the day the kids had so much fun, I am so thankful for that! It was WORTH all the effort put in! 

PS: Anyone here in Savannah/Pooler would like to use any of the posters or placards are welcome to take!

I hope the readers got a fair idea of each detail per continent! Questions are welcome too! Thank you for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home Depot – kids construction project

Reading instructions and following the steps

We recently learnt that the local home construction hardware store Home depot arranges free kids construction sessions every month. It’s held on the first Saturday of each month. So Friday night I saw an ad on my Facebook page and I remembered about this, so I got my son registered.

The session is held from 9am to 12 pm. Once registered, you can stop by between the session times. They provide you a pre-packed kit. The kit has all the required items to make that day’s project. They additionally provide paint and hammer.

Home depot DIY session link

This month was a block calendar. So when we got the kit, it had the raw material of wooden pieces and blocks; A step by step instruction manual that even kids as old as 5 can read and understand. As it was our first time, my husband did the hammering though we let Aarav hold the nails a couple of times.

We were done with the block calendar in 30 mins and then we painted it with my son’s choice of colors.

After drying it, we got home to finish the project. Stuck the stickers and it turned out pretty impressive. More like a manual calendar.

But it was a fun task to introduce tools to my son. He helps my husband to arrange furniture pieces that come with manual assembly. So he knows quite a few tools and reading the instruction manual. But this was his first time doing a project of his own.

The kit also had a badge for completing the project which can be pinned up on the apron they give the first time. I am definitely taking him every month for these sessions. Looking forward to collect all 12 badges this year for him. Already registered for Feb 3^rd project 😊

Growing up in India, we never had any such events. It’s a fun way to introduce different interests and logic building for kids.

So any parents out there in the US, could try one of these session in your local home depot.

Sanibel - Shell capital of the US

Sanibel Causeway - giant hard clams

So this Christmas vacation, we decided to drive down from Savannah GA to Sanibel FL - the island famous for its shells. Commonly known as the Shell capital of the US.

Why Sanibel? So a while ago I researched where to find shells, because normally when we visit the local beaches I hardly find any good shells. And as I surfed the internet, Sanibel came up in my results. So I started reading up and checking videos and indeed it's famous for the large variety of shells that wash up the beaches.

Shark Eye (Moon Shell)

I had shared this information with my husband then. So when we thought where do we vacation this year, he knew exactly where to go. Sanibel it is! Almost 8hr drive from Savannah.

I planned the food for the day through the long drive so we have minimum stops. Though we wanted to start at 5am, we could only start by 5.45am. But we made through the drive really well and we were on the Sanibel island at 2pm.

Shelling at sunrise

Info: The island has a toll entry - $6 each time you enter. Luckily, my husband had booked a hotel on the island so we paid the one time. We stopped right at the beginning of the island and we found these large palm-sized clam shells. I knew I was in for big shelling of my lifetime.

We went straight to Bowman's head beach. It's a lovely stretch of beach with heaps of shells piled up at the beach. Out of habit I did pick a few but they weren't the one's I had looked online, or that I had hoped to find there. From there on, we went to Captiva island; again with not much luck at the shells I wanted.

Lighthouse beach - incredible sunrise

So on our way back we stopped at Blind Pass and saw the most beautiful sunset in the longest time I can remember. The sky had cloud formation by the horizon and the sun rays through and after the sunset threw such a lovely blend of colors, no picture can justify what our eyes saw! The beauty of our nature!

Live Lightning whelks - let them back to the ocean

First morning we made it at the Light house beach at 6.45am to see the sunrise at 7.14am. Again...the beautiful colors of the first rays of the sun, scattering through the grey skies was just unbelieveable! 

SANIBEL - shell capital

Sunset at Blind Pass

It was a pleasant morning with the low tide on, I started shelling by the still waters at the beach. Tons of Apple murex shells with crab like creatures in them. I have never been so friendly with critters, but this time I was indeed having fun exploring the sea beds. I found my first Lightning whelk shell - a big one, buried in the sand. Little did I know that it would be a live whelk..my excitement died in seconds as I knew I had to let it go back in the ocean. So I showed it to my husband and my son and did the next right thing - put it back into the ocean..and this happened about 5 times to me. Finding live whelks and putting them back into the ocean. I was so dejected!

Shells at Gulf City park beach

I was hoping it would pay off at some point. And it did on the next morning.
We ended the first day strolling about the beach and picking other shells like the kittens paw, scallops, clam shells etc.

Day2 morning we went to another beach close to our hotel - Gulfside City Park Beach. My husband had found on his instagram that people had found shells on this beach. As I headed to the beach, the shore was full of fighting conch...sooo many of them. Reminder: there was a low tide at midnight, which probably has showed these shells the way out. By the time my husband paid and parked and came to the beach, the shell bag was half way full of fighting conches! It was payback time indeed. I found all the best shells on this morning the fighting conches in all possible sizes, the empty whelks, olive shells, tulip shells and murex. It got all of us busy shelling on the beach!

Final loot of the day

Truy satisfied, I was done with my shelling desire. Although I didn't find a few of the common items like worm shells, urchins, sand dollars and larger whelks - but, there is no scope to complain when you look at my final loot! 

The beaches had amazing sand castles created by the tourists. Managed to capture pics of few castles.

Beautiful castle with a moat to let the water go around

Tips:
1. Low tide is the best time to do shelling, so do consider checking the times online (I did)
2. Full moons also help in the tides and thus in good shelling.
3. Ideally after storms, the beach is full of the best shells. So may be consider the hurricane/storm season of Sanibel (Aug-Nov).
4. Time of year also would be important. As december was a holiday season I believe there is a larger audience to the amount of shells on the beach.
5. Early morning visit can give you higher chance of finding more shells.
6. Shelling tools like a digging net, sifter would probably help you to pick up chunks of shells on the bed and look through to find tons of shells. ( I didnt have any)

Hopefully this post will introduce you to the joys of shelling and make you visit Sanibel. But I'd definitely mention that whenever you find a live shell, please just put it back into the ocean! It's against the law and its just the right thing to do! There are TONS of dead shells washing up to the shore! I can't wait to go back again, but not anytime soon!

Now, that I have my shells all washed up in clean water and sorted, I am deciding the right way to clean them up. I have studied that using muriatic acid brings out the true colors of the shells, by removing the calcium buildup. For now I have just cleaned them up. I have to shop for the acid and go through the whole process. Really hoping I do it sooner than later like so many of my pending tasks in past year!

Here's to a wonderful new year 2018. I wish all my readers a happy new year! 

Upwork - work from home options.

Hello readers. It's been a really long time since I posted on my blog. I have checked once in a while though. I have thought of posting so many events and occasions, but just kept forgetting with daily chores. 😞

So recently, as in from May 2017 I started working from home. Again, I am put up in a small town that pretty much has no IT jobs. And now that I have an almost 5yr old boy, there is no scope of moving to other cities in search of job; which I have done in the past.

After waiting for almost 6 months for any IT opportunity, I finally thought of looking for any possible "work-from-home" options. I have never been keen to work from home, I am social person and I would like to go to a real work place, meet colleagues and work ..the usual work life!

Anyhow, I really didn't have much hopes of finding anything. But I came across a website https://www.upwork.com/

It had a freelancer account creation. So I followed the usual online profile creation; uploaded my latest resume. This website has logins for both job hunters and job posters. So as a freelancers seeking a job, I can send a proposal to the jobs I search. I basically did a keyword search like "testing"; it shows up tons of jobs posted and you can submit your proposal. Basically the rate at which you want to work etc; its pretty much like a regular online job aplication with resume and cover letter.

If they like your profile they might get back. Also the jobs posted display the pay they are willing to provide. I considered the posts that has a blue tick mark saying "Payment verified". I believe it means they provide payments sincerely.

So I created my account not having much hopes; but to my surprise I got an interview invite mail in 3 days and I agreed to interview and after an hour of video call interview I got the job. Now I won't say the pay is exactly what I'd earn at a regular office job; but it ain't bad either considering I get to work from home, no travel, easy breaks as required.

How it works is once you get a job, the website provides an software to install that clocks your time and takes random snapshots of your PC screen. Basically monitoring your work hours.

Tip: As a freelancer, you can take up free tests on different subjects which I did and I chose to display the scores on my profile. Not sure, but it must definitely make your profile score some points and appeal.

Now it's almost 8 months and I am happily working from home. Infact my entire team works from upwork from different locations across the globe...US west coast, east coast, germany, UK, australia. Everyone works during their day time. I can take breaks as needed (flexible hours), so I can manage getting my son ready for school in the morning, drop him and get back to work; pick him up on some days if my husband is busy at work. And this job came just in time as my son started a 6hr school. So sitting idle at home watching movies and shows would have been such a waste. Instead I get to do what I love and also paid ofcourse!

I wanted to share this information for all those women who are at home after marriage or kids etc...and want to start working. There are different jobs with different work hours. Like my job is 40 hrs/week; so it's like a regular 8hr job. But you can look for jobs like 30hrs per week or anything that really suits your situation, your expected pay and your skills.

Hopefully this post will help one or many readers out there who are looking to get back to work at their pace. Best of luck 😊