Nair Newsline May 2010

What's Up

Mother's Day Celebration
Rashmi Menon really enjoyed Mother's Day this year. Her son Arjun attends a playgroup, and they held a celebration. The mother's coming were asked to wear 70's clothes, and Rashmi won first prize for her costume. While Arjun played with toys, she got a pedicure, recycled old denim, and won another prize for second best recycled item.

Restaurants and Resorts
TaWaah is the name of the new restaurant opened up by Sandeep Pusdekar. Tawaah in Hindi means frying pan. It seats about 50 people, and was opened just a while ago. TaWaah serves a variety of foods including Pulao, different Parathas, or it's own Soya Mushroom Kheema. Desserts and drinks provided are jalebis, lassis, falooda, chai, and coffee. Meanwhile, Sandeep also opened a resort named Wildernest. Wildernest is close to the Singhagad fort and overlooks a few hills. While at this resort, you may catch sight of some deer, or peacocks! It is a lot of fun for families to go to.

Laugh out Loud

Why did the bacon laugh?
Cos' the egg cracked a yolk!

Why was the cookie crying?
Cos' it's mother had been a wafer so long!

What does a confused chicken do?
Lay scrambled eggs!

Why did the doughnut go to the dentist?
To get a chocolate filling!

Why did the boy smear peanut butter on the road?
To go with the traffic jam!

Waiter, this soup tastes funny!
Well, why aren't you laughing?

Where do you learn to make ice-cream?
In sundae school!

What are two things not to have for lunch?
Breakfast and Dinner!

Fantastic Food

Aloo Paratha
Potato filled parathas, delicious eaten hot with butter!
1.Boil a potato for
2.Mash the potato
3.Mix with atta and water so as to form a dough
4. You can add cheese to the dough if you wish
5.Break dough into balls
6.Roll out each ball like a normal paratha
7.Cook on the frying pan
8. Eat it while it's hot!


Art and Craft

Cartooning
What does this word really mean? Is it the art of drawing comics? Something like that, right?
Not exactly.
Cartooning is the art of picturing something in a drawing with as few lines as possible.
And truly, it is not all hard. ANYBODY can do it, anybody that will try.

1.Simple Scribble- Draw a simple scribble, like a line or circle or anything. It should be done in two to five seconds.

2.Think of something this scribble looks like. Does it resemble a shoe? A slice of pizza? I try to generally make my scribbles into a part of a face, or animal. This is a good challenge, but you may prefer easier shapes at first.

Once you get better at silly scribble cartooning, try out a different style.

Object animation

1.Choose an object (ie. Shoe)
2.Draw it quickly without too much attention to detail
3.Add eyes, mouth, eyebrows, showing a particular expression (ie. Shock, fear, anger, worry, joy, laughter)
4.You COULD OPTIONALLY put in hair, ears, nose, but as this is an object it doesn't matter.

HAVE FUN WITH THESE IDEAS!!!!


Super Survey
We interviewed once again, Rashmi Menon, as noone else who was sent the interview has replied. If I didn't send you one and you would like to answer one email me! The month's topic is hobbies.

What are your favourite hobbies?
Reading, cooking, and dancing.

What was the one hobby you would have done as a kid that you didn't do?
Skating. I've always wanted to learn it.

Hobbies that your kids or grandkids did/do:
None, I don't have any grandkids, and Arjun doesn't have any hobbies!

A hobby you pursued as a child that you no longer do?
That would be painting.

YOUR SPACE
Remember we love to hear things from you! What's going on in your life, your favourite part of the newsline, a topic you want written on. If we haven't sent you any interviews yet and you would like to answer one, you can request it.
Email all of this to karunanair99@gmail.com .

The Nair Newsline

School in India-Summer hols
In India, there's no school right now! The summer holiday is officially halfway finished! Send us a comment or an email on what you've been doing or will be doing and we'll post it right here !

School in Oz
Last month we put up an article on how Aman Nair was going in school with social development. We are happy to report him coming out of his shell. Aman happily talks and plays with his friend Byron and he also joins in with playtime and packing up. He enjoys school and has started waving to his teachers too! Meanwhile, Karuna Nair, in Yr 6, is also enjoying herself with extra Clarinet, TAGS, and PEAC at school. The TAGS class is making a yearbook, and at this stage Karuna is helping with classroom pages and the ANZAC day. Meanwhile, in PEAC, she's writing a speech on energy resources to be performed to the parents of the PEAC class.

Fantastic Food
Our chefs....so far! You can join as a chef by submitting recipes to karunanair99@gmail.com.
Vinod Nair, a top baker
Renu Nair, makes great indian food
Karuna Nair, likes making up recipes
Rashmi Menon, likes trying out recipes

Easy as Choccie Fudge/Rocky Road
Delicious chocolate to stick your teeth in, it's even better as rocky road.
For the Fudge
2 x 175g blocks of dark cooking chocolate
1 x 400g tin of sweetened condensed milk
2 tbs of butter
For the rocky road, in addition to fudge ingredients
150gm mixed nuts
100gms of marshmallows
1x small bar of Turkish Delight chopped

Preparation method
1. To make the fudge; first, break up the 2 blocks of dark cooking chocolate into a large microwave safe bowl , then pour over the sweetened condensed milk and add the butter.
2. Zap in the microwave on 60% power for 3 mins. Once finished remove from the microwave and stir to combine
3. Pour into a greased slice dish and put into the fridge to set for a minimum of 2 hrs.
4. Slice and serve – enjoy!
5.To make the rocky road; once the mix has come out of the microwave and has been stirred, add the nuts, marshmallows , Turkish Delight
6. Stir to combine and the pour into a greased slice dish set in fridge to set for a minimum of 3 hrs.
7. Slice into pieces and enjoy!

Wacky Milkshakes
This month we're putting in a Tasty Tropical milkshake recipe!
Ingredients are-
*Banana
*Apple
*Milk
*Strawberry
*Blueberry
*Cheese
*And some choccie chips!
The combined flavour of fruits is awesome! But make sure that your choccie chips get dissolved or atleast mixed in with the milk or they'll end up at the bottom of the cup.

Laugh out Loud -Music Jokes

Why was the musician arrested?
Because he got in treble!

Where did the music teacher leave her keys?
In the piano!

What is Beethoven doing in his grave?
De-composing!

Where can you play elastic guitar?
In a rubber band!

How do you get cool music?
Put your CDs in the fridge!

What music do balloons hate?
Pop!

Which food is essential to good music?
The beet!

What is a computers favourite music?
Disc-o!

Art and Craft
Here are some activities that I did at my Art Workshop that would be neat to try out at home! The #@* means it's completely kid-approved!
(Code- #= OK
#@=Good
#@*= Fun!!

Still Life #@*
What you will need-
An object- plant, or maybe some fruit
Pencil, eraser, sharpener
Paper
Draw the object from different angles. If you want to do this with your kids, encourage them to colour theirs in however they want.

Clay Modelling#@*
What you will need-
A slab of sand clay, or as an alternate some dough
Popsticks (option, to help smooth out or draw in clay)
A mug of water
Dip your hands in water so that the clay will easily shape. The rest is in your hands! You could model a real object, create shapes, just play around, whatever! After you're finished and the clay is dry, if you want some fun you can bake it and paint it, and it will be a cool keepsake!


Contour#
What you need-
Pen- A thin marker or a felt pen
Paper
Object- ie. Shoe, your hand
This is a bit harder. You need to draw your shoe, hand, or whatever, without lifting the pen off the page whatsoever. Everything is connected. This is done in pen to discourage removal of lines (ie. People erase their mistakes to make their drawing perfect, and this is a totally un-perfectionist kind of thing)


Money Making#@*
This wasn't included in my workshop but it's still fun.
What you need-
A note of money
Paper
Pencil, Eraser, Sharpener
If you want, you can use a thin-line black marker for outlining
Look carefully at the details on the note- a famous person, beautifully sketched, signatures, symbols, the number, and thousands of fine lines. Think of your own symbol, a person or whatever you'd want on your very own money. Trace in the outline of the note before using it as a guide for your own note. Mine included a penguin, some plants, and a music note. What do you want yours to be?

Super Survey
This month we once again interviewed Rashmi Menon, this time on Education In India.

Do you think the education system in India helps and teaches your child a lot?
Yes, I think education in India gets the basics right and is not too bad. I might not suggest post graduate study here though.

What are some of it's good points?
*It's a lot more practical these days
*There are lots of activities, and plenty of parent involvement
*Usage of audios and visuals helps kids understand things

What are some of it's bad points?
*Some subjects are extremely vast and irrelevant
*Education is becoming more dear
*A lot of the times teachers are focusing on student's grades and it's a rat race instead of an education; plus, it is easy to memorise something for an exam, whether or not you will retain that is the question.

Any suggestions for the system?
*Learn through play
*Make education cheaper
*Make sure it's available to all classes of society
*Education should be based on interests of the child
*The education provided should relate to real life, not just be by the book (literally!)

How does your child feel about the system?
Arjun (3, turning 4) is very happy about his school as they play and don't force things on the children.


Your Space

Thanks to Rashmi Menon for replying to the Survey, plus she put forth a topic on how some sprays and fertilisers are killing crops. What's your say on this? Want an article on it or your own topic? Send in an email. Want to put forth your opinion on this? Post a comment.