The Delectable Delights

Hey everyone!!Club activities are in full swing at Sancta Maria. Children are having fun and there are no words to express their joy.

After the brainstorming session with students, 3 clubs were chosen from their suggestions.

The Meccano Club –A club for materializing different scientific ideas into real /prototype models,

The Delectable Delights-A club for budding gourmets and

The Creative Club –A club for making the best use of one’s artistic skills

They were started on 7^TH July 2011.

“The Delectable delights” -Wondering what it could be?

As the name says, it is the place where we have absolute fun and happiness from self-cooked delicious food. Yes, “The delectable delights” is Sancta Maria’s cookery club.

But is there anything that you learn here other than cooking and eating??

Well! It’s not. There are so many other things accomplished in the background.

Children learn to plan things well (plan the recipe, shop for ingredients), how to store food, time management, presentation, nutrition and hygiene, responsibility, seasonal awareness, safety procedures and above all just the plain enjoyment of eating!!

Other benefits for children cooking also include:

Opportunities for mastery of new skills, self-confidence, the art of giving for other's enjoyment, a sense of service, increased creativity and imagination, better self-image which comes with accomplishment.

We have our club activities on every Thursday. Here are some snippets of our activities in the month of July.

On the 7^th of July, we made hedgehog chocolate slices. Though we could not make slices, kids really got absorbed into the caramelized yummy taste of the chocolate-nut mixture.

On 14^th, we made Chatpata Pasta-a creative way of cooking pasta in Indian Chat style. Have a look at the mouth-watering picturesJ

Cute little Zehra cutting vegetables

Students engrossed in cooking

Finally the yummy Pasta

Hey we had fun!!

On 21^st, We had a surprise cook who taught the kids a simple yet very exiting recipe. Guess who it could be?

Yes…Mrs.Ratnalekha Shetty, our principal taught the kids to make Salsa Papad-a tomato-cheese filling in papad. Here are the pictures.

On 28^th ,Supriya Jain ,Principal’s PA came up with a very interesting recipe-Kachi Dabeli. It is a Gujarati snack.Believe me-the kids could not resist a second serving. It was scrumptious!!!

The students are also taught to clean the workspace after cooking!!So moms…look forward to see your kids making more lip-smacking dishes for you at home!!!!

Second TAAD @ Sancta Maria

“Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!”

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The finer senses awoke from its routine slumber when Sancta Maria witnessed the 2^nd TAAD (The Appreciation of Arts Day ) on 29^th of July in the school.

The percussionists performed; the music reverberated and prevailed!

Ankita at the drums and Sai with the ‘dholak’ brought music to life. The rigour of their ‘jugalbandi’ obliged all the feet to tap and the bodies to swing. It was sheer magic!!

Absolute awe abound when Sai rendered a Telugu folk song along with playing the ‘kanjeera’ (a South Indian frame drum, an instrument of the tambourine family. ). The pace and the rhythm of the’ kanjeera’ brought Urska ( our French teacher ) almost to her feet with her arms up in the air trying to catch up with the beat!

Needless to say, the children were spell bound! This was the first time at Sancta Maria that a fusion of the Western and Indian classical music was experimented on. We definitely hope that in due course our children will become ‘little connoisseurs’ of art in any form!

Be Positive

An old farmer had a mule that fell into the farmer's well. The water wasn't very deep, so the mule was able to stand on the bottom. After assessing the situation the farmer sympathized with the mule but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth saving. The farmer called his neighbours together and told them what had happened and asked them to help fill dirt in the well to bury the old mule and put him out of his misery. Initially the mule was hysterical, but as the farmer and his neighbours continued to shovel dirt on his back a thought struck him. Every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he would shake it off and step up. This he did, blow after blow of dirt hitting his back. Shake it off and step up...Shake it off and step up... Shake it off and step up. The mule repeated this statement over and over to encourage himself no matter how painful the blows or distressing the situation seemed, the old mule fought panic and just kept on shaking it off and stepping up. It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped over the wall of the well. What had seemed would bury him actually saved him because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

That's life. If we face our problems and respond to them positively and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness or self-pity...the adversities that come along to bury us often have within them the very real potential to benefit us.

By Chetna & Ankita

Cultural bridge

I want to tell you about a very special bridge I have been fortunate to stand on. It is a bridge between two different cultures a person had a chance to get to know to such extent that he/she actually understands it, accepts it fully and respects it. You look left and right and you can connect to both the cultures in a special way and it becomes crystal clear that making any comparisons is beyond unfair.

First time it happened to me was when I went to USA as an exchange student to spend my senior year of high school submerged in the culture I knew nothing of.  I started off as any greenhorn on this field. USA was a “wow”! From neatest lawns I have ever seen, to widest roads, to stores opened 24/7, to drive through ATMs, friendly people - you name it!  I was absolutely overwhelmed with everything and beyond impressed. Few months passed and surprisingly the admiration and awe turned into something more negative. I all of a sudden thought Americans are shallow and superficial and everything that amazed me before turned into over done facades I no longer appreciated. I was frantically comparing everything to my country and due to sever home sick phase nothing could compare to my precious homeland.  I call this a stage two of the submerging into a new culture. Stage one being the “wow” stage! As I learned later in life this “wow” stage can also be in a different context all together. Like “holy cow!” type of a wow stage.

Few more months passed in my USA experience, nearing a year in fact, when for the first time this magnificent bridge appeared out of nowhere. I was standing on it with a whole different look on the newly discovered culture. I no longer had anything bad to say about any American or their culture. Even the jokes about the dumb Americans, and their lack of geographical knowledge weren’t so funny anymore. This rather special bridge made me see and feel the culture. I saw clearly why comparing is impossible, why passing judgment about any aspect of a different culture, custom or  religion is a useless, unproductive task. In fact, it can be rather harmful because it does not promote openness to cultural diversity.

Later on in life I met face to face with India! The stages might have been a bit different - the “wow” phase was not so impressive - but eventually the bridge appeared. It took a lot of ups and downs to reach it. A lot of positive and intensely negative experiences as well. India challenged me like no other country before.

So, how do you know you are on the bridge? It becomes clear when you are no longer able to explain to the other side why a certain seemingly weird and shocking aspect of a culture is actually quite normal and interesting. They don’t get it! They think you are weird all of a sudden. “You have changed!”

Yes, getting to know a new culture changes you forever. It makes you stronger, richer, widens your horizons and like my grandfather put it before I left for my first longer stay in foreigner country: “Remember, each culture you get to know for more than a year – equals to a university degree from the most reputable institution.” I couldn’t agree more. Maybe the graduation ceremony is when you find yourself standing on the bridge!

Singing on the tree

When a first grader is given a choice of:

1. Let's sing the french ABC song once again (in the classroom) or

2. Climb up the tree and sing the french ABC song to the world (outdoors)

Which one would he choose?

Lost

Although it might read like totally out of place i want to share a story with you. My favorite one to tell! :)

I got lost once and it was the most amusing and wacky experience of my life. It happened back in January 1995. Like migrating birds we flew south to warm weather for training. Our destination was South America. A town called Los Andes, Chile where we were to spend the majority of the winter. 

We flew to Santiago, the capital of Chile in late afternoon and then hit the road to Los Andes. We arrived in dark. The morning dawned and everything seemed new and different from our half frozen homeland. We enthusiastically set of for our first training on the river somewhat far from our base. River was grand. Training was splendid. When done our coach instructed us to do few more runs cooling down and then continue downstream until we see an opening in the vegetation on our left.  That is where our van was waiting. That is where we should disembark.

Well, taken by the striking flora and colorful vegetation decorating the banks I went down stream with a romantic look at the whole setting.  Obviously distracted I didn’t look left at the right time and went past the disembarking place unaware. So I paddled and paddled and admired the nature and soon realized I obviously missed it.

The river was not the kind to permit such mistakes. Too little eddies to even attempt progressing against the stream.  I did consider getting out and walking back at one point of time but then I suddenly noticed a familiar hill with a cross on top in the distance and recognized it as a hill I have seen close to our place. The river was visibly going in the right direction so why not just follow it? I decided to get home on my own.

The hill still appeared far off and the river’s gotten more rapid and alarmingly noisy. I vividly imagined those classic scenes from cartoons where a boat falls over a gigantic waterfall surprising all involved and decided to disembark right then and there.  Just then I spotted some laborers at the banks, collecting stones. Armed with my French, Italian and some Spanish I was convinced everything is solved and they will tell me where to go. As it turned out they were Portuguese. Not the brightest ones either! Pantomime skills did the trick at the end and they pointed me in a direction where I was supposed to go. Ok, so far so good. Geared up in complete kayaking attire with a paddle in one hand and a kayak resting on my other shoulder I started to march across vast tobacco fields following a Portuguese who kept smiling. Oh, boy, I am sure he was just holding back the laughter…honestly, so was I.

After painstaking 30 minutes walk through the tobacco fields we arrived at the deserted construction site where I met an engineer who spoke some English. Thank god! I briefed him on what has happened and he agreed to help me get back to our house. Did I mention I had no freaking idea what the address was?!? So this young engineer suggested we take the bus. It must have been kind of logical that I have no money on me and seeing my hesitation he reassured me that he will pay for the ride. 

Perfectly dressed for the occasion (ahem!) I headed for the bus. Well it would have been a perfect attire if bus was actually a kayak! So wearing my helmet, a life jacket and a paddle still in my hand, my neoprene shorts and spray deck dangling in front of my legs i boarded the bus and immediately the entire bus went silent and staring. I froze my smile and looked straight.

 

Not knowing the address I scrutinized the route we were on and tried remembering even a slightest thing from the day before. I had no clue where I was.  After 20 minutes or so, people still staring at me in disbelief, the bus took a left turn and I recognized the road. I started nodding enthusiastically to let my engineer friend know I finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. But then the bus took another turn and I shrieked. “No! Stop the bus!” I honestly didn’t want to part from the slightly familiar road.

We continued on foot.  By this time I couldn’t care less what everyone thought seeing me parading the town in my kayaking gear. I turned into a hound dog trying to figure out where we stay. I was even sniffing the air trying to catch a scent of my fellow team mates. The familiar road became definitely the road I recognized from a day before and I knew where to go.  At last the light at the end of the tunnel became bright and obvious and I found our place. Hallelujah!

My team mates already finished their dinner, my coaches still on the search for me (oops!) I finally found my way back. Paid of the engineer and felt absolutely victorious about the ordeal I went through.

E-Learning

Children enjoying educational games over the Web.

" The telephone wire, as we know it, has become too slow and too small to handle Internet traffic. It took 75 years for telephones to be used by 50 million customers, but it took only four years for the Internet to reach that many users. "

ICT (Information and Communications Technology) --- a new ‘literacy’, alongside reading, writing and numeracy.

Avantika and Shailja.......

Prof. Alan Sener's visit to Sancta Maria

“Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, and the most beautiful of the arts; because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life, it is life itself.” – Havellok Elis.

Sancta Maria was mesmerized with the presence of the illustrious ballet and contemporary dancer Prof. Alan Sener, who is also the chairs the dance department of the University of IOWA, New York.

Prof. Alan Sener, along with our dance teacher, Aparna performed….. rather …….improvised on the spot dance movements; the toes turned and twisted, the hands wandered, the body floated…. It was perfect!

The children were in awe!!!!

Prof. Alan Sener also spoke about ‘nothing being impossible’ and urged the students to follow their dreams. When it was students’ turn to ask questions, they were eager to know how long had Prof. Alan Sener been dancing! Aditya (Grade 2) curiously put forward the question “Did you study first and then danced or vice versa?” Jordan, Grade 6 got so inspired that he wanted to demonstrate his dancing skills as well!

Not to forget the patience and grace that Prof. Alan Sener displayed throughout. A True Class Apart!!

Thank You Prof. Alan Sener

Inspired!

Not the best picture of THE BEST WELCOME  BOARD :)  

We had a visiting guest today. Professor Allen. If anyone was rolling their eyes before the assembly in a "now what?!?" manner, surely no one was left unmoved after seeing Allen dance. It might have even awoken some feelings of regret in the more mature spectators - for the opportunities missed, paths that strayed from dreams, passion lost to daily chores of reality...(I could swear i saw a little ballerina girl in Sajuya's eyes) but also revealed a thirst for dancing (Uma and I will definitely organize a dance night for teachers very shortly!). For our students though,  it must have been a pure inspiration. They have everything ahead of them.

I was struck by a question Pia posed: "Was it easy to be a dancer?" With a clear and sure no, as a response. Nothing is easy in this life that is for sure but with even only a pinch of passion, everything is easier. I think finding what excites you in life and what brings out the passion in a person is ultimately what separates an ordinary life from an extraordinary one.

He called himself "crazy" because he has been dancing for 35 years already - we all know  it just means  he found  that  amazing source of passion that separates him from ordinary people.

I was also very proud of our dance teacher Aparna to have joined him on the stage and showed her passion for the dance. Our kids are in great hands in her classes and no doubt she inspires them through the dance moves she teaches. They performed a dancing dialog - an improvised dance form that left most of us spellbound. 

A very memorable event this was indeed. A lovely display of passion and hard work to our precious students - the best thing we can give them on a daily basis. Surely it will help them find their own passion when time comes.

Pia Blogs :D

Why Photography ?

I wanted to write what photography has meant to me ,Until i was 9 ,taking pictures was only when mum and I went on a vacation ,only then i was allowed to touch the camera .Anything in way was a still photograph ,a car ,a pencil a dustbin ,yellow ,green,black.No-matter what it had to be a photograph ,i mean i passed through it ! through the years its become a passion ,a hobby .Photographs are memories ,each photograph i take is a small part of my life whether it is a fence or a cup of coffee .

The "art" of photography is SEEING .
by Pia "Grade 9 "
Santa Maria International School

http://piapictures.blogspot.com/

Road Safety Week @ Sancta Maria

Ready for a safe drive!

Brainstorming "stops"!

Brainstorming "stops"!

Brainstorming "stops"!

Not to forget the traffic stop at Pre-Primary as well!

The Pre-Primers at the cross roads!

'Safe Journey'!

The calm, inviting roads...........

Soon hustling with activity

Beware! Train on tracks!

Meanwhile the elder ones are creating signposts for school