A Child’s Diary: Idhika Diwan’s Corona Lockdown Days

November 24, 2019

There was a four day holiday given by the government. We spent three day holiday in countryside for relaxation and to look at farms. I fed farm animals, and learnt new things.

When we were going by car to our destination, we saw lot of trucks on the highway. My father suggested us to count the tyres of these passing trucks. The maximum number of tyres for one truck was 22. When we reached the province called Chachoengsao, I saw rice farms with storks. My family went to three temples of Lord Ganesha. The statues were very big. In the first statue, Lord Ganesh was sitting straight. It was pink in colour and beside a rice field. The second statue was near a river. There were three elephants near the temple. I fed them with bananas. I found these elephants very cute.

Then I noticed that their leg was tied with a chain. I am sure that the middle elephant was youngest because it was playful. I felt sad as they were tied.  The third statue of Lord Ganesha was very big and black in colour. Out of all the statues that I saw, this was the biggest one. This statue was made from metal and was in standing in straight position. In this temple, there were plastic flowers with candles in the middle. We floated one in a small pond near the Lord. When we reached the hotel, it was dark; our room was next to the lake of ducks and geese.

We stayed in a stilt house and the fish in the lake, kept going under our room. There was also a bird park in the resort. Next morning before leaving, we went to see the birds.  When I was in the bird farm, I wore a bird hair clip. I even saw ducks incubating. Once, when we went near a mother duck incubating, she made a hissing sound. The father duck came near us quacking loudly. We quickly went away so that they wouldn’t get disturbed.        

Next day, we went to a buffalo farm in the afternoon. The farm had a mini train (a tractor and mini carriages).  There were also feeding animals services. I and my brother fed the carrots and cabbage to the rabbits. Then we fed the buffaloes two litres of milk. There were various activities for kids to join. Our first activity was making Do-It-Yourself (DIY) soap. I made purple colour soap with my name on it. The instructor told us to arrange our names, with soap letters. He also told, “If we want to, we can add cartoon characters also”.

I arranged my name with green and yellow soap letters, with a soap unicorn and three soap stars. They told us to arrange these letters, in a mirror image. He gave us primary colours to mix them for our soap. I selected blue and red while my brother selected yellow and red. After this, the instructed asked us to add two droplets of these selected colours into a hot fluid liquid.

We poured this coloured hot liquid in the soap case. If any of our soap letters floated, we could push them down with an ice cream stick. The soap was kept in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden. After 30 minutes, we picked our soaps with a case. I felt surprised that we could make soap by ourselves in just 45 minutes. I am eager to use my soap for a bath.

The second activity was planting rice.  The instructors gave us a pair of socks to wear. At first, the farmer instructor gave us a pot. They taught us to plant rice in the pot and grow it by ourselves at our home. The first step, they told was to mix the soil with water. Then the instructor gave us rice seeds to put inside in the pots. Later, we went to the field and then planted the young rice saplings in the soil. When I stepped down, the soil was slippery and had big holes in it. I kept falling inside while walking, so the farmer instructor held my hand. I put rice saplings in a line, at some distance, in the field.

Then we climbed up the stairs to reach the top of a mudslide. It was indeed fun. I have never slid on a mud before. I was nervous at the beginning but after falling in the muddy water, I felt happy. I slid five times on this slide. At one time, I and my younger brother came down the slide together. We went to take a bath after this fun as we were muddy. My mom said that we were tired after only 1 hour in a farm. Imagine if you were a farmer, how much tired would you get?  Farmers have to work very hard every day in such fields. They will get very tired. So we shouldn’t waste food. I always try not to waste food and not to be picky eater.

Like me, my younger brother has also written 5 sentences about our holiday. He drew a drawing of duck and macaw also. He also wants to write a blog like me.    Bye for now and don’t waste food.

November 19, 2020

Happy Diwali

One week before Diwali, I had holidays. One afternoon, in the holidays, I taught my friend how to play UNO. UNO is a card game. My friend was confused how to play UNO. But he loved the game. I also made a new friend, as my old friend introduced me to him. Now I have many friends in my house lane. I enjoyed playing with them every day in the holidays.

Diwali is also called the “Festival of Lights”. We celebrate this festival with fireworks. One week before Diwali, we made decorations out of old things like bangles, ice-cream boxes, old origami sheets (thin paper sheets). One afternoon, we went outside to by some stuff for crafts and diyas.  The first craft was my dad’s Akash Kandil, which is a lantern hung outside the house. 

The second craft was a Toran (a wall hanging on the door), made by me, my younger brother with help from my mom. My mom and I were covering the bangles with a yarn for the toran. I tried by myself but couldn’t do that. Instead, I helped my dad test the lights intensity in the Akash Kandil by putting the LED inside it.

In Thailand, flower garlands for God sometimes have plastic flowers in it. Only 4 flowers are plastic while others are fresh.  We cut the plastic flowers out from the garland and collected them, for 1 month.  During the holiday week, I and my younger brother painted these flowers in different colours like green, purple, blue, orange, and red. We are going to reuse them to make Toran.

Next, we weaved these painted flowers with a pattern of 10 flowers of each colour. We put a black coloured bead after every 10 flowers. At each end, we put my old bangle so that flowers don’t get out of thread. We hung the toran with the help of bangles. When my dad saw the Toran, he said that it was very beautiful.

On Diwali day, I and my younger brother decorated our house front door. When we were working, my friend came to ask us to play with him. But instead, we asked him to help us in the decorations. He said yes and together we tied flowers at the top of the door. My friend also helped us to decorate the swing in our front yard and the main gate.

We did the Diwali Pooja in the evening. I and my younger brother decorated the Pooja using our toys (Lego and Bingo). We used Lego to make beautiful flower designs. We also again reused coluored pistachio shells to make rangoli for Pooja. I was excited for the Pooja but I was more excited for the fire crackers. So after the Pooja and dinner, we went outside for the fire crackers. At first my younger brother was scared of the pattack bomb (a fire cracker, which when you throw makes a noise and the flash of light is seen, best to do at night outdoor).

Then we lit up the rocket Fuljadi – a straw with small fire crackers inside, when fire is lit on the wick it will sizzle for 5 sec. ,then 1 small fire cracker will pop out of the straw with the others following.  We also lit lots of Fuljhadis – a cracker which will sizzle and is the brother of rocket Fuljadi. When we lit the fuljhadi on fire, it sizzles and makes sparks of fire which are normally yellow in colour but can come in different colours like blue, red, pink and green.

After Diwali day, we had many fire crackers left. I invited my friends to light fire crackers. They had never lit fire crackers before. I was excited to spend time with my friends while enjoying fire crackers. The next day, I and my friends cleaned up the mess of fire crackers. My friends asked when are we going to light the fire crackers. She explained to them that colours of the fire crackers can only be seen when it gets dark. Later they came at night and we enjoyed the fire crackers again. I felt happy on all these days.

My school started on Monday, after Diwali. Winter season is starting. We get less time to play as the sun sets earlier than summer. I miss summer a lot as I get to play for longer time with my friends.

Bye for now!! Happy Reading!!

November 9, 2020

Exam ends and end break starts

Now, my final term one exams have ended. The exams were for 3 days. There is a 9 day term break. I feel sad and happy for my term break. I am sad because I miss my best friends and I am happy because I get to play a lot with my younger brother.

On this Saturday, there was beach cleaning of my old pre-school. It was early in the morning. After we reached the beach, we wore gloves because we don’t want to get our hands dirty. There was a lot of trash waiting for us. The beach had creeper plants with trash in their roots and trash on the sand. I and my mom picked up the trash near plants as other younger children can’t go there. The trash was bottle caps, foam, plastic ropes and yarns, and plastic spoons and forks. I picked it up with a tong. This beach cleaning activity happens every year after the festival “Loy Krathong”. Krathong is a banana stem, wrapped with banana leaves and decorated with flowers.

An essence stick and candles are also placed on top of the Krathong. People light the candle and push it into the water. All the floating krathongs look very beautiful in the water.  Every year, my parents help me to float the krathong but this year, I kept the krathong in the sea by myself. In this festival, we pray to the river because the river gives us water, which is important to our lives. Lot of people go to the beach with the krathong and have a picnic. That is why it is important to clean the beach after this festival.   

On weekend, my family went to a party at the beach. The party was for celebrating Diwali. I got dressed nicely. There were beanbags on the beach. I sat on them and found that it was hard to get up. There were candles on every table. My brother thought that they were real but they were actually LED lights. I met a new friend and my old friend in the party. I liked that the spoon and forks, for eating, were made from wood. So there will be no plastic pollution at the beach. The party had 2 games. One was BINGO and the other was a couples game. I participated in the couple game with my mother. But we were out in the first round itself. I continued to cheer for my friend, who was participating with her elder brother. Later there was a fire show. I didn’t want to watch the fire show because I was scared that the fire would come on me. The fire show was on the sand. 2 people performed the show using sticks and fire. After the show, there were fireworks in the sky. They were colourful. I loved them but was a bit scared so I watched from far away.  My younger brother was the opposite of me.  At night, I and my mom danced. I was happy and tired after the party.

My favorite book is “Matilda”. The author of this book is Roald Dahl. Matilda is a girl who is very clever. She learnt a lot of things before going to school. She still did attend the school with her friends. I love the part in which Lavender; a student puts a newt (an animal) into Miss.Trunchball’s glass. Miss.Trunchball’s is the school s principal and all the students are scared of her. Ms. Honey is Matilda’s class teacher- she is very kind and gentle. I was astonished to know that Ms. Trunchball is Ms. Honey’s aunt.  There was no part of the book that I didn’t like. I loved the whole book. But I don’t want a school like that.  

In the term break, we are preparing for a festival called “Diwali”. It is also called festival of lights. Yesterday, we started Diwali cleaning of our house. I dusted the tables and showpieces. I rearranged my soft toys.  I and my younger brother made flower decorations from LEGO. I and my mom are trying to make an “Akash Kandil”, a lantern.

I will share about my Diwali celebrations in the next blog.

Wishing all of you “Happy Diwali”.

October 26, 2020

Long weekend

I am writing my blog after 1 month due to my exams. This blog is about all the fun activities after my exams.

We went to “Royal Thai Air Force Museum” or “RTAFM” on Sunday. The museum was all about planes. My dad explained that there were 2 types of engines called propeller and jet. The planes were of actual size. The exit was looking funny because it looked like a plane door (inside and outside). We also sat in the cockpit of a cargo plane. I got inside the cockpit by climbing up short stairs. I felt really excited while sitting in the cockpit. There were more than 100 control switches. My dad explained to me the settings of a plane.

My family went to a province called Pattaya. We stayed in a hotel after Covid, the first time. Yippee!!! My family went there to relax and enjoy. There was a swimming pool and a waterfall with 2 slides.  The second, big slide was 1m deep. Can you try to guess where the small slide landed?  My height was 1.2 m.  After check-in, we went to the swimming pool. First I went to the small slide’s stairs and climbed them up. Hold on tight!!! Splash! I fell in to the deep water. But my mom caught me. I also learned floating on my back.

For Occupation subject, our class made sushi for lunch. First, we voted for the menu for the class on 14^th October. Sushi got maximum votes – 24 out of 28 votes. Our class was divided into five groups. I and my friends group’s name was Rainbow. We then divided what to bring to make Sushi. I needed to bring a cutting board, boiled shrimps, radish, shoyu, wasabi. On that day, we made sushi in the third and fourth subject. Before making sushi, there was a break so we could get all the things ready. I was wearing a red apron. I found it easy to make. Sushi made by our group tasted like sushi from a restaurant. I enjoyed this activity and hope that there would one more activity like this.

On the next weekend, we went to a mall to see “Dino Fest”. When I and my younger brother entered there, we saw

Real Living Dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were moving their tails and heads and even fighting with each other. They were making fierce noises. I was not scared of them. Suddenly, it was raining, and T-Rex came inside the mall. It tried to scare the children away. I was a bit scared. The T-rex was having an easy life like eating ice-cream, going to a beauty parlour, eating bread, and even going to a sale!!!

One afternoon, I and my younger brother went to play and saw our friends holding a stick with a bell attached and a collar. They were going on a healthy (not a car scratcher), pet cat hunt. We found one cat after 15 minutes near an empty house. We discussed who will be this pet cat’s owner. My friends said “I don’t have a pet so I and my younger brother should be the cat’s owner”. I was delighted to get a pet cat but my parents did not allow the cat to come inside the house. The first time we didn’t put the collar on the cat’s neck because she was very sleepy. After we let the cat go, we played test.

One of my friends was teacher while I and my younger brother were her students. I got 100 out of 100 while my younger brother got 99 out of 100. Later, we found the cat again. So we put the collar on her neck. I saw that the cat was rubbing her face on the branches of a tree with spiky leaves. I thought that the best name for her is Shinyeyes because the cats eyes are green and very shiny. After this day, we have not seen the cat. I hope that Shinyeyes comes back as I am making a new collar for her.

On this Sunday, 25^th October, we celebrated a festival called “Dasara”. It is a festival when Lord Rama killed demon Ravana. I and my younger brother made flowers from pistachio shell. My mom couldn’t make flowers from Lego so I made flowers out of them instead. On that day, we did a pooja of books and pencils. We wore traditional Indian clothes for the pooja. We also wore the same clothes while playing with our friends. They asked us why we were wearing such clothes. I told them that we are celebrating an Indian festival today.

Now my finals are coming. I will write the next blog after my exams because I will have holidays after the exam.

September 21, 2020

Dad’s Birthday

Do you remember the “fun” in the last blog? In this blog I am going to tell the secret of “Fun”.

It is actually my dad’s birthday. On the day before his birthday, we made 2 greeting cards. On his birthday morning, after dad woke up, we gave him our greeting cards. At that time my mom played happy birthday song. In my greeting card for dad, I only used crayons to draw and colour. It was an underwater world “but with no aquatic animals”. Ha ha!!!

In the evening, I and my younger brother wrote “Happy Birthday” with pistachio shells on a table. We wrote “Best Baba” with our alphabet blocks. We also arranged our heart shape penstand and cars to support it. There were 2 cakes on the table – honey rose, strawberry ice-cream cake. My mom made the honey rose cake by herself.  My dad mixed the cakes to make a delicious, new cake flavor called strawberry rose cake.  Every year, my grandparents are here on my dad’s birthday. So we made a video call to them when my dad was cutting the birthday cake.

Do you remember about letter, in the English subject, which I wrote in the 13^th blog? The letter finally arrived now. After I came back from school, I saw the letter on our sofa. I was excited to open it. But mom said I need to open it after bath and a thank you message to my teacher. I now know the surprise. It is a chocolate and a pair of wobbly eyes. Wobble wobble!!! I and my younger brother both wanted the chocolate, so we started a fight. But my mom also had chocolate in the fridge, so she gave one to my younger brother and then we ended the fight of chocolates.

On Saturday, I finished reading a book by the author Enid Blyton. The name of the book is “Snowball the Pony”. This is the 1^st time I am reading a book by this author. It was all about a black Shetland pony. Shetland horses or ponies are very small horses with rough hair. The book is all about a young black Shetland pony named Snowball and three children named Willie, Sheila, and Timmy. I loved the part when Snowball went to open the pigsty’s latch by himself. I thought the pony was clever. I want to buy a pony like Snowball.

Now our school has opened the swimming pool for us. I needed to find my swimming costume, cap, goggles, and towel at home to take to school. All of my friends (including me) were excited because we didn’t go to the swimming pool for 7 months.

On every Friday, the second subject for primary is Boy Scout. In this week, we are learning how to dress our wounds. The most important thing is to wash your hands cleanly before touching a wound. Our teacher taught us so that we can dress the wound by ourselves if we get hurt.

A typhoon was going to hit the South coast of Thailand on the weekend. We are safe because we live in the East. But we have typhoon effects in our city like heavy rain and wind. In this time, I and my

mom experienced rare weather condition in the morning. There was light rain, clear sky, and cool wind. I loved this weather so I ate my morning banana and drank warm water outside in our yard, on the swing. I even read a book outside. But the rain and wind continued the whole day. In the evening, my father had a great idea.

We had a BBQ party with all vegetables and home made kebabs. But this time, the coal was taking longer time to burn. This happened because we didn’t dry it before using for BBQ. I and my younger brother became hungry. So my mother played a podcast to distract us. Finally the coal burnt and we had a nice BBQ party. Yum!! Yum!!

In the next week, I am planning to read “Aladdin”. I am going to tell you about the book in the next blog. Keep reading if you want to know more about it!!!        

September 14, 2020

Mid-term exam ends

This week’s school was exciting because there were lots of fun activities to learn. In the “English” class, we are learning about imaginative and real flying animals. Our teacher asked us to chose between games – HANGMAN and 20 questions. My class chose the game, 20 questions, as it was easy and fun game to play. My class needed 15 questions to guess the answer, which was a dragon.

After that, we watched the movie “Hiccup”. The movie is all about Vikings. They are people who fight and live on a boat and are explorers. The movie is about a young boy called Hiccup and his friends Astrid, Fishlegs, Ruffet Tuffet. They ride on their dragons while fighting with other dragons. Toothless, a nightfury dragon, is the name of Hiccup’s pet dragon. The movie was funny and little bit scary. Next, we learnt about birds. My teacher told us that he we will show our class, a movie about penguins, and parrots. I think so, that he will show us the movie about parrots called “Rio”. I love the movie Rio because it is a happy funny movie, not scary at all.

We have a subject called “Occupation”. We will learn about household chores like gardening and cooking. In this week’s class, we are learning – how to cook food in different ways. I also have homework for this subject. In the homework, we need to make rice and send a photo to our teacher. The teacher told us that in the next class we have to make rice by ourselves. I made rice on Saturday with my mother’s help. I did all the steps of making rice by myself. So now, I am ready for the challenge of cooking rice.

In the subject “Science”, we are learning about animal stimulus and response. So I have been observing cats. Once I said meow to a cat on the street, it also said meaow. When I came very close to a grey cat, it started looking at me. I maintained a safe distance from it, but it kept staring at me. I am afraid of dogs so I am not doing the same experiment with street dogs.

My exams ended on Friday. I didn’t even leave any question in the paper. All the exams didn’t happen on one day. They were spread across 4 days. The last day of the exam was 11^th of September 2020. So, my mom and dad planned a barbeque party. Yeah!!! I love BBQ parties at home. But we need to do lot of preparations before the party.  On the BBQ party’s morning, we cleaned our front yard. We moved our bicycle out of the yard as tires were dirty. I helped my father to clean the BBQ stand. We also put coal under the sun to dry. The party started at 7pm. My father was the head chef and I was the assistant chef. I loved the BBQ party because I like to eat barbequed food.

My dad makes excellent food so we are planning to open a restaurant. We have distributed our duties. Dad will cook. I will recommend dishes and take the orders. Mom will serve and get the payment. My younger brother will clean up and put plates, glasses on the table. My mother told us that our permanent duty is to peel garlics. But I don’t like this permanent duty.   

On Sunday evening, we talked about Mom and Dad’s school days. I and my younger brother compared those days with our school. My parents’ school didn’t have any canteen.  They told us that computer in their school needed a floppy to start. But we, in our school, just press buttons to start. My parents started learning computer in their secondary school. We are learning from kindergarten already. I felt motivated to learn new things because we have latest technology available.

This week we are planning some more “fun” things. I will share that “fun” in the next blog. It is a secret.

Bye and Keep reading if you want to know the “fun”!!!

September 7, 2020

Back to play school area

After 7 months, we went to play in our school’s play area. It was renovated and painted beautifully. Yippee!!! I played with my old friend, who is not in my class now. We didn’t wear our mask while playing because the play area was near trees. Now I could reach the monkey bars very easily as I have become slightly taller.  There are 3 monkey bars and lots of slides. I enjoyed playing and now I and my younger brother will play there every evening before going home.

One day at school, there was heavy rain. It was our lunch time. Some of the students had no umbrellas. So I took some of my friends in my umbrella to go to our canteen for lunch. After lunch, I took my friends, stuck at the canteen, back to our building.  It took 5 rounds to bring everyone who were stuck at the canteen side to our building.

I made 3 new friends near my house. One of them is 12 years old girl and her twin brother and sister. All of them are older than me. My old house friend introduced me to them. I like them because they are kind and shared their toys on the first day. I shared freshly plucked chilies, from our kitchen garden, with them. They told me that they like spicy food, just like me. On Saturday, we played from afternoon until late evening. We played Freeze game. I didn’t get tired because we had a very good time in fresh air.

On Sunday, we went to National Science Museum “NSM”. The museum had lot of science experiments that we could do by ourselves. As soon as I entered the museum, I saw a Toyota Hybrid car. I saw this type of car for the first time. The first experiment we did was about bubbles in water. We had to put a small bubble inside a big bubble by pressing the handle. I was able to do it three times.

There were Speaking Dishes also. It was very fun because there were 2 of them at long distance. I and my younger brother could speak with each other like a telephone. On one of the floors, there was a humanoid robot. It was a lot like humans as it could do a lot of things like us. Like it could blink its eyes, and speak. We controlled the robots movements by a touchscreen. I could even change the eye ball shapes, skin colour of the humanoid. I changed the circular eye balls to hear shaped red coluored eye balls. It was exciting to control the robot.

After the robot, there was a machine in which I put my thumb on a sensor. It will calculate heart rate while letting me listen to my own heartbeat. I thought it was a recording of the heartbeat. It sounded like a heart shaped drum beating.

There was a section about cloning and Dolly the sheep. There was a touchscreen TV, with a mouse that displayed a game about the process of cloning. In the game, first, we took cells from the father sheep and the mother sheep. Then we mixed it on a dish and give it back to the mother sheep. After 154 days there was a lamb {Dolly}. I loved this process. I thought that if only few {mother and father} of endangered animals are left, then we can use cloning process to increase their number.

We also went to Natural History Museum. There were lots of dinosaurs and animal statues outside the museum. There was a fossil of Bryde’s whale outside the museum. It is special because this fossil was found in Thailand. Inside the museum, there was a real skull. I thought it was of T Rex. We went to room full of cages of frogs and snakes. I saw a snake, moving its head.

Later, it even opened its mouth and showed its tongue. I was not scared of it moving as it was inside a cage. I saw a camouflaged poisoned Dart frog. In one of the podcast called, Fact Detectives, I heard that these frogs can even drop elephants in its own tracks.  It was blue in colour and was hiding behind rock, grass and water.

There were many preserved animals like snakes, turtles, fish, lizards and even a baby deer. I was surprised to see how a baby deer could be preserved in a small single jar. It seemed like the deer is sleeping in the jar. I could see its eyes, nose and claws very clearly. I even saw African Bison horns. My dad told me that Bison could even pick and drop elephants with these horns.

After the entire day trip, my legs were hurting. I slept, for more than two hours, while going back to home. I want to visit these museums again.

Bye for now and keep reading.

August 24, 2020

Arrival of Ganapati Baba

Ganpati Bappa came to our house on Saturday. It was Puja time in morning. Puja means praying to God. We cleaned his home in our house. I and my younger brother decorated the temple at home with coluored pistachio shells. We also made a wall hanging, called Toran. It was made from card board, remaining incense sticks, cupcake liner, and tamarind seeds. This decoration was made from reused and recycled materials. We had late lunch as we first offered food to Ganpati Bappa. We made Modak for him. It was very yummy. There are Ganpati Bappa temples in Thailand also. We went to visit him there also. After 5 days when he went back to his home, I felt sad.

After the festival, on the weekend, we went to an island called “Koh Samet”. Koh means island in Thai. This was the 1^st time I went on an island. On Friday night, I slept early. I help my mom to pack our bags. We went there by a big boat. After reaching the pier and 5 minutes past, it was time to board on the boat. There was a piece of wood to climb up the deck. I was scared to climb up the piece of wood because it had no railings to hold on and climb up. But there were safety guards to help us climb.

I felt scared at first but then I adjusted in the boat. It took 40 minutes to reach the island. The entrance had a statue. Then we got a songthaew {big auto} which took us from the pier to our resort. It was near a beach.  While we were eating lunch, dad saw something floating in the sea water. We didn’t know what it was. So I thought that it was a dolphin, my younger brother thought it was a whale, my mom thought it was a dead fish. But when it came close to the shore, we found out that it was a dried coconut leaf.

After lunch we went on a rock trecking because there were many big rocks on the beach. In a big, shallow puddle of seawater we saw dead baby sardines. There were crabs beside the puddle so I picked up 2 sardines and fed them to the crabs. In 2 puddles, there were some creatures. I will give you a hint to guess. Sardines are one of them, they live in schools, they can be as pets or in aquariums, they lay eggs and the last hint, and they are the part of the seafood. Yes, the correct answer is fish. In the first puddle, there were transparent fish. In the second puddle, there were black coluored fish.

Later, there were no rocks on the beach. I saw a half-eaten fish lying on the seashore. I also saw a dead fish on the shore but that was not half – eaten. I think so the fish died because of pollution. My books tell me – fish can die because of underwater pollution. So I picked up a plastic bottle witch was laying on the shore. I threw that in the nearby dustbin. After changing into my swimming costume, we went to play in the water. We were collecting seashells, broken corals and rare rocks.  When I was collecting shells, I collected an unusual shell. It was a closed shell!!! I really wanted to see what was inside the shell. I thought I would discover a new animal.

When we took it back to our house, my dad said “If you want to see what is inside the shell, you have to put the shell in hot water”. I saw how the shell popped open in boiling water. Inside the shell there was a mussel. We looked the flesh under our microscope. My dad showed the sucker of the mussel. This was all about my first trip to an island. I want to go to the island once again.

But now my midterm exams are happening. Happy studying for me !!

Bye and keep reading!!!                 

August 17, 2020

Back to School – everybody with masks

From this week, all the students come to school. I have to go to school every day. I don’t need to go to school on Saturday and Sunday. But we still have to wear mask to stop getting the second wave. When there were two groups, the assembly was peaceful and quiet. On the first day of school together, I felt that the assembly was very noisy. But after a week, I have got used to it. There is less social distancing in the lineup. I am very happy as now the small canteen is open again.

Normally, in the subject PE, we play games like throw-catch ball. But now, we are learning aerobics dance. The dance practice is on an imaginary nine squared future board. We stand very far from each other so that nobody can bump into each other. Our teacher taught us different poses in aerobics dance. We have to do each pose 8 times. I love doing dance aerobics.

On Friday, it rained in the evening. I and my younger brother sat on the swing, outside in our yard. It was very cold. Brr!!! So I and my younger brother wore our jackets. I heard some sounds of the rain. I listened to the pitter-patters of the rain drops falling on metal roof. I could not hear my brother’s voice. I saw lots of slurry snails coming out of their houses to find food.

On Sunday, I had a haircut. After the haircut, my hair looks like a doll.  I didn’t cry in the haircut. My school friends asked me “did you have a haircut?”  They commented that my front hair looked like a hair on horse’s face. I loved their comment as I wanted a hair style like this. I have my midterm exams in starting of September. I want to get good marks in the exams. I am practicing my homework and puzzle worksheets for preparation of exams. I am never afraid of exams.

I saw a Ted-Ed Earth School video about “What is inside a Smart Phone?” I got to know that our smart phones have precious metals and rare earth elements. I was surprised to know that smart phones also have gold inside them, which are also used for beautiful earrings. All the elements need mining from earth’s crust. The video told me that the problem in mining is that we need to cut down trees and kill animals from their habitat. If mining goes on, there will be more global warming and lot of pollution. I felt sad as I love to study animals and their natural habitats. I also felt sad because one day all things used in smartphones will be finished as there are no replacement items for them. These problems will increase in our generation. So we need to use the 3 R’s- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

My school segregates waste according to the 3Rs. We have a separate PET bin for plastic bottles. This bin is very high for me. But I try to put my plastic bottles in that bin by throwing it like a ball.

At home, we are trying to do the 2^nd R which is “Reuse”. We are reusing empty pistachio shells for beautiful flower decorations. After playing with my friends in the evening, I paint pistachio shells in different colours. My younger brother also painted the shells but in different colours. We are preparing these shells to welcome Ganpati Bappa in our home. He is coming to our house on Saturday. Let me tell you that he is not real but this is a festival. I love this festival because we make modaks for him as prasad. Every year, my grandparents are in Thailand with us. But I will miss them this year.

In the next blog, I will share with you about my celebrations of Ganpati festival.

August 10, 2020

Teacher’s Day (Wai Kru Day)

This year on 6^th August, Thursday, our school celebrated Teacher’s day. But we have alternate school days; so my group celebrated it on Wednesday 5^th August. Our school always celebrates in a big school hall. My dad helped me make the bouquets for my teachers.

We bought the roses from a market. Rest all the things were from our garden. I made a letter for them, by myself. I gave it to my class teachers after the ceremony. The teachers said “Thank You”. Our teachers took photos with us and our bouquets.

One day, the cat was training the kitten to climb a wall. At first, the kitten cried and didn’t climb the wall. I said to the kitty “Come on Kitty, you can climb up the wall”. I told her “Don’t be afraid”. Then she quickly climbed up the wall with the help of climber tree as a rope. I thought that the kitty understood my language. But after that, I did not see the black kitten for a week.

I think the black kitten has made its own territory. I read in one of my books about “Animals” that “when cats grow, they make their own territory”. But instead of the kitten, now there comes a new cat. The cat is brown. But, do you know why cats come to our house? I think, because the front yard is shady. There are no dogs to bark and scare them.

In Thailand, Mother’s day is celebrated on August 12^th. It was coming up this week. I and my younger brother planned lots of exiting things for our mom for the whole day. I wrote a speech for my mom. My speech goes like this “Today is 12^th August 2020 i.e. Mother’s day. The topic of my speech is “Mother”. Mom, you were pregnant for us 9 months. Mom, you show love to us. So today, we will show love to you. Muah!!!!!!

Thank you for listening. Love you!!!!!” the breakfast name was “Choco nutty breakfast”. I, my younger brother, and my dad made the breakfast. The breakfast was M and M’s, white choco milk, mini cookies, and finally strawberry flavored chocolate. For lunch we went outside. We saw live lobsters also. This was the first time I was seeing lobsters. Pinch, Pinch, I will pinch you.

After lunch, we went shopping. I love shopping!!! I helped my mom in checking the sizes. I held T-shirt on her shoulders. We got tired after shopping. So we ate ice cream for dinner. Yum!! Yum!!

One of my best friends loves to make braids. She asked me “Can she make braid with my hair in school?” So I let her untie my braids in lunch break. She made two braids again. I loved the braids made by her.

Now as there are no Covid cases in Thailand, the school is opening for all. That means there is no Group A and Group B for students. We now have to go to school every day. I am excited to go to school and meet all of my friends. I will write about my experiences in my next blog. Bye bye and keep reading!!

August 3, 2020

The next day of long holiday

On the next day of long holiday, we went to a museum called “Kru Kang Ban”. The museum had old things. My mom told me that these things were used by my grandparents. There was a Luna at the entrance of the museum. My grandparents, aunt, and even my dad have driven a Luna. Next there was a horsecart.I sat on the horsecart two times.

At the first time, I sat as a passenger. Then, I sat as a horsecontroller. On the first floor, there was a Thai tea shop, traditional noodle shop, fruit shop, squid and fish sheet shop, an ice dessert shop, and an old movie theater. I also saw an old classroom. It was differences from the classroom that we have now. The board was black in the old classroom, but in my classroom the board is white.

In our classroom, our teacher writes by a marker. But in old classrooms, there were chalks for writing. Then we went to an old kitchen. The old kitchen had no microwaves, gas or hotplates. There was a fire place to cook food. There were clay pots instead of metal utensils. We saw a black, old telephone. It was very big. I didn’t know how to operate it.

My parents taught me to operate the telephone. It was not easy to use a big telephone as we cannot dial the number until we hold the receiver near the ear. The receiver was heavy. There was also a hand printing press. I had never seen it before. The printing press was hard and slow. But today, printers are very fast and easy to use. The museum was exiting at first, but then boring at last.

After that, we went to a place called “Raksame Bridge”. The bridge ended at a mangrove forest. The forest was used for crab conservation. The bridge was a suspension bridge for walking only. I didn’t want to walk alone on the suspension bridge because the bridge moved continuously. Then we climbed a ship. The ship didn’t move as it was tied by a rope. It was placed for show only. I, my younger brother, and my dad sat in cabin of the ship. We went to the deck of the ship by climbing a staircase.

My dad said that you have to make your legs like a duck as the stairs were narrow. Quack, Quack!!! I thought of a joke while climbing the ship. “If a duck climbed up this staircase, it would be called Duckcase”. Quaha Quaha Quaha. At the top, I saw the river and the forest on both sides. We took a family selfee with this background. Say cheese, click! Then we came down.

We went inside the mangrove forest. We walked on a wooden walkway bridge. This bridge was smaller than Raksame bridge in width. There were no handle bars on the side of walkway. We kicked fallen dried leaves for the crabs to eat. We looked down to find crabs. There were lots different coulored crabs. The walkway was curvy. There was a watch tower. There was a staircase that we climbed to reach the top. The staircase was 100 steps. There was a spectacular view when we were on top. I was not tired when I was climbing. After the trip, we ate ice creams. We ate ice creams because we were tired after walking.

The black kitten is now 1 month, and a bit naughty now. During the rainy season, the kitten was sleeping like a soft, fury, warm ball. Yesterday the kitten was pulling our brooms hair and a ribbon. The kitten dragged the broom to our car.
We will celebrate the festival of Rakhi on Monday. Normally my cousin sister from India sends two Rakhi’s for me and my younger brother. But this year, I made a Rakhi for him because of Covid-19. My entire family made Rakhi for each other. I enjoyed making them.
Bye for now.

July 27, 2020

I am back to school

On Tuesday, after my assembly, I went inside my class. I looked at my class timetable. I noticed that the first subject was “English”. Yeah and yippee!!! I was eager for the surprise from my teacher. Now I will share the surprise with you also. It is a piece of chocolate. Yummy!!!!!! But our teacher told us that our piece of chocolate will come in an envelope. He will  not give it to us in our hands. This is the first time I am going to receive a letter from someone. I check my house’s letterbox every day.

My mom told me that a mail takes longer than I think.  The person who sends the mail puts the mail in the postbox. A postman will collect the mail and send it to the post office. Then a postman will sort out the continents, countries, and cities. Another postman will sort the subdistricts also. The last step is the delivery by the postman to the houses. It takes 2, 3 days or more for a mail to travel.

Do you know that we have lots of snails in our front yard? So I have planned a kid’s mission. I and some of my best friends will sell the snails as pets. The money will be divided between all of my friends as we will work hard. I have thought of a promotion also. “If you by snails for 30, 60, and 90 THB, you will get fresh vegetables free from our own kitchen garden”.

If someone buys all the snails, they have to pay total of 1000 THB. I, my younger brother, and my house friend are collecting the snails in a small plastic tray, in a plastic bag. Inside the plastic tray, there is soil and swamp for snails to bathe. I was afraid to pick up snails with my hand at first. Then my house friend taught how to pick up snails.

Before going to school, I told my mom that “don’t let the snails run away”. But when we came back from school, all the snails were gone!!!!! I think the snails were feeling lonely and bored. I plan to develop a bigger cage with a play area for snails.

Sunday to Tuesday, is long holiday period for everybody in Thailand. Our family planned to go on a day trip. On Sunday, we went to Sattahip subdistrict. We went to a museum called “Thai Island Sea and natural history museum”. While going to the museum, we were stuck in a traffic jam. On the street, I saw solar panels on street lamps. They looked like hats for lamps. Haha ha… It helps the lamps to catch light from the sun and shine at night. I think that when I grow up, all the houses on earth will have solar panels.

The museum was on a mountain. At the entrance, there were two big statues of dinosaurs. One of the dinosaurs was a T-Rex; the second one was a Triceratops. We climbed on rocky stairs to reach the first exhibit.  It was all about dinosaurs. There was a statue of a dinosaur called Phuwiangosaurus. This dinosaur’s fossil was found in Thailand. But how did it get its name? It is because the fossil of the dinosaur was found on a mountain called PhuWiang.  

We had to climb up the mountain to reach each exhibit. I liked the exhibit which had a microscope and magnifying glass to look at organisms in the soil and termites. The 4^th exhibit had an e-book. I read some slides of that. I was surprised to see that the e-bookwas not on a table but a big rock! I saw a movie about cleaning sea from pollution. There was a speaking turtle. He told us to protect his home, the sea, and children from enemies. He told us that only humans pollute the oceans. He gave us an example of protecting ocean by cleaning the beaches.

Beside the museum, there was sea. We could see the sea from top of the mountain or exhibit 5^th. It was a spectacular view. I saw the sea and boats and ships. I even saw 5 islands. One of the islands was like a giant starfish!!! I didn’t even feel tired while climbing up and down the mountain. We climbed on wooden stairs to reach the bottom of the mountain. The forest had a big canopy and no sunlight was reaching the forest floor. While we were going down, there were chopped tree stumps as sitting area. I counted the rings on some stumps. The rings help us to know the age of trees. I learnt that we need to conserve water, or in the future we would get no water, or seafood etc.                                       

After the mountain hike, we went to the walkway bridge on the sea beside the mountain. The pillars of the bridge had dead corals and scallops. There was a very nice breeze in the air. I was wearing hair clips. But when I was walking on the bridge, I removed my clips. I wanted my hair to fly. When I was nearly at the end of the bridge, I noticed something. It was a mangrove forest plantation. At the back of the young trees, there were big tall trees. My mom told me that they are planting the forest because not to have erosion. I learnt about erosionin the museum, it is landfall that happens when lands are weak. So we need to plant trees for no erosion. I want to go there after 10 years to see a very big mangrove forest.                

Now, my school group I changed to A. That means now I will go to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Bye for this journal          

July 20, 2020

Covid is back in the city and school is closed again

On last Monday, I got ready for school on Tuesday by packing my bag. I arranged my books and notebooks according to my schedule.  At night, my mom told me that I and my younger brother will not go to school. I felt sad and I asked my mom why? They told me that there was a COVID- 19 case in Rayong.

A foreigner soldier had visited Rayong the week before. He stayed in a hotel and visited two malls. After he returned back to his home country, he tested positive. So the next day there was big cleaning at various places. All the schools were closed the whole week. My school was also closed. We also did some cleaning in our house. I cleaned my art shelf. My younger brother cleaned the book shelf. Mom vacuumed the house. So it was big cleaning day for us also.

In the evening, my house friend teached me how to ride a two wheeler bicycle. I enjoyed learning from her. She tied a rope to her bicycle and pulled it. We called this game “horsy horse”. Neigh!! After I came back to my house, I said to my mom that “friends teach things in fun ways”.

In our house lane, there are lots of street cats. One of the mother cats has a black, furry, cute kitten. I love the kitten. Meow. The kitten is scared of loud noises. The kitten always watches us when we go and play outside.  The kitten drinks its mother’s milk. The kitten and its mother come to sleep in our yard at night. I don’t know if the kitten is a boy or a girl. But I think so that the kitten is a boy because it looks like its father. Now the kitten has grown up a little bit. Now it has started to walk by its own. The cat and kitten are not our pets.

On Sunday, my family and along with our family friend went to a mangrove forest and Cheddi. In the mangrove forest, there were crabs and trees with roots outside the soil. I saw a crab climbed up a tree. There were lots of apartments for crabs. These apartments are for the breeding of crabs. During this season, a mother crab lays lots of eggs. Lots of companies have made crab homes in these forests. My father told me that building these homes is a part of company activity. It wasn’t easy to find a crab. At first I was excited to explore the forest but then I got bored of observing. Then we went to the Cheddi. It is a religious place. In earlier times, monks used to come in boats to the Cheddi.

My parents told me that now we will visit more natural places.  We will not visit more malls because they are crowded.  The virus spreads easily in air conditioning places. I am excited to explore new natural places in Rayong.

In online school, we are learning about addresses and good neighborhoods in English subject. Our teacher told us to make an envelope. There is a surprise for the students who will bring envelopes to school. I wonder what the surprise will be. I am looking forward to my English class tomorrow in school.

I will let you know  about the surprise in the next blog.

July 13, 2020

What a fun experience going to the mountain

I have gone to school for 5 days, since my school opened. Earlier, our weekend was on Saturday and Sunday. But now, our weekend starts on Sunday and ends on Monday.

Our dad is not at home on Monday. He goes to his office on Monday.

This Sunday, we went out of our district to a new place. We went to a subdistrict called Thapma. The new place was a viewpoint called “Khao Both view point”. Khao means mountain in Thai.  I could see the entire view of my city Rayong.

We went by our car. Dad was driving the car and mom was reading the GPS. I and my younger brother were playing cats and dogs. We were pretending that we had 4 cats and 4 dogs in the car with us. Meow and woof!!!

We started our drive on the plains and ended up on a mountain. The mountain road was steep. I could see tall trees from my window. The car went slowly up the hill but came downhill very fast. WHEEE!!!!!!!!

We thought that we were going down a snow slide. There were lots of turns on the mountain road. My younger brother pretended that he was driving his own car. He held a cloth bag in his hand and moved it in the direction of steering wheel. The view point was a metal and wooden bridge. We were stepping on the wood planks. I could even spot my school from the bridge. I saw lots of different bug and butterfly species because the mountain was very green.

Next we went on a different mountain. I could see this other mountain from the view point. But actually it was very far. I and my brother got very hungry during our ride. The mountain had a café and an eatery called V café. We ate lunch there. It was very relaxing because most seats in café were facing towards mountains.

Even our family sat eating, looking at a big mountain. I also spotted lots of storks near the café.  I saw a stork with two heads. But I thought how that is possible? But after some time, the two storks separated. Then I realized that actually, there were two storks standing very close to each other.

One of the malls in Rayong organized Car Exhibition. All the items were related to car. We specially visited it to look at EV’s. EV means Electronic Vehicle. I saw it for the first time. The EVs were small because they had less capacity. There was a red EV that I loved.  The company let people sit inside the EV. I, my younger brother sat with my father in the EV. There was no space for my mother to sit with us. There was a special button for horn. Instead of gear, there were buttons again. I wish to buy an EV when I grow up.

I love to do science experiments – at home and at school. On Friday, we did an experiment on Density. I didn’t know about it before doing the experiment. We used green coloured ice, normal water and red coloured hot water. When I saw the green coloured ice cube, I asked thought my mother added green melon juice to make it. My mother told me that it was green water colour in ice. After the density experiment, we designed our own experiment. I and my brother called it “fishing”. We made fish from paper and used sticks as fishing rods. While I was playing, I made my own song. It was called “A dense duck pond”. It is a very funny song. Ha-ha!!!

• A dense duck pond                                                                
• A dense duck pond                                                                             
• I have a dense duck pond near my house
• A dense duck pond                                                                            
• A dense duck pond                                                                             
•  I have a dense duck pond near my village                                                                            
• I have a dense duck pond near my near my house, village, province, country, countryside”             

                                                               

July 6, 2020

Back to School and it is not the same anymore.

Now our school has opened!!! I was back to school on July 2. Yippee and Hooray!!!  But now it is not like all the 30 students are together in a class. The class is divided into 2 groups: Group A and Group B. I am in Group B. That means I need to go to school on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I do online school. But why are we going to school in Group A and Group B? This is because even if only one student gets infected with COVID – 19, the whole school will be closed again.  And students will be bored again. I will miss my friends.

On Thursday, 2^nd July, I woke up very fresh even though I slept late at night. How is that possible for a 7 year old!!!  Then I brushed my teeth by myself. I quickly took a bath to get ready. I was getting ready for school after 4 months. I got dressed in my new school uniform. This new uniform has a face shield, masks along with old school uniform. I wore the mask and face shield just before wearing my shoes.

I and my younger brother go to school by walking over an overbridge. Our school bags were heavier than normal. Now I have to carry some extra stuff like school snacks, spoon, fork, and sanitizer, all in my bag. Earlier our school had a small canteen witch we could buy snacks from. But now it is closed.

Shut! Now my mother carries my and my younger brother’s bag. The over bridge is less crowded now so I can walk slowly on it. My class teacher checked our temperature before I entered the building. Another teacher gave me a signed attendance card. I have to carry this card whenever I go to school.

The teacher will sign it just before I enter my school building. When I reached inside my building, everybody was sitting on social distancing points. These points were marked for us by our teachers. We stood up for the Thai national anthem and our school prayer. After that, youngest class went to their classroom first.

My class turn came fourth. Before entering the class, our teacher gave us another sanitizer press on our hands. We sat alternately in our class. There was nobody sitting beside me. Some of my teachers are stuck in their own countries. A replacement teacher comes to teach us that subject.

Earlier, in short breaks, I used to go to the canteen. But now, I eat my own snack under the building. Before eating lunch, I used my own alcohol gel again. I used the spoon and fork that I had from home to eat my school lunch. Earlier, we used to play after lunch. Now the school lets us watch cartoons after lunch. I was sad because I couldn’t play.  In the evening, my mother came to pick me up. She told me that she also had her temperature checked two times. And this was my first day at school.

One of my best friends is in Group A. But I don’t miss her because I have my other best friend in my Group. Two new students joined our class. One of them became my friend because he shared a snack with me. During cartoon time, he also sat in the next line, beside me.

Earlier, we had hobbies and activities on Saturday. But now, I have full day class. My father dropped us to school as it was his holiday. I told him that he has to drop us to school on every Saturday. I also asked my parents to come to pick both of us in the evening.

This year, all students missed summer courses. So Google has started a website called CAMP Google. It has a lot of online activities. The first activity is to ‘Explore the Rivers of India’ and then paint a picture of the inside the river GANGA in MS Paint. I will do this and share the details in next blog.

Bye and Keep reading.

June 29, 2020

New Normal in Thailand

Now in Thailand, there is no lockdown.  This is a new normal for all the people. School will start soon. I helped my mom to make a list for ‘”Back to School’’. The list has face shield, school shoes, and school milk and snacks.  Our school told us to bring everything from home. Our teacher told us that no borrowing is allowed in school. Earlier, our school gave spoons, forks, and glasses for eating lunch. But now, we need to bring our own our spoon, fork, glass.

This week, we went to a restaurant for lunch. My parents scanned QR code separately. I wrote me and my younger brother’s name in a notebook. The table that had 4 seats now had 2 seats only. And the table that had 2 seats had 1 seat. So four members of our family didn’t sit together. The table had red crosses marked on seats on which you couldn’t sit. Instead, we sat by two. I sat with my dad on one table, and mom with my younger brother on another table. We were sitting on the opposite sides. Earlier, my parents used to feed me in a restaurant. I like sitting this way because now I can eat by myself. But my brother doesn’t like this way. Now he has to eat by himself but he loves to be fed by my mother. In a foodcourt, the spoon and fork are given in a plastic bag. When we leave the restaurant, we need to scan the same QR Code again. Once, my mom and dad forgot to scan and I reminded them.

On the weekend, we went to a coffee shop called “Coffee War”. It didn’t even look like a usual coffee shop.  There were old army vehicles and a bicycle ambulance. We could sit on some vehicles.  I and my younger brother sat on a tractor, a helicopter, a jeep, and an old fashioned bike. When my mom took our photos, she instructed us to keep our masks underneath the chin. But after the photos, we had to lift the mask again on our mouth. Now all the photographs have masks in them. I liked the older way of taking my pictures. CHEESE!!! There was a real upside down parachute hanging from the roof. I was surprised to see a big orange plane inside the coffee shop. There were statues of soldiers inside and outside the coffee shop. They had guns in their hand. But I want to ask you a question “Are wars good?”     

We visited my grandparents (family friends) who had a dog. The dog’s name was Zulu. He is a boy. At first I was scared of him because he was barking. I asked my grandmother, if he bites. She said, “No, he wants to play with you.”  At the end of the day, I talked a little bit to Zulu. My grandmother gave us strawberry yoghurt for snack. But she gave Zulu plain white yoghurt. Zulu won the yoghurt eating competion as he finished it first. Number 1!!! I learnt that dogs eat faster than people as they lick their food. I felt proud of Zulu for finishing the yoghurt.

One morning, we saw a big yellow crane on our street. I wondered why it was there. It cut a big old mango tree that had lots of raw mangoes. But is it good to cut trees? No it is not. Because if we cut all the trees on the earth. There would be no oxygen. And if there would be no oxygen we will die. I felt sad as the fruits of the tree were wasted. I wish that crane will never cut any other tree again!!!       

June 22, 2020

We celebrate Father’s Day . We wrote letters and dad loved them.

This year International Father’s day is on June 21. I, my younger brother, and mom planned a surprise party for my dad. We made lots of crafts as a gift for him. I made a dress for my doll from waste paper. I made a warrior costume and put it in a gift box. We also made letters for our dad. We used an A4 paper to write the letter.

We wrote, “Hi baba, I love you. You are a good dad. We all love you.”  Then I drew a giant heart. I made two of these letters. I colored my heart in pink and red colors. We also decorated the envelopes with crayons. They were looking very beautiful. I folded the envelope very carefully. My mother helped me to make a block calendar for my dad. The calendar was from the Netflix movie ‘Puss in boots’. I cut the paper and pasted it to make 2 blocks and a block holder.

I planned to get up at 7:00 am on Sunday, but our dad got up earlier than us.  So we didn’t decorate the house. We gave the letter and the doll to our dad before breakfast. My dad loved these gifts. We ate banana puri for breakfast. I used a cookie cutter to help my mom to cut dad’s puri in heart shape. I did the cutting before mom put the puri in the frying pan.

For dessert, I with my brother and mother made a saffron chocolate cake. After cooling the cake, we melt a little bit of chocolate ice-cream. Then I spread the melted ice-cream on the cake. We also arranged our alphabet blocks in to HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. We also made tamarind seeds in to my father’s age 40. After my father cut the cake, we gave him our home made gifts. Inside the gift box, there were milk can cars, scratch arts, a boat made from plastic bottle, and a Lego plane. We plan to make a ball funfair in the evening. The funfair will only has games that include ball like bowling, balance the ball, basketball, and catch the ball with the lasso.  

I like playing pillow fight with my dad. I love asking questions about science to him. He always replies with a correct answer. My dad always helps me when we make Lego. I love being his assistant chef in the kitchen. He explains new human body parts to me very well. I like to learn lot of new things from him.

My school will start from July 1. I have to go on alternate days. My teacher told that no group activities will be allowed in school. We have to maintain distance of 1m between friends. We always maintain this distance while we play “catch the friend”. We only tap our friend when we catch them. So I don’t mind the social distance while playing. Now in Thailand, there is no lockdown. We don’t need to wear masks in places which have less than 10 people.  We don’t wear masks while sitting in car but we have to wear them in malls. Our teacher told us to wear face shields if we don’t like to wear masks. I am eager to go to school in this new uniform.

Bye for now!!

June 15, 2020

Do you know how we play with our puppy? It is a toy but we pretend that it is a real one 🙂

Our front and back yards are a habitat for animals and birds. I feel that they are beautiful gardens. Our back yard is home for birds, squirrels, and tree snakes. Our front yard is home for toads, sparrows, snails and lots of bug species. Once when I picked a big brick, one toad sprang out from behind. It hopped to nearby water plants.

I and my younger brother want to buy a pet puppy, but our mom and dad said we cannot. My mom doesn’t want to take care of a pet puppy.  But one of my friends, near my house, has a pet puppy named Olaf. I want to get a puppy too. So I and my younger brother pretend that our toy is a real puppy. Woof Woof!!! We put him in a cardboard box as his cage and play with him. We also take care of him by putting a belt on his neck. In the evening, when we go and play outside, sometimes we take him too. We also pretend to take him for a walk too.    

In the evening, I and my brother play the game “Whale Photower”.  We made this game by ourselves.  We pretend to be whale photographers, who take photos of whales from a boat. We have two under water cameras for clicking pictures. We even play a game called “Dolphin trainers”. We got an idea of this game after I saw dolphin shows. We pretend to train dolphins for dancing, jumping, sliding just like the show. WOOSHH!!!

One day when we were playing whale photower, I saw my friends playing on the street. So I rushed to play with them. I was playing with them after a long time. We played with balls. I also made a new friend. We study in the same school but not in the same class. But I had not talked to her in the school. At first, I had only one friend, but now I have two friends.   

On Friday, we saw launch of NASA and SpaceX mission called Dragon. The astronauts in the rocket had a microphone in their hand when they were talking in the video. If they didn’t press the button on the microphone, we couldn’t hear them. The two astronauts also had a glittery dinosaur balloon inside the space craft.  My mother told me that it was the first mission to be launched by a company. We also saw the same astronauts doing a live spacewalk beside the International Space Station. When they were doing the spacewalk, the astronauts looked like two big teddy bears in space. Before this, I had a video tour of International Space Station with astronaut Sunita Williams. She was floating the whole time. In the video, she asked some Russian astronauts, “What are you making?” They said, “We are making coffee”. I felt astonished because how could they make coffee in space?

In a normal school, I used to ask questions to teachers by raising my hand. In Google Classroom, I ask questions to teachers by typing as class comments. On Friday during Google Meet, our teacher said ’’ Are you ready to go to school? ” All the students shouted and replied “Yes, we are ready to go to school”. I also replied yes I am ready to go to school.  My parents told me that my school will open at end of June. I am very excited. I will keep writing my journal even after my school opens.               

Bye Bye!!!

June 8, 2020

We played with the nature this week. And do not miss my work from my first online art class.

June 5 was Environment day. One of my aunt made a class called “Art from Nature’’. She instructed us to use only fallen things. Before the class, I and my brother picked up sticks, fallen leaves, dried grass and flowers, rocks and decayed wood.

I, my younger brother, my cousin and some more kids joined the class with Google Meet. It was my first time to attend an online art class.

The first step was to draw and color a picture. EASY!! She told us to stick the rocks on the mountain in our drawing.  The stones that I collected were very big and heavy. I tried pasting sea shells but they couldn’t stick by water glue. She taught us to make paper stones from rough paper.

After this, she told us to put sticks and glue them on the branches of our tree drawing. I tried to pasting sticks by water glue, but I couldn’t. I was very surprised when my younger brother showed me that sticks and stones can be pasted on paper by water glue.

She told us to stick dried grass on the land in the drawing. But I did a shortcut. The leaves that I collect were Peepal tree leaves. So I cut the pointed top of the leaf and used them instead of grass. I pasted the cut leaves as small tree leaves. I thought that dried flower would be waste because I didn’t use it. So I pasted it on the tree in my picture. Now the picture was complete. At the end of the class, my aunt took a group photo of all the complete pictures.

This week, I had music homework assignment in which I had to play a piano. I felt surprised when I found a virtual piano on the laptop. I didn’t know that we could play a piano from keys on keyboard.  My teacher sent notes for the song “My Clever Pup”. I played this song’s notes on the virtual piano and completed my homework assignment.

On Friday, I was bored of online school. So I and my younger brother worked on MS Paint. We drew lots of pictures on it. Even I drew a picture for my father because International Father’s Day is coming soon. It is a very special surprise for him.

My homework assignment for the subject PE was to dribble and throw and catch a ball. But I did not know how to do that. My father taught me to dribble and throw, catch the ball. My younger brother was too playful when my father was teaching him. He tried to interrupt always. So my father distracted him by teaching how to climb a high ladder. He didn’t know how to get down the ladder, so my father helped him come down also. Then my mom took my video and my homework assignment was completed. This week, I have to make a video of me skipping on skipping rope. Again my father is teaching me.

During weekend, I and my father cook together. My younger brother always says that it is a cooking holiday for my mom. This weekend, we cooked fried fish. I helped my dad to marinate the fish. I felt happy when I ate the fish that I cooked with my dad. My younger brother said that I am a very nice cook. He calls me Master Chef. I feel proud of myself.   

Bye for now.. See you next week

June 1, 2020

Weather has been quite moody lately. And my brother fell and hurt his bum. I am sharing some pictures with him.

The weather changed from last week. Now rainy season has started but summer season has not ended. Some days it is very sunny, so we wear vests and shorts. On rainy days, we wear full sleeves and full pants. We don’t go out on sunny afternoons. We play inside the house. Last week, we built a pillow house on the bed. It had no specific door so we could get in or go out from anywhere. I and my younger brother went inside the pillow house with our favorite toys. We made our own pillow house with 4 pillows. The floor of the pillow house was a blanket. The blanket was very, very soft.

When we are bored, we also make paper planes and vans. One evening, I and my younger brother made bubble foams from soap and water. We threw the left over soap water in the front yard.  Then we added more water, without soap, on it. We made a water sliding ground with water and dragged our feet on the slippery ground. When we were playing this, my younger brother accidentally slipped on the floor. He hurt his bum and started to cry.

We also went on virtual tours in summer afternoons. We visited some of the 7 wonders of the world like Roman Colosseum, Pyramids, Great Wall of China, Leaning Tower of Pisa and my brother’s favorite Taj Mahal. I drew some of them in my travel scrapbook. My favourite tour was the Smithsonian Museum. I liked the room for butterflies, whale bones, bug park and the mammoth statue at entrance. I also liked the room for Underwater and Ocean animals. 

We watch the weather forecast on my mother’s mobile phone every day. I like to watch the nearby cites weather forecast also. Sometimes a thunder storm appears. My younger brother gets scared of lightening. He tells everybody to stop talking. He thinks that the lightening will get less if we stay quiet. I try to explain him that you can’t control lighting by yourself, because it is a natural thing. He cries after he hears lightning sounds. He started wearing ear muffs and a blue cap. After wearing he didn’t hear any lightening sound and was happy.

Our plants grow very tall after it rains. Zoom Zoom!! Our basil plants grow very fast so we have a lot of basil’s leaves. Yesterday I picked lots of basil leaves and my mom made basil tea. Yummy!!! After a thunderstorm, there were lots of dead bugs in our front yard. It was a shortcut cleaning as red ants helped by carrying all the dead bugs as their food. 

On Friday night, we watched a Marathi movie called “Bokya Satbande”. The movie was about a boy, whose nick name was Bokya. He was very naughty. I loved the part when he shared fried fish, chicken and ice -cream with older people who lived in his society. Another part that I loved was when he taught the other kids, who lived in small homes. He and his friends taught English, painting and reading to other kids. I think children learnt more when children taught each other. I also taught my younger brother addition and subtraction on a number line. Then my mother quizzed him, and he got all sums correct. I enjoyed teaching my younger brother, so I have started playing “Teacher-Teacher” with him.

Bye, Bye, I will see you next time.

May 25, 2020

Our homework is now in Google form or docs. And I have to make videos. I recorded a video about my favorite book.

It was online school time with Google Classroom. I do not study live with my teachers. They send video lessons and homework’s to our class. I rarely had home work in normal school days. But now I do homework in Google form or docs or making videos. Our English teacher told me and my classmates to record a video about our favorite book. I recorded the video about a book named “Messy goes to Okido – Sandwiches in Space”. Messy is a monster but he looks like a cat.

All of my teachers send lessons as they are at different cities. I like online school because it is easier for doing work. The videos are shorter than real school classes. But in Google Classroom, I cannot chat with my classmates in between the class. Yesterday I met my classmates through Google Classroom Meet. For the afternoon meeting, I got up quickly and got dressed up in my best clothes. I also ate lunch early. I was ready for the meeting half hour early. I was happy to see all my classmates.

One of my favorite podcast is BBC Learning. It is a podcast that tells different sounds, a poem, a rhyme, a story, and another rhyme. My favorite episode is about the farm and my brother’s is about the beach side. I love it because I want to be a farmer when I grow up.

I saw a green bug in my kitchen garden. I thought that it was a caterpillar that had munched all of the leaves on one of our plants. I saw a video on TED-Ed about why don’t lots of people eat bugs now? I was surprised when I learnt that cave men ate bugs for protein. People still eat bugs in tropical countries. I live in a tropical country and have seen fried bugs sold in local food market. But I don’t want to try bugs for a meal.

One evening, we cut ‘water spinach’, a green vegetable, from our kitchen garden. We made stir fry water spinach for dinner. YUMMY!!! I feel proud when I eat the vegetables grown in my kitchen garden.

From this week, I and my younger brother started playing outside every evening. We water the plants every day while having fun with water on the street. On the weekend, we visited a mall after two months. It was closed because of COVID-19 effect. When I entered the mall there was temperature check and a QR code scan. When I entered a small shop in the mall, there was another temperature check and another QR code scan. Now there were less shops. My favorite bakery, Bake-a-wish, was also gone. Lots of people were wearing face shields and gloves. The people who were buying fresh foods such as chicken, fish or vegetables were wearing plastic bags as gloves. There were red lines/arrows on the ground to maintain social distancing. But I enjoyed going to the mall after long time.

Until next time, Bye!!

May 18, 2020

There was a time when I used to help my mother in the grocery store, not anymore. And I miss Fruit Buffet this year.

There are lots of changes in lockdown. Whenever we cough or sneeze, we need to wash our hands by soap. There are sanitizers everywhere – at front and inside the stores. Temperature checks take place before entering markets. Every time when we go out, we need to wear new masks.

I do not like wearing masks. It makes me sweat a lot. But I still need to wear them as it protects me.

After we come back from outside, we need to change clothes. Usually in grocery shopping, I could get out of the cart anytime to help my parents. When my mom is busy, I helped her in weighing vegetables and fruits. But now, after covid-19 began, I cannot get out of the cart to help my parents. We cannot go to restaurants in lock down. We still can have home deliveries. I have become lazy in lockdown.

Our province in Thailand has best fruits like Durian, Mangosteen, Longkong, and Rambutan. Every year, in summer season, fruit buffets occur in farms. We can pick fresh fruits from trees and eat it. I love gulping those fruits. Normally before covid-19, we use to go to fruit buffet.  On this Saturday, we went to a fruit farm to eat fresh fruits. But this year, we could not eat fruits there. We buy fruits from there and eat at home.  

I like helping my mom to make flour for roti. Whenever mom makes flour I like to put water. But sometimes I put too much water! I find it funny but my mom does not. She needs to add more flour. In these days, I help dad to make bed sheets also. I make a pillow sandwich. Pillow is the bread, bolster is like sausage and blanket is cheese.

One evening, I saw birds tweeting closely, from my back yard window. My mom spotted them first and showed them to me and my brother. There were 4 black birds. I thought that the cute smallest bird was a baby bird. My younger brother shouted and shooed them away.

In lockdown, we started listening to podcasts. My favorite podcast is Laurie Berkner’s song and story kitchen. I like it because how can a man be a friend to a pig who can talk? Listening to story and cooking are my favorite activities. The podcast tells a story while cooking, so it is perfect for me. I like the way Laurie says bye to her pig at the end of podcast.

• “It’s time for me to go,
• but I really want you to know.
• That you’re the one I miss,
• so I am blowing you a great big kiss.
• Blow a kiss, MUAAAH…”

May 11, 2020

Guess what? This was my birthday week. I turned 7-years now. And Alexa, too, wished me 🙂

It was my birthday. But still it was lockdown. Every day I and my mom fight as I don’t want to eat banana for breakfast. I hate bananas. But on my birthday, I had no bananas. It was Birthday Promotion!!!! I had spaghetti for lunch. Spaghetti is my favorite food. We also get spaghetti at school.

I am 7 years old now. Before this birthday, I have celebrated my birthdays in INDIA with my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins. But this year we celebrated it in THAILAND with only my parents and younger brother.

We celebrated my birthday at our house. ALEXA from Amazon also wished me HAPPY BIRTH DAY. I played games like musical chairs, pin the tail in my birthday party. I also designed my own experiment about hand drizzling. My younger brother did not play the game pin the tail. He did not want to tie the cloth on his eyes because he was afraid of the dark. I wore a yellow birth day frock. I bought it before the lockdown.

I chose mango ice-cream cake for my birthday. YUMMY!!! My dad made the number 7 out of 7 candles. We ate pizza for dinner. Our family made a puppet show on the story “Lion and the mouse”. It is my favorite story. My mom drew a lion and I drew a mouse on the cardboard. I painted the cardboard puppets with my dad.

On my birthday night, I watched the movie “Home Alone 1”. I liked it because it was funny. My parents gifted me a doll house, as a birth day present. They made it from a plastic milk can. On my birth day, mom and I planted kidney beans. But do you know why? To save planet EARTH. The kidney beans sprouted just a day after my birthday and now they are very tall.

I read the book, FROZEN, on my birthday afternoon. I made this joke after looking at Olaf’s funny picture. Why does Olaf sit in the sun? Because he wants to get a tan. HA HA HA  HA. 

  

May 4, 2020

We could not visit India this year.

This is a very, very long holiday period. Normally, I spend these holidays in India. But this year, I am staying at my home in Thailand.

We could not go to the airport as our province is under lockdown because of COVID-19. We were not allowed to go to the airport and travel. We cannot go to a park or play area also. So I have started exercising every day at home. I do yoga by watching COSMIC KIDS on YouTube.

In this lockdown, I miss playing with my best friend. During school, I used to eat lunch with my friends. But in lockdown, I like to eat lunch with my family. Some times when I am lazy, my mom feeds me. I and my brother dust shelves and chairs also.

I do not like to study school syllabus in holidays. I like puzzles (crossword, I spy, Sudoku and jigsaw) and solve them every day.  In the afternoon, I play with my brother. Last week, we recycled an egg carton in to a butter fly wall hanging. I also cook with mom, as a treat.  On the weekend, I made a steamed banana raisin cake. I pre-heated the oven by myself. I was not afraid to handle a knife by myself, as I cut raisins into small pieces.

We grow a lot of plants in our house. So we need to take care of them too. I help to cut down weeds in our garden.  We dried chilies and bell peppers for their seeds. Later we planted these seeds in pots. I try to water them every day.  It is raining for some days and centipedes come out.

Do you know why centipedes take a long time to wear shoes? Because they wear hundred shoes. HA HA HA HA .This is my favorite joke.

Bye for this week.

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