In this blog post, I want to share what made me smile over the years. Since the theme of the year is Smile Brightly and Learn, I decided to make a list of things that made me smile. I am hoping that my list will get parents thinking about what makes their child smile. You may even get an idea or two from my post!
2003
1. Watering plants
One of my favorite activities when I was five years old was watering plants. Every day, I used to look forward to watering the plants. Of course, I did not give the right amount of water because I enjoyed watering. I gave more water to the plants as needed. I first went to the front yard and opened the tap. I then watered the grass. When I went to the back yard, I watered the Cacti, the Cacti then grew huge.
2003-2005
- Exploring numbers
I would just type up numbers in Excel every day from 1 to 100. I would print the papers and take the papers to school and start counting from 1 to 100 with the other kids. When I was young, I was fascinated by numbers. I also liked to reverse everything. I learned numbers in Spanish from 1-100, I would also recite them from 100 to 1. - Playing Monopoly
I used to be so fond of Monopoly when I was five years old I would insist that I should keep on buying new Monopolies now and then from Toys R US.
2004-2007
- Visiting my cousin in Minneapolis
I would listen to the nursery rhymes with my younger cousin. I was reminiscing about my cousin listening to nursery rhymes when I heard my nephew listening to nursery rhymes. I used to play in a place called look out ridge. It was an indoor playground with a big structure. I would even visit the Children’s museum. - Playing Bean Bag mountains
We had big bean bags in our porch. We used to play many games with them. One of the games was to throw the bean bags to make a mountain. We used to hold the bean bag together and chant “we are building, we are building a mountain” and toss one bean bag on top of the other. Then, we would walk or run and fall on the mountain. - Playing Twister
I used to play Twister with my mother. We put our hand in one circle, we put our foot in one circle. But we improvised and made up our own game. We did not play just according to the rules. We would drum, walk together, and do different actions.
- Doing activities with Aneesh
Even when I was little, I used to enjoy watching my older brother Aneesh play. I wanted to copy everything he did. I used to sit in his room and mess around with his computer. Sometimes, I would sit in his room and just immitate whatever he did. I vividly remember cooking a mother’s day dinner with Aneesh. We made burritoes, and smoothies.
2006-2008
- Storytelling with Thinkblocks and scarves
My mother and I played with Thinkblocks daily. I also used to have Waldorf scarves. We would set up some blocks on different scarves for different places, and do storytelling. My favorite was the Magic Treehouse series. I also had wooden tree blocks to build the Magic Tree House. The Magic tree house stories had two children, Jack and Annie who used to travel back in time and go to different places in time. We also did Norse Myths in Waldorf school, and we used to enact those stories also with thinkblocks. Thinkblocks is a tool developed by Cabrera Research Labs. - Going to Disney world
I used to go to Disney World a lot when I was between eight years old and ten years old. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, I would only go on simple rides like Winnie the pooh, Tea cup, etc. I only went on scary roller coasters only when I went to Disney World with my cousins in 2012. When I went to Disney world in 2012, that was the only time I went on the Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and other scary rides.
2008 – present
10. Acting Ananth stories
I used to like acting Ananth stories from 2008. We acted many stories including Anxious in Atlanta, Bawling in Biscayne Bay, Cranky in Kennedy Space Center, Growling in Grandpa’s House. Meltdowns in Minneapolis, Tantrums at Twilight, and Wailing in Washington. You may have read some of these stories in my blog. My favorite one was “What will Rajesh Vaidhya Mama say”? Thank you Morpheus for your art work for this story. We still play this game while walking around in Adyar in Chennai.
Dear parents, What makes you smile? What makes your children smile? Share with us in our Facebook group.