Smelling & tasting day was great. I went to the store and bought various cooking extracts (lemon, vanilla, essence of biryani), as well as some jars of baby food, and brought potato chips and chocolate from home. The kids had fun guessing the scents--anything sweet smelled "like candy!"--and tasting sample bitter, sweet, salty, and sour foods. (I gave them each a couple of instant coffee crystals as an example of a bitter food. They made terrific faces but steadfastly claimed to like it.)
The real event of the day was making microwave popcorn for our "Discovery Time" period ( in which we discover stuff). There we were--myself, Philosophical T.A., Little Sweetie, Little Darlin', Office Assistant, and M. (resting up from a long night of crying baby), all crammed into a tiny kitchenette the size of a broom closet. The boys kept their noses practically pressed to the microwave and cried out with glee as they began to hear the popping and smell the scent of popcorn. They really dug the steam as well, when I opened up the bag, but I made them stay a safe distance from the opening. Boy were Teacher Begum and her assistant happy when they picked the boys up for computer lab and got presents of popcorn wrapped in paper towels!
That was yesterday, and today we did a review of all five senses by writing a poem about October. I used a template I found at an on-line teacher website, atozteacherstuff.com, and the kids filled in the blanks for each of the five senses. Their masterpiece:
October Poem
October looks like sun and clouds.
October sounds like scary sounds.
October feels like sun.
October smells like dirty.
October tastes like nice rice.
Ah, the budding poets. (Little Sweetie came up with "October feels like sun," as we've had all sunny days so far this month. We discussed sweating and feeling warm.)
After work all the teachers piled into the school van and then proceeded to wait for nearly an hour while somebody's grandmother came to pick him up from the other class. Sigh. So much for Jumma prayers for School Driver Sahib. Our school is on the far end of town, next to the irrigation canal that runs throughout the city, and the trip back through The Lovely City is quite interesting, with lots to see.
On this particular day we found ourselves travelling alongside a cowherd and about a dozen cattle. Unfortunately, one of them started to veer into the road before the cowherd could stop her, and since on-coming traffic was prodigious at that hour, School Driver Sahib had nowhere to go but straight into the cow. A tremendous thud, a gasp from the assembled passengers, and as School Driver Sahib pulled over, I looked behind me to see the cow--looking dazed even for a cow but apparently unhurt--lumbering back toward her, um, colleagues.
School Driver Sahib was visibly upset, striding over to the cowherd and leading him by the arm, as though he were a child, to check the damage to the van. The elderly cowherd looked really scared, poor guy. A couple of the faculty in the van prevailed upon School Driver Sahib to just let him go without further scolding, as really, cows hardly have road sense and what was the man supposed to do? "It's not his fault!" they called out. "Please, he's an old man." When I got out at my apartment I saw the dent the cow had made--it was just a shallow circle about the size of my palm. No real harm done to the van or to us, and I hope that cow really is as sturdy as she looked.
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