Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists

How to Play Kabaddi: Part 2

Hello again! When I left off my last blog post (Kabaddi: Part 1), I had just finished explaining a bit about Kabbadi. Well, I’m back! In this blog we will cover how to score in Kabaddi, and how scoring is kept, as well as how to be a Kabaddi referee. Here we go! We left off with some special terms. Now, the following table shows the different ways to score. Kabaddi is a contact sport, however, you can’t just barge in like a rhino, or try to touch someone in haste, and get out; no, you have to be quick, like a ninja. Just a small touch counts! Toe Touch/Kick: Where you thrust your foot toward the defender and lightly brush him. A kick uses the entire foot, but they are practically the same.   Hand Touch: When a raider lunges toward a defender and touches them with their hand.   Escaping a Tackle: When the raider just drags the defender and touches the midline without losing their breath. You can make many combinations of these techniques like kicking a defender, using the same kick to get to the bonus line, get someone with a hand touch, and drag someone back to the midline. That would get you 4 points! Now, you will learn how to referee a Kabaddi game. Whenever someone scores, the ref must thrust their hand up in the air with the amount of points scored counted by the fingers. At the same time, they hold their other hand sideways and point it to the side of the team that scored, and then say how many points they scored, and say the team that scored. When the game ends, the ref must point both hands straight ahead and say, “match completed.” There are six officials: 1 Referee, 2 Umpires, 1 Scorer, and 2 Assistant Scorers. Duties of the Referee: -Take the toss. -Supervise the match. -Announces the score of each side before the last 5 minutes of the match. -Takes care of recording the time. -Warns about the time remaining at last 5 minutes of second half of the match. Duties of the two Umpires: -The Umpires conduct the match and give decisions according to the rules of the game. Duties of the Scorer: -Fills in the score sheet. -Announces the score with the permission of the referee at the end of each half. -Complete the score sheet in all respects and get it duly signed by the Umpires and Referee. Duties of the two Assistant Scorers: -Maintains record of the players who are out. -Sees that the players are seated in the order of being out. -Will help referee regarding any player who goes out of boundary. Just like in soccer, Kabaddi also had the warning card system. Here it is: -Green card: It is a warning sign. If a green card is given twice to a player or coach or manager twice, the next card shall be directly a yellow card. -Yellow card: That member is temporarily suspended for 2 minutes. If a yellow card is given twice to a player or coach or manager, the next card shall be directly a red card. -Red card: Suspension from match or debarred from tournament. Each team shall score one point for every opponent out or put out. The side which scores a special term shall score two extra points. The out and revival rule will be applicable. Each team shall score one point for every bonus point awarded. So, that’s it! I have shared with you all that I know about Kabaddi, and anything you would need to stage a Kabaddi game. Leave your thoughts in the comment section, and see you in October.

The Cold Winter

It is Saturday morning, and Nellie yawns as she wakes up from her bed. The air feels crisp and cold in her room. It hurts to breathe. Hopefully dad just turned off the heater last night, and can turn it back on again today. Last time, the power company shut off our heat, and it took a long time to get it turned back on. Those were very cold days. Quickly dressing in long pants, a warm shirt, sweater, and socks, Nellie walks down the short hallway from her bedroom to the living area. “Momma, why is it so cold?” Nellie asks her mom, who is sitting at the kitchen table. “Nellie, good, you’re bundled up. The power company turned off our heat. They turned the heat off for everyone on our block. I’ve been trying to figure out who still has heat at the Rosebud Reservation all morning. I haven’t found anyone yet.” Nellie is cold all weekend, and worried. Its November, and the weather is only going to get worse in South Dakota. Would everyone on the entire Rosebud Native American Reservation freeze to death this winter? The power company turned off power for over 100 houses on the Rosebud Reservation, and they won’t turn it back on until all bills are completely paid off. With no jobs, and no extra money, Nellie didn’t know what her family would do. Nellie is always excited for school on Monday morning because her teacher, Ms. Smith, is so smart and inspiring, and really seems to care about her students. “Good morning class!” sings Ms. Smith as they get seated. “Good morning Ms. Smith!” the class sings back. The students all look around and seem relieved. Ms. Smith asks the class, “Did anything exciting happen this weekend?” Nobody speaks. Ms. Smith asks again, “Nothing? Nothing interesting happened this weekend? If not, then let’s get started on our math lesson.” Nellie cautiously raises her hand, “Excuse me, Ms. Smith?” “Yes Nellie. Did something interesting happen this weekend?” “Ms. Smith, they turned the heat off again.” Ms. Smith looked confused. “What do you mean, Nellie? The heat is on, thankfully. It’s going to be cold today!” “No, Ms. Smith. The power company turned off our heat at home. They won’t turn it back on until we pay off our bill.” Ms. Smith replied, “Oh. Nellie, I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s talk about it after class.” “Ms. Smith? It’s not just at my house.” “Oh? What do you mean?” asked Ms. Smith. Nellie said quietly, “They turned off the power at all of our houses.” Nellie’s classmates all started talking excitedly amongst themselves. They all confirmed that they’ve been without heat since Friday, and that they all got the same message from the power company. They wouldn’t get any power again until they paid their bills in full. Ms. Victoria Smith watched her students talk about the power company, the lack of heat, and the coming winter. She needed to get to a quiet place so she could think of a way to help these children, but that couldn’t happen until school let out. She needed to get through today’s lessons first, and then she would try to think of a solution. “OK kids. We will try to figure out what to do about the heat problem later. For now, let’s enjoy the heat in the classroom, and get started on our lessons. Today we are going to start with working on our multiplication table.” Victoria Smith is a young teacher at a school on the Rosebud Reservation. She is 26 years old, and recently graduated from Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts. Wellesley is a college for women, and it has a special motto, “Non Ministrari sed Ministrare.” That means, “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Wellesley College’s goal is to educate women who will make a difference in the world. That’s why Victoria chose to become at teacher on the Rosebud Native American Reservation in South Dakota. Most of the families here live in poverty. They don’t have access to education, jobs, money, or anything else to help improve their lives. Victoria hoped she could make a difference for her students. Victoria had been thinking about her students’ power problem all day. She corrected assignments after school let out, and now she was reading through Facebook before bed. She enjoys keeping up with her friends on Facebook especially now that she’s living in South Dakota, far away from her friends and family. As Victoria read through some posts, she came across some Wellesley message boards. Suddenly, Victoria had an idea. Since Wellesley is known for women who make a difference, the Wellesley graduates are an unusually helpful group. Maybe they would like to help Victoria’s students get their heat back? It was worth a try. Victoria quickly posted a message of her own on a Wellesley Facebook message board explaining the problem, and asking for ideas. Then she turned her computer off, and went to sleep. Victoria woke up the next morning to her phone ringing loudly on her nightstand. She answered the phone, “Hello?” A voice replied, “VICTORIA. Its Keisha.” Keisha was Victoria’s roommate at Wellesley during her first year. “Hi Keisha! It’s so early here. Is everything ok? Keisha replied, “Have you checked Facebook this morning? A bunch of people responded to your post last night. You have hundreds of women asking if they can donate money to help your students!” “Really?” asked Victoria. “I’ll check it out right now!” The next few weeks are a whirlwind for Victoria, Nellie and the rest of the students. A handful of Wellesley graduates took charge of organizing payments from hundreds of other Wellesley graduates. Those women paid off the families’ power bills one by one. It was thousands of dollars, and it took a lot of their time. They had to get each account number, and the power company did not make the process easy, but they did it.

Saturday Newsletter: September 14, 2019

‘Free as a Bird’Mixed media collage by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada). Published September 2019. A note from Sarah Ainsworth I am a big fan of collages and all of the artistic possibilities they represent. If you look at the fine print to see what medium they are, it usually says “mixed media.” The category of “mixed media” has always struck me as an unfair standardization of such varied artwork. But at the same time, those two words do give the artist room to explore—after all, there are so many media you can mix! Plus, it lends an air of mystery to artwork, as a viewer is often left wondering what materials they did mix. I was excited to see two of Sage Millen’s collages published in this month’s issue (one of them featured in last week’s Newsletter). In the one featured above, Free as a Bird, can you identify all of the materials that Sage used? How many “layers” of media are there? My challenge for you this weekend is simply to create a collage. You can begin by assembling the materials you’d like to use, like magazines or colored paper. Is there anything in your recycling bin that you could use (and is clean enough to handle)? Maybe you want to incorporate some natural elements, as Sage does in her pieces. Then the fun begins! If you create a collage you’re proud of, please send it to us via Submittable so we can consider it for publication! Happy weekend, Fundraising Update: the Refugee Project has almost reached its target already! We are overwhelmed. Within days of launching our appeal for donations toward our Refugee Project, you had already donated almost all of our total goal! We set $5,000 as our target, thinking it was a huge stretch and that we’d be lucky to get even halfway there. But we only need $300 more to make it. Yes, our readers and supporters have already donated an incredible $4,700 to this project. You are all just amazing. Thank you! It’s obvious that this initiative means as much to our readers as it does to us. Besides being delighted to have the funding in place to support the creative journeys of kids in refugee camps, the whole Stone Soup team is really buoyed up by knowing that you, our extended Stone Soup family, are in this with us. This is our fall fundraiser, and the season has barely begun. That $5,000 target is clearly in view, and maybe we are going to beat it! Click the button below if you want to join in supporting this project. Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! Take a look at the beautiful artwork that former contributor Jessica Libor creates in the interview we published with her from Tuesday. Jessica illustrated two stories from 2000, “A Strike for the Wind” and “A Christmas Wish,” and wrote and illustrated “Seventeen Years,” from 2001. Her interview is full of great advice. From Stone Soup, September 2019 Trenza Francesa, French Braids By Alina Samarasan, 12 (Brookline, MA) Illustrated by Sage Millen, 11 (Vancouver, Canada)   “¡Ven aquí, Carlita! ¡No puedes ir a la escuela así! Tu cabello es un desastre!” Come here, Carlita! You can not go to school like that! Your hair is a mess! I walk into the room and sit down so Mamá can reach my hair, wishing that she spoke English. Then I wouldn’t be so embarrassed at school. Then no one would tell me to go back to Mexico. My family’s from Cuba, not Mexico, and I wasn’t even born there. I was born here, unlike most of the kids at school, but that doesn’t really matter. Don’t be like them, my big brother said. Don’t fall to their level. You’re better than them, Carlita. And make that known.  …/MORE Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Stone Soup’s Advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.