Chapter 11

Chanda Mama Counts the Stars

Let us read

Chanda Mama! At times round as a circle and at times different.

Once, he started counting the stars. 1 … 2 … 3 … 10 … 21 … 45 … 99 … 100 … 311 … 516 … 890 … yawn … 999 …

Chanda Mama fell asleep!

The Sun peeped out from behind the clouds. It was morning. Chanda Mama woke up in the evening. He began to count again. But he had forgotten where he had stopped!

By the time he remembered, the night was over.

However, he continued to count the stars night after night. Often, he would forget the count.

One night, he was very upset. He began to cry. “Ooohh … Ooohh … What is this? I am never able to complete my counting.”

On seeing his tears, the Sun smiled, “Don’t worry! Why do you cry? I can tell you how many stars there are in the sky.”

“Really? How many?” Chanda Mama was surprised.

The Sun replied joyfully, “The number of lovely children is the same as the number of stars in the sky.”

Chanda Mama was happy! Now, the Moon came out every night. He would look at the stars. He would look at the children and he would smile happily.

New words

round, count, tears

Let us think

A. Answer the following.

1. Does the Moon look the same every night?

2. What did Chanda Mama try to count?

3. Why did Chanda Mama fall asleep?

4. Who helped Chanda Mama?

5. Complete the sentence:

The number of stars in the sky is the same as _______________

B. Think and say.

1. I call the Moon, Chanda Mama. What do you call him in your language?

2. Chanda Mama was not able to count the stars. What things can you not count?

3. The Moon is visible during the night. What can you see in the night sky?

Let us learn

Here and There!

Look at the following sentences.

We are here on the Earth. The Moon is there in the sky.

I have a sharpener here in my pencil box.

The crayons are there in the big box.

The underlined words in both sentences tell us about the location of ‘sharpener’ and ‘crayons’. The distance of the objects from the speaker helps us in choosing between the words ‘here’ and ‘there’.

We use ‘here’ to tell the location of things that are near us. Similarly, ‘there’ is used to tell the location of things that are far from us.

Fill in the blanks with ‘here’ or ‘there’.

One has been done for you.

1.	The students are playing kabaddi there.
2.	__________is your shirt.
3.	__________ is my bicycle.
4.	I went to Chandigarh last year. My brother
5.	This is my bench. I sit ___________ with my friends.

Let us listen

A. In the story, we read that the stars were too many to be counted.

Now, your teacher will read out a list of items for you. Put the items in the correct column in the given table.

1. Children in the classroom.

2. Flowers in a garden.

3. Books in the library.

4. Pencils in your pencil box.

5. Fingers on your right hand.

6. Children in your city or town.

7. Pages in your English notebook.

8. The hairs on your head.

	Can be counted easily	Too many to be counted
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Note to the teacher

On the basis of the examples, list more items for children (based on local context) to sort in the two columns. Repeat the phrases twice or thrice instead of jotting down on the board.