INDiA ~ Ganesh!

Inspired by this great book....http://www.penguin.com/book/the-little-book-of-hindu-deities-by-sanjay-patel/9780452287754

The class were able to take a step towards Indian mythology without really having to learn too much at once.

Some of the short movies on youtube scared them as they are still a little young but the pictures in this book they simply couldn't get enough of!

Ganesh is easily a character for young children to relate to - he's an elephant after all! Why he is so, my class don't really care, but they like that he has lots of arms!

So, the task? Let's make a elephant head and see if we can dress up for an awesome finale at the end of the month wearing Indian Saris too!

 The final product!
It was so much fun and we even decoratedna framed print out of the main picture for a momento!

INDiA~! Bangles & Bhindis!

We have been enjoying making many many Indian-style bangles. One style, we made from plastic bottles and wrapping yarn around a cut off part. It was such a simple activity, but the class loved it and kept wanting to make more and more! Great for the fine motor skills too.

The second type, was simpler, made from toilet paper rolls. Again, these were popular and we used tape, gift wrap ribbon, sequins. Fun!

INDiA ~~ Holi~ & Rangoli~!

We made our own natural dyes!!

See HERE for instructions


For the theme of India, I thought it would be great to mimic the Festival of colours, but with all that synthetic stuff, it would be difficult to really enjoy the process of getting messy.

First we practiced making flower shapes by starting with a circle and then pushing out the flour. Some of the children really enjoyed mixing the colours for this activity.

Then, came the floor painting - 

We started with water colours and small paintbrushes
...moving onto the spot paint pens, which was way more fun.

The kids loved this - floor activities are always fun plus they can add
their own personal touches too! (How many smiley faces can you see?)

(In this instance, we didn't use the flour for the floor design; we just took it to the park ad played with the colours. That was fun enough!)

INDiA!! ~ Henna Hands

 Kids just love drawing and they love drawing on themselves, so this is a perfect activity for them. Ok, so henna is brown and more about the patterns, but reggio is more about what the kids want to do with it all....

 

For the finale, we went with more of a henna feel and used ONLY brown...with some inspiration on the side and practice under our belts, it was a super fun activity!

INDiA ~ Chai Tea!

  This was such a super fun activity for the class. Everyone got to choose their own spices to add to the milk break and enjoy the smells and textures too along the way.

Unfortunately, all but one hated the taste but the fun was definitely in the making!!

INDiA ~ Peacock!

It's the national bird, so we started a project that can continue for the month, should the kids want to...

INDiA!

New Month, New theme...!

It is important to make the flags together with the class, but simply drawing in our sketch books or painting one just isn't enough!

For this one, we used carrots, Japanese daikon (radish), mint, spinach & coriander. It smelt amazing! Luckily for the Dharma Chakra in the middle, the daikon was the perfect size! We coloured it blue.

In the packs I sent home for each student, I found a blueberry just to maintain the effect.