March is a month of colourful celebration and appreciation for having one of the major festivals in Indian culture.
To introduce children to the colourful festival, the educators presented them with some videos and related books as we have children in the program with Indian backgrounds. To include the families, the educators asked for suggestions from them. Lila's family supported our program by bringing a lovely picture book talking about what Holi is and how people celebrate Holi. Lila asked the educator if she could share the book to everyone, with support from the educators. Lila and the educators worked together on the carpet to read the story. When Lila encountered English words she didn’t know, an educator helped her. When the educators were not aware of the Hindu words, Lila was happy to help, feeling proud of the reverse role she got to take part in. The cultural presentation enhanced her confidence and sense of belonging in the program.
The children appeared to enjoy the book a lot. They went "wow" when they saw the page showing how people spray colourful powders on each other. They asked if they could do it in the program; after hearing no, they were quite disappointed. Educator Jingfeng told them where they could find places to enjoy the colour blessing and what they were going to do in the program to honour the Holi celebration.
On Holi Day, we brought the children some chalk in six different colours that represented Holi, along with some trays and two mortars. The children were curious about the mortars, so the educator showed a tutorial video on how to use them. The children couldn’t wait to have a hands-on experience with the mortars. However, once they started trying the mortars, they found out how hard it was and how long it took to grind the chalks into powder. The grinding process challenged their resilience; some gave up quickly, while some tried to work with their friends and the teamwork improved their speed a lot so the children who struggled started looking for partners too. The whole activity turned into a cooperative game, fostering their social skills along the way. However, we did have little accidents in the middle and the children learned to be cautious about their fingers when smashing. After a while, they finally crushed most of the chalk into powder. One of them suddenly came up with an idea. She asked the children at the table if they would like to mix all the colours together and then share. The other children thought about the proposal and agreed. “Let’s put all the powder into this cup.” When they finished mixing, the children observed, “Look, it’s brown now!” They felt happy about their discovery and shared the pile fairly.
The children interacted with their peers in a really helpful and friendly way during the whole process. It was a great opportunity for everyone to learn something new and to involve our families into the program. A big appreciation to all who supported us.
