International month: India

Good morning Buds class! What a wonderful day again! We were so excited to come to school and experience some wonderful activities prepared for us today. We did our morning jobs with little help from our teachers and then proceeded to the play area to get some musical toys and Mario Kart figurines. We really had a good time imagining and making different scenarios for our toys. For example, we took the racing cars and then imagined that they could fly as well. We still did the painting for a very special event on March 10. This time, instead of using the water-based colors, we used the acrylic paint to have a vibrant texture on it. We got several colors to play with and we started using our hands and fingertips and dabbed them on our canvas. At first, we were trying to make the small dots with our fingers but for some of our friends they felt more comfortable stroking and spreading the paint with their hands. So our teachers decided to just go for it because what’s important is to understand the creative process that is underlying the painting. We also felt our emotions and did what we needed to do exactly. It was so amazing after doing all of these things for our masterpiece.

Today was a special day too. Our international month was all about India. We talked about it before so that we could have a little bit of an idea. We welcomed Pooja (Dev’s mom) and Kelsie (Neel’s mom) and they were so fabulous with their costumes. First, we read the story about Diwali (Indian New Year) entitled “Lighting a lamp” and we learned many things about their culture and celebration. We loved the colors that we saw from the book, it was really visually appealing. Then, Pooja took us to India. She asked if anyone could become an Indian pilot. So, we decided that Dev and Neel would be very suitable because of their Indian heritage. We got on the airplane, fastened our seatbelts and flew as fast as we could to India. As we reached the destination, Pooja brought out some puppets from their country and we saw that it was red and golden. Their costumes were so majestic to see. And then, we talked about the places that we could visit such as the Taj Mahal and the Golden temple. Both places were so big and beautiful. We also saw the tiger – their national animal and the peacock – their national bird. During their new year, they were also making a Rangoli. We thought that the decoration was so wonderful. There’s also the incense and we could smell it in the air. It was so fragrant. We put on the bindi, tika, bangles and sari.  We then had the different spices that we used in India. They all smelled so good. Lastly, we danced the Punjabi dance by lifting our hands up and imagined that we’re like twisting the light bulbs in the air and at the same moving our feet. Kelsie taught the moves, they were pretty cool.

Thank you, Pooja and Kelsie for giving us a wonderful experience. We really treasure these things in class and your support and love are truly valued at Ohana. Again, thank you very much and have a great day!

Lots of love,

All the children from Buds class 2015-2016