Deepavali

Last week has been a busy week for me. As we have been busy preparing and searching for our display item on cultural table as well as our banana leaf feast to celebrate Deepavali.

These experience ( of getting the items and learning the culture of Hindus) have been very knowledgeable and useful for us, so that all the information that we passed on to the children are accurate. It is good thing that we have Little India in Penang because it is convenient to get all the items that we need, be it for decoration or food. Hence, with these frequent visits to the shops, Chris and I are becoming a regular in Little India.

We wanted to show the children things or items that are related in celebrating Deepavali. Hence, a cultural table was set-up in the corridor area. With the guidance of teacher Meena, we placed oil lamps, a few varieties of muruku, dhal, laddu,ghee ball, bangles as well as sarees on the table.

I have folded the sarees into shape of a lotus flower.These items are explained and introduced during our daily Learning Circle sessions. All these items are beautifully decorated together with the labels. In Montessori environment, every item must be attractively presented to the child. During our Learning Circle, we also tought the children to speak in Tamil for the words ' Thank you ' ( nandri ) and ' Hello ' (Vanekam).

Last year, We had children decorated their own Rangoli and oil lamp. However , this year we decided to do only one Rangoli. The Rangoli was drawn by Teacher Meena and guide us through in decorating it. I bought 5 coloured grains to fill in the Kolam. We were very excited and took turns to fill it. We were very proud at the finished Rangoli!!

We also did sticking and coloring on an oil lamp templates

On our banana leaf feast, I personally whipped up a tasty chick peas, potato and chicken curry. I made it non-spicy and it was a hit among the children and even Teacher Meena gave me a thumbs-up.Besides curry , we also served stir-fry spinach, dhal curry and of course pappadams. We served all these food on a banana leaf and without any cutlery.

They were using their hands!! It was quite hilarious to see the children tried effortlessly to eat with their hands. Most of the rice came down between their fingers and yet they didn't give up and finished up their rice. I am so proud of them! To quench down their thirst, they had mango lassi.

However, for the toddler's group, they did not have banana leaf rice. I was afraid that the curry that I cooked has strong flavor. So instead of having cereal for snack, we gave them roti canai and dhal curry. We separated the dhal curry and the roti canai just in case they didn't like it.

However most of them seems to like the curry. Just by looking at the photographs , we knew that they loved it!!

This exposure of Indian Culture is important for the children. Children not only learn new vocabulary but also an understanding of the real world. However the most important thing is the children have great fun! Lastly , we certainly look forward to our Halloween party on next Saturday.