Week of January 15th, 2018

HAPPY THAI PONGAL!

Each year we learn about this interesting and colorful harvest festival on the Tamil calendar year from Sri Lanka, neighbor to India. We listened today to Sri Lankan Radio on Youtube to get a feel for the music which greatly resembles traditional Indian music in its instrumentation and semi-tones. Check it out below!

We also learned three important things about the festival:

1) People boil rice and milk until it bubbles over in pots, to symbolize prosperity. Sometimes honey is added! We pretended to cook up rice today and talked about how hot it gets.

2) Cows and their milk are considered very valuable and precious in Sri Lanka. Cows are revered on Thai Pongal by adorning them with necklaces. Today we decorated a puppet cow with beaded necklaces and also the children pretended to be cows as I placed necklaces around their necks!

3.) During Thai Pongal, beautiful designs are made in the home on the floor and doorsteps with colored rice or chalk, or other materials. The elaborate designs are called "kolam." Traditionally, these designs are made only by women but today we all gave it a try and also got a wonderful opportunity to talk about geometry and shapes. SO much fun!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR CHILD

1. What animal wears a necklace during Thai Pongal? Cows!

2) What bubbles over in the pot during Thai Pongal celebrations? Rice and milk!

Week of January 9th, 2017

HAPPY THAI PONGAL!

Happy Thai Pongal! In a few short days in North India (specifically, Tamil and Sri Lanka, as well as other places near India) there will be a four-day long harvest celebration called "Tha Pongal!"

Thai Pongal is a Hindu festival that focuses on gratitude for bounty, a celebration of harvest, and hope for a plentiful new year.

We listened to some Thai Pongal drum music while also looking at pictures of the traditional celebratory dish, freshly harvested rice boiled in milk in clay pots. It is purposefully "boiled over" to represent its bounty and plentiful nature! Sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, this rice dish is a staple during the festival.

Another tradition are the bright and beautiful "kolams" made of everything from colored rice and flour to chalk powder! Every morning throughout the celebration, women use the colored powders to make lovely geometric designs that are thought to bring prosperity and good luck on the floors and front doorsteps of homes. When they are destroyed from rain, wind or footsteps, new designs are made!

To celebrate our version of Thai Pongal, we enjoyed making shapes and drawings in little piles of colored salts on paper plates! Ask your child about drawing in the salt and making beautiful "kolams."

Infants also sang/read the book "I'm a Little Teapot" and had fun with bouncing songs!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR CHILD

1) What boils over in the pot during Thai Pongal? Rice and Milk!

2) Do you remember drawing in the colored sand and making designs? Do you remember what they are called? Kolam!