Reading about the pastime of Krishna lifts Govardhan seemed like the right time to explore rainfall and clouds. The story talks about how Indra(the demigod in-charge of rain) sent the Samvartaka clouds to destroy Vrindavan.

This prompted a nice discussion on how clouds are made and what causes them to eventually give rain. To better understand, we did a quick little experiment. Each child was given a clear plastic jar, filled 3/4th with water. I then sprayed shaving foam on top of each jar to form a cloud. Children were then given food colour which they put in little drops on the cloud. As the colour made its way through the foam and into the water below, kids learnt that clouds are not solid, but porous.

Clouds in a jar

Note: Image taken from teachpreschool.org. In all the excitement, I sometimes forget to take my own pictures :( 

To understand condensation better , we held little cubes of ice, over steam from a kettle spout. The dripping cubes were then held over their clouds and children now had their own little rain shower in a jar!

Note: Image taken from Wikipedia Commons

So much fun and learning all rolled into one!

Flaming forest - by a 4 year old

A preschool program just cant be complete without  art. Art is an important means of communication and little children, uninhibited by the knowledge of the written word, take to it so naturally. I am not much of an artist myself, but it is not too difficult to introduce different art techniques to the kids. At their level, it is more about exploring different media and creating something beautiful - but I do try to teach different ways of colouring, different styles of drawing, contrasts, focus etc and talk about it a little.

For eg. We recently did silhouette art. The main object of the drawing is dark or black - in sharp contrast to a colourful background. It is used to represent shadows, figures in the sunset etc. The subject of our art was the pastime of Krishna killing Kesi - the horse demon. The children were given A4 size sheets that they had to colour using different bright colours. Then they were given the outline of a horse which they coloured black. I also found a jpg of Lord Krishna punching that I coloured black using MS Paint. The kids cut out the picture and stuck it along with the horse.

Krishna kills Kesi silhoutte art

Another time we did a colour mixing activity while making Varuna's (the Sea God's) umbrella. This umbrella had been stolen by a demon and was later recovered by the Lord. We divided the umbrella top into 6 divisions and painted them using the 3 primary colours and the 3 secondary colours. Each child mixed his own colours himself and we got very beautiful end result. Even the younger kids enjoyed this activity very much!

Govardhan Pooja Festival

Last week, we were studying Govardhan Lila, the famous pastime in which Lord Krishna lifted a mountain on the little finger of His left hand. He used this as an umbrella to shelter all the residents of Vrindavan from the terrible rainfall of Lord Indra for 7 days and 7 nights.

To commemorate this event, Govardhan Pooja is celebrated every year in the month ofKartik (October - November). It is an extremely fun event in which a replica of Govardhan Hill is prepared using different food items. This hill is surrounded by other smaller hills of different food stuffs. Devotees worship Giri-Govardhan, the special mountain that was touched by the Lord Himself, by singing His glories and of course enjoying the grand prasadam feast that follows.

Who can resist celebrating such a festival with the little ones? At Kanhas, we made a lovely little hill from Halawa and dry fruits. The children really enjoyed decorating their Govardhan with cashews, almonds, raisins, dates and dry figs.

Jai Govardhan!

All the children had got different food items from home to share with all their friends. We put these other items around Govardhan Hill.

The menu included noodles, pasta, baked rajma, home-made chocolate, milk barfi, ice-cream and laddus