Holi Celebration in school

Holi known as the 'festival of colours' is celebrated with immense charm and valour in North India. Holi marks  the end of winter and arrival of spring season. Children love to play with colours called as 'Gulaal ' which is dry powdered colour made from herbal material. Also they love to play with pichkaaris which is filled with water and then showered over each other. In my kids preschool the Holi festival was celebrated in the following manner.

Children were briefed about the story behind Holi celebration 

To let children know the importance of Holi festival , the story of Holi festival is briefed by the teacher. According to Hindu mythology Holika a devil was blessed with a boon that she can never catch fire. So once she took bhakt prahlad in her lap and set herself on fire. But Prahlad kept on reciting the God's name and was untouched by the fire while Holika was destroyed. Thus the burning of Holika marks the victory of good over evil. To celebrate this victory people on the next day play with colours , rejoice with each other , forgive each other , eat sweets.

Group activity

In the group activity the children prepare one craft together. So the teacher decided to make a wreath of Handprint impressions  on a chart paper. The teacher first drew a big circle on the chart then made the chidren put their handprint along the perimeter of the circle. So a colourful wreath was ready . In the center of the wreath she wrote happy holi with finger strokes. The chart was later displayed on the school Flannel board.

Craft on Holi

Children love to play with water and holi festival gives them their righ of playing with water for indefinite period. So to let them keep a token of holi festival in form of craft we made small buckets from paper cups. Then decorated them with glazed papers also tied a string from them to signiy bucket handle. They gave away packets of gulaal in these buckets.

Playing colours and dance

The main part of the festival i.e. to play with colours was still left. Children love to get messy and dirty and this is the festival that gives the the right to do everything they want. So when the children were sent outdoors for playing with colours they enjoyed a lot.

The children applied colours to each other softly and greeted Happy Holi. Lastly all the children dance and rejoiced to the tunes of their favourite bollywood party songs.