Incredible India

Did we have an amazing time in India this morning? We loved going there and were so impressed with the exquisite traditional Indian clothes that Shruti, Shreyas, Rangana, Imaan, Aamir, Aamina and Aaila were wearing. Rangana was wearing a “salwar kameez” made from Indian cotton. The pants were wide and baggy because sometimes it can be so hot in India and these kinds of pants keep you cool. Shruti was dressed in a smarter more fancy style of “salwar kameez” with beautiful sparkles and diamonds all over. Shruti also wore bracelets made out of glass. When you dance and move your arms, the bracelets make a beautiful sound when they touch each other. Imaan and Aamina had on “saris”, Aaila had on a beautiful black skirt and matching top called ”lehenga choli”. Aamir was wearing “dhoti kurta” and the pants had beautiful folds in front.

We sat together and learnt many facts about India viz. India is on the continent of Asia and has the second largest population in the world. The land has mountains, plains, forests, beaches, and deserts and Aamir showed us where it was on the globe.

We looked at the National Flag of India which is called “Tiranga” or “Tricolour” because it has three colours viz. orange (saffron), white and green. In the middle of the white stripe there is a navy blue wheel called the “Ashoka Chakra”. It has 24 spokes representing the 24 hours in a day. We looked at pictures of old and new temples, the most famous of which is the Taj Mahal in New Delhi. Shreyas and his family come from New Delhi so they have seen the Taj Mahal; so has Hisami, because she has been to India many times. People speak many languages in India but the main two are English and Hindi. There are other official languages and if you go there and look carefully at the money; on the back there is writing in all the official languages, telling you how much money it is. When we greet people in Japan we say “ohio gozaimasu” for good morning, “konichiwa” is said after 12 noon and

“konbawa” is good evening. In India you say “Namaste” at any time of day.

Mangoes are the national fruit and the flowers on mango trees also have five petals like cherry blossoms. The most famous of Indian animals is the tiger and while tigers may look the same to us, each one has his/her own unique pattern on his/her body; just like zebras. Each zebra’s stripes make a pattern that is different from all other zebras. We have fingerprints which too, are unique to us. Nobody in the whole world has the same fingerprints as we do. The most famous bird in India is the peacock and we were excited to do an art project and make our own peacocks. We used two pairs of our handprints on paper and made dots around the finger parts. When the paint had dried, we added a body, eyes, legs and a fancy headdress. The man is the peacock and the lady is called a peahen. They are one of the largest flying birds.

The last thing that we learnt about was “yoga”. We have done some yoga with Hisami during the year so we know some of the poses. Shruti taught us some new ones. We learnt that yoga is really important for taking stress away and she

suggested that when we feel angry or sad or worried, we take a deep breath in through our nose, hold the breath for a while and then breathe out for a long time. We practiced for a few breaths and then we started to do yoga. Yoga is also good to stretch the muscles in our bodies. We did the frog pose, the snake pose and even the airplane pose. Shruti said that we need to travel to India and while some of use gave suggestions e. g. car, train, taxi, bike etc, she said that it was really far, so an airplane was our best option. At the very end, we lay on the floor in “shava asana” and ended the yoga lesson feeling really relaxed.

Then we got ready to go to the park. We want to say a big thank you to Shruti and Rangana for the wonderful Indian experience with them and for all the beautiful clothes we saw, the art that we created the information and the yoga, right at the very end.

Love always the children in Petals Class.