Discovering World Cultures, or the 3rd Meeting of the Children’s Art-group

Thinking over the forthcoming meeting of the children’s art-group, I decided that it would be a nice idea to devote the meeting to some certain topic/image. As we are only starting organizing children’s art meetings at our place, why not devote the meeting on Sunday to Shri Ganesha? Why to him? In Indian mythology Shri Ganesha is considered to be the Deity (or, in other words, an aspect of God Almighty) who protects children, their innocence and purity, he also helps when you start something new. Why Indian mythology? Our government announced year 2009 a year of India in Russia (well, we just like Shri Ganesha and we try to show children the understanding of and respect for different cultures).

Today there were three kids at our art-meeting: Soniya (1,5), Kirill (3,5) and Bazhena (5,5). We showed them a picture of Shri Ganesha and asked them what qualities they thought he had? “He is kind, honest, wise and he is very obedient to his mother. He also wants us to have such qualities!”

Then we told the children the legend about the creation of Shri Ganesha (why he’s got an elephant’s head).Red flowers (red is the colour of Shri Ganesha) and sweet things (Ganesha likes them very much) added special atmosphere to our today’s meeting.

The art&craft part was also devoted to Shri Ganesha. We discussed his appearance beforehand: he’s got a trunk, big belly, one tusk, four hands, one of which gives blessings, another holds sweets and in the other two hands there are weapons to fight with evil things. His transport is, according to the legend, a little mouse. And again this craft was appropriate for both a 1,5-year-old and a 5,5-year-old. I think I have already got used to such conditions

On the cardboard I drew the contours of a boy-elephant. The children put glue onto the elements of the image and then poured semolina mixed with kum-kum (Indian clay) there – Ganesha should turn out red.

Then from plasticine each child made the things which he/she considered appropriate for his/her Ganesha. Our Soniya, for example, decided that Ganesha, besides eyes and a trunk, needs a hat-crown, a navel, pies as sweet things and a little mouse. Actually, all the children were sure that a mouse is one of the most important elements of the craft as Shri Ganesha could not be left without a means of transport

The crafts are ready! Each child is happy!…

Just look what beautiful rose this Ganesha has got!

In a minute all the children are even happier as “Ganesha liked the crafts so much that he decided to give each child a present”: all the kids got puzzles with the pictures from kind and joyful cartoons.

So, the presents are examined and put to bags and we are moving to the next part of our meeting – cooking! With much joy, the children agreed to prepare something very tasty for Shri Ganesha (as he loves sweet things ) . Each child had got a bowl. In these bowls each put what he/she needed to prepare “Crumble pastry”:

• 3-4 spoonful of butter,
• 1 glass of flour
• 0,5 glass of semolina (or you can substitute it with flour)
• 0,5 glass of sugar
• baking powder

The amount of all the ingredients was divided into three parts among the three children.

I peeled and cut apples and mixed them with dried apricots (preliminary soaked in hot water and cut) for the stuffing. Soniya, Bazhena and Kirill put first the mixture and then the crumble pastry into muffing cups (isn’t it a nice working at fine motor skills? )

Our biscuits were ready just when the basic dinner had been eaten. Bazhena decided to treat Shri Ganesha to the most beautiful of them (we only admired her generosity!). The biscuits turned out extremely tasty!

Before going home, Bazhena said that she liked everything that day but she enjoyed cooking most of all

Anastasia

Illustrations to the article:

The picture by an unknown author, the photos by the author of the article

You can read this story in Russian here