Gujarati Color Wheel for Holi
Sometimes celebrating festivals with my kids at this age is really about exposing them to the name and letting them know it exists. They don’t have to understand the ins and outs of it just yet. So, even when my oldest was just 2 and 3 years old we celebrated Holi as the festival of colors. The changing of seasons. The welcoming of spring. And all across India, kids and adults fill the air with so many colors to celebrate Holi. It’s just such a fun, lively and vibrant festival celebrated all over the world! So, in honor of Holi, each year my toddlers and preschooler kids spend a little bit of time exploring the color wheel (in Gujarati) and mixing primary colors to make our very own array of the rainbow in this Montessori inspired activity.
Last year, we had a wonderful library book which had the perfect color wheel. This year, I decided to make my own color wheel in Gujarati for my toddler twins and preschooler to refer to as they explored the mixing of Primary colors to create the rest of the rainbow. For my preschooler, this was the perfect Montessori inspired activity as he used the Gujarati color wheel as his reference or control. He would decide which color he was going to make, mix the colors together to see if he was successful and move on to the next. When he mixed the wrong colors, he was able to immediately refer to his color wheel to see what he needed to do and tried again. For the toddlers, they enjoyed all the fine motor, pincer skill development that was involved in trying to get the colored water into the dropper! And they all got their dose of Gujarati colors! When we were done today he showed me the colors he put together and said, “jo mein Indradhanush no color wheel banaavyo…” (Look, I made a rainbow color wheel). It was a win, win, win! All in all, this was a great way to kick off our Holi celebrations!
Colors of the Rainbow (Holi Kids Activity):
What you need:
- Water
- food coloring (blue, yellow, red)
- bowls to create the primary colors
- Clear glass, white plastic bowls or the paint tray that we used so you can really see the colors form
- A color wheel or guide to mixing colors as a reference
What to do:
- Using the primary colors, create the secondary colors (green, purple, orange)
You can do the same exploration with ice cubes as well! We did this last year.
Happy Holi!
 |
Check out my other Indian cultural activities for kids: