After our previous re-cap session, the school had it's semester break. The latter half of academic years usually see a lot more holidays and breaks. In addition to the semester, Diwali and Christmas holidays, schools also get rain holidays on account of the monsoon season. The monsoons of 2015 and 2016 were particularly devastating for our city with widespread damage through floods and winds that uprooted a lot of trees. These monsoons have been happening since I was a kid, and I remember eagerly scanning the newspapers to see if I'd get a holiday. Back then, the guy in charge of declaring holidays would almost always declare a holiday just as the sun came out. I still remember one time, almost the entire class got sent back home as we were frolicking in the rain and rolling around in puddles on a day that should have been declared a holiday, but wasn't. The devastation that came with the monsoons, I think is more of a recent phenomenon due mostly to haphazard building and the uncontrolled growth of the city, but I'm digressing. The point is, after the school's semester break we had time for only 3 more sessions due to all the official and rain holidays. I thought we'd have some fun in these sessions and focus on activities and handmade play equipment.

DIY Kinetic Sand

If you haven't heard of kinetic sand, here's a short excerpt from Wikipedia.

Under its trademark “Kinetic Sand”, Spin Master Ltd. produces and distributes a modelling sand toy. The toy looks like regular sand, but it is also available in different colours. It mimics the physical properties of wet sand. The modelling sand can be molded and shaped into any desired specific form. It does not stick to other materials and surfaces, but rather only to itself and does not dry out.

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It's an interesting play material as it offers a unique texture and play options. In this session we explored if it would be possible to make our own DIY Kinetic Sand. I'd done experiments as a kid where we combined corn starch with water in the right proportions to form a non-newtonian fluid. If you ever have the time, put a sheet of cling wrap across a sub-woofer and place some of that cornstarch/water mix on top of it to see what non-newtonian means.
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I figured we could combine this cornstarch/water mix known as ooblek with some sifted sand to create a homemade version of Kinetic Sand. I got the children to sieve sand using a makeshift sieve we'd used for our landscaping. It took a few tries to get the ratio of first cornstarch and water and then ooblek to sand right. Eventually we arrived at something very close to Kinetic Sand. Unlike the professionally made version, this has a shelf life of around a week or so, but it's easy to make, needs only 3 ingredients and is way cheaper!

Toys from Everyday Materials

This session happened around the time of Diwali. The festival is celebrated to mark Lord Rama's return to Ayodhya after a 14 year exile. It's a celebration of good over and evil and is celebrated with a lot of lights, firecrackers and sweets. There are some firecrackers here that are made to only produce loud sounds going by names like Lakshmi Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs. The loud sound is intended to drive evil spirits away and even funerals here often feature loud drumming and crackers to guide the deceased's soul without interference from evil spirits. We all know by now how damaging these fireworks are to our environment, and this session's aim was to make alternative noise making toys made from everyday objects.

I used this excellent book as a guide and will be sharing excerpts from it pertaining to the two noise making toys we made.

Nature Inspired Art

This was our last session of the year and celebrated nature as an inspiration. The class first walked around the school collecting leaves and flowers they found appealing and then used those forms to create their own art. I purposely left the directions open ended so the children could create whatever they liked, however they liked.

Please excuse the terrrible photography on this post. It isn't easy to watch over children armed with sharp objects while remembering to document the process!

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