When Imagination & Writing Met the Sankranti Festive Spirit!
India is a land of festivals. Many of the festivals represent phases of transition. Such festivals are of two types: some festivals are associated with the change of seasons while the others with planetary transits.
A few of them celebrate both, for example, the festival of Makar Sankranti.
The Festival of Makar Sankranti!
Makar Sankranti is celebrated across India with love, warmth, respect and a spirit of sharing. This year, it was celebrated on 14th January, 2021.
Makar Sankranti marks the end of shorter days of winter. It marks the advent of the spring season.
The sun begins its northward journey, also called ‘Uttarayan’ in Sanskrit. Devotees worship the ‘Surya Devata’.
The country’s farmers pay their respect to Mother Nature for her bountiful gifts and the harvest of the new crops. They conduct ‘puja’ and rituals, do charity, prepare ‘sattvic’ food, and perform different forms of dance and folk songs.
Though Makar Sankranti is a big festival in India, the younger generation seems to be losing touch with it.
At KiddyPi on this festive occasion, we wanted to combine the spirit of Makar Sankranti festival with learning. The aim was to have fun along with learning, soaked in the rich and vibrant culture of India.
Makar Sankranti Special | Creative Writing Event at KiddyPi
On 16th January, 2021 we had organized two separate online events for kids, and tweens & teens.
With the Creative Writing event, the day began on a literary note. Thereon, it reached its culmination with the Scratch and Python coding events.
In this blog, we will describe the Creative Writing event in brief. Check the blog on coding events.
A Gripping Story behind Pongal
Makar Sankranti festival also marks the end of the harvest season, in many parts of India.
People celebrate Lohri in the north, Poush Sankranti and Magh Bihu in the east, Pongal in the south and Uttarayan in the west.
Our Creative Writing session at KiddyPi, touched upon the living traditions of India. We narrated a folk story behind the festival of Pongal.
This story revolves around Lord Shiva’s favourite bull, Basava or Nandi. Thousands of years before the advent of animal rights et al, people in India had built humane relationships with both domestic and wild animals.
The festival of Pongal carries forward that traditional bonding between men and Mother Nature, apart from a lot of other uniqueness of its own.
Participants of our event got a glimpse of Indian heritage, that has been joyously handed down the generations and ages. How our heritage is still very much a living one, as manifested in our religious and social rituals!
A Trip to their Favourite Temple!
Children (6 to 8 years old participants) gave the best accounts of the trips to their favourite temples.
Be it a day when they visited the Basavanna Temple in Bangalore or the Shri Mangesh Temple in Goa, the little ones walked down the memory lane, through their writing.
Young Talents Promised A Bright Future of Journalism in India
Every year a world-renowned kite festival, the International Kite Festival is held in Ahmedabad. It begins a few days before Makar Sankranti and ends with it.
This year however, it was not held given the pandemic situation.
9 to 16 years old participants donned the hat of a journalist. They covered the festival in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad as reporters for the DD India news channel.
We pointed them to web resources for cues to writing the report. The unrestricted imagination of young, curious minds breathed life into the International Kite Festival narrative.
The ritual of flying kites is synonymous with the festivals of Makar Sankranti and Shri Vishwakarma Puja. The audience enjoyed hearing the experiences shared by youngsters about flying kites on Makar Sankranti.
And Learning Didn’t End with the Session!
Every event at KiddyPi, opens the door to more fun and learning. We are on an enduring journey of excellence!
We ensure that the participants relive the events’ moments through some engaging Writing or Coding Challenges. There are exciting goody bags for everyone!
You can never subtract fun from our online courses!!
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