Ganesha at the Preschool Morning

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Its festival time and Ganesh Chaturthi is just a few days away. Since the library would be closed on Saturday, the 26th on account of this, I decided to read a Ganesha story for my preschoolers this Saturday.. I picked up “Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth” by Sanjay Patel and Emily Haynes. This is a modern and funny retelling of one of the innumerable Ganesha stories about how he helped in the writing of the epic Mahabharata.

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The children were all eased into the session with a circle of songs and then we started a game. This was linked to the story and of course the library. I divided everyone into pairs and gave each pair, a slip of paper with a letter written on it. The pair had to read the letter and then go off and search for a book with the title starting with that letter. Some toddlers were skeptical and did worry if the library would have a book with their letter but went off to search anyways. Every pair found a correct book. Each team had to show everybody their letter and the book and everybody would confirm if it was correct.

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We all browsed through some elephant books and Avik said that today they are going to listen to an elephant story. We looked at the elephant image from a non fiction book and discussed different body parts. This elephant had a broken tusk so I asked them  if their teeth fell too….we have many in that tooth falling stage. Although Ashton, who is three, insisted that his teeth are falling and showed me some imaginary gaps in his mouth. Most said they keep the tooth in a box or under a pillow and get coins and notes. One chap said he has received fake notes so far….they said that the fallen teeth are useless.

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I joined all the bits of paper with the letters and asked them to try and read it. The older ones read it as Ganesh and said that it is the name of a God. They knew about Ganesh Chaturthi and that we do Puja and offer ladoos. There was an delicate argument about Ganesha liking Modaks and not ladoos. This was of course solved amicably. They had all seen Ganesha on TV and most recounted the story of how the boy got an elephant’s head. Everybody was excited and they knew the mouse and called him Mooshak, as it is called in the movie.

The children loved that he plays cricket and skips and dances and plays with water and is very naughty. They found the illustration of him carrying the sweets plate very amusing. They followed the illustrations well. I was asking for predictions and I got loads. Most are aware of Mahabharata, the older ones that is. The word ‘ jawbreaker’ was new, nobody knew what a jaw is. The illustration that shows Ganesha trying to fix his tusk was the most liked one. They all laughed and said that nobody can fix a tooth with a string or a tape or glue.They also felt bad when he is shown crying….

I did not go into much details for the center spread of the Mahabharata. They were astounded that Ganesha had written so many pages. There were some rapid calculations about how much actually is one hundred thousand ….

And what else could be served during snack time other than the ‘Jawbreaker ladoo’ 🙂

And since it was a story on Ganesha, I had decided to ask the preschoolers to make one of their own. To get them started, I showed them a short film on how to make a clay Ganesha and then gave each one a nice big ball of homemade clay. Initially they all grumbled and mumbled that they cannot do and would I help them or any teacher would help them. I refused outright and told them that they had to do this on their own. But as soon as the children started rolling the clay, they started getting interested and started discussing with each other about how to do this. The results were simply stupendous!!!

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There was so much happiness in the library after all the Ganeshas were created. Each child  was proud of his/her work and wanted to know when this would dry and when they could take it home to show to their parents.

I must say that officially Ganesh Chaturthi is on the 25th but it was celebrated with great joy and happiness in the library a week early.

This session took place on the 19th of August with a total of 15 children that included 4 girls and 11 boys.as part of the Pre-School Morning.

The Pre-School Morning is a two and half hour session with various segments such as a story read aloud, literacy based games, songs, individual craft, collaborative craft, a short film, theme based snacks etc. that promote early literacy in a fun way. Open to children – 2 to 6 years of age.

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