Here are a big bunch of activities you can expect at Uday’s Spring Carnival. These activities are Waldorf-inspired activities that the kids at Uday Waldorf-inspired School do at various times throughout the year, matching the theme of the month aka Rhythms.

Come and enjoy these activities with your children…

Paper Boat Making and Blowing

This is a proven fact that there is a clear link between a toddler’s ability to control their breathing and carry out complex mouth movements with the ability to develop language skills and that blowing is an activity that speeds this development. Blowing develops the small muscles in the children’s mouths as they pucker their lips and blow. Strengthening these muscles is important for developing their ability to form clear sounds when speaking and to eat and swallow safely.
It also plays an important part in building hand-eye coordination. This activity is part of the Waldorf kindergarten curriculum to help them groom their oral motor skills along with cognitive skills.
Let’s have fun with the boats…..

Wet on wet Painting

Wet-on-wet watercolor is a dreamy, fluid, mostly formless painting method that allows the painter to fully experience colours. The amazing variety, the extraordinary number of shades and tones in the visual path of the learners opens up the awareness of colours, as part of their life. These colours take a different approach, a much slower experiential involvement in colour and the wet-on-wet painting is an integral part of Waldorf curriculum which grows with the growth of the children from kindergarten to grades. A core aspect of Waldorf education is that learning comes through imitation, imagination, and sensory experience, rather than technique or instruction. Wet-on-wet painting is brought in the same way, Rather than instructing the child. Let’s enjoy this magical blending of colours……..

Mukut Making

The celebration of festivals is an important part of Waldorf education. The celebrations are interwoven with the life of the earth and the cycles of nature. We, at Uday Waldorf, bring the rejoicement of festivities to the children by creating the role play toys with them. One of such activities is crown making with sheets, small beads, sparkles, laces and many more creative craft materials. It makes them learn to reuse their own artwork (wet on wet painting sheets) for meaningful purposes. Through a variety of crafts the children develop manual dexterity, co-ordination, patience and persistence.

Let’s be dexterous and make beautiful crowns…

Manjha winding

Seasonal festivals serve to connect humanity with the rhythms of nature and of the cosmos. The festivals originated in ancient cultures, yet have been adapted over time. To join the seasonal moods of the year, in a festive way, benefits the inner life of the soul. The simple rituals create the mood and ambience for prayer and celebration to happen and touch children at a deeper level. For kindergarten children and early graders the celebration of festivals gives a sense of time and seasons. Celebration of Makar Sankranti seems incomplete without kite flying and manjha stories. So, we do the ambidextrous activity of manjha winding with our tiny tots, which helps in both hands finger movement and balancing the left and right brain.

Let’s do some roll and roll…

Treasure Hunt

In comparison to our body temperature, the temperature outside drops down in winter and our immunity power becomes low. So, we easily catch a cold, and cough. Therefore, during this season, building immunity is highly important. The winter fruits and vegetables help us to build immunity and stay healthy. To bring this important aspect of the seasonal food items, we at Uday plan different playful activities for the kids. One of them is a treasure hunt wherein the children have to find the hidden treasure (groundnuts) from the sandpit. The children feel so excited and enthusiastic to find them and relish the taste of these little seeds. They learn to dig, look, share and be wondrous. It is a sensory development activity that encourages children who are touch sensitive.

Let’s dig and dig deeper….

Chaach Churning

The festivals have emerged from people’s connection with their spiritual life and their search for the meaning of human existence. With time passing by, the festivities have developed a strong association with various traditions and makhan making is one of such tradition associated with Janmashtami. The experience of making fresh butter is a memorable one for the kids. It’s not just fun, but they also get to see the end results of the efforts put in by them. This helps in tailoring their fine motor skills along with the development of senses. It also develops a healthy relationship with food and they learn that the power of transformation is in their hands.

Let’s enjoy the twists and turns of mathni to make some Chaach…..

Pottery   

Pottery class can provide the children with multiple benefits. It is the type of experience that leaves a lasting impression on their lives, and it helps their development without sacrificing fun. Pottery for kids is that it allows them to express creativity in a tangible way. It helps with hand-eye coordination, motor skills, spatial awareness, problem-solving and creativity. Pottery gives toddlers a sense of accomplishment and independence. They learn to create something from scratch and see the fruits of their labour. This builds self-confidence and teaches them that they can do things independently. Pottery can help improve motor skills, problem-solving abilities and spatial awareness. Keeping all these pros in mind, we keep the pottery activity for our kids where they learn using clay to give it form and shape with their hands. It leaves them awestruck when they see their amazing handwork skills in a concrete form.

Let’s swirl and twirl….

Spinning Charkha 

A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. The charkha works similarly to the great wheel, with a drive wheel being turned by one hand, while the yarn is spun off the tip of the spindle with the other. The charkha, a small, portable, hand-cranked wheel, is ideal for spinning cotton and other fine, short-staple fibres, though it can be used to spin other fibres as well. Spinning in circles is one of the best activities to help children gain a good sense of body awareness. Through spinning they figure out where their “centre” is and then are more able to coordinate movement on the two sides of the body. Patience and resilience are key elements of any craft project. Spinning takes time both to learn the proper techniques as well as time to actually produce yarn. Finally, self-esteem and a sense of accomplishment are achieved when the bobbin (or spindle) is full of handspun yarn.

Let’s spin the wheel…..

Ungli Rangoli

In the Waldorf tradition, festivals are meant to reflect the spiritual reality of what is happening to the earth during certain times of the year. There is joy in the anticipation, the preparation, the celebration itself, and the memories. A common experience of joy and reverence – Singing, dancing, stories, food and sharing are all a part of the festivals of the year. Festival of lights comes with all the colours bright…. The vibrant colours of Rangoli add blaze to the festivities. When the children make beautiful patterns of Rangoli using their imagination, it also makes them dive deep into the creativity within them. They make Rangoli using different materials and by feeling the different textures they also improve their sensory integration skills.

Let’s have fun with colours…

Khaat weaving

This activity of back to basics is a joyful and creative way of making children learn and practice the art of weaving,which would help in improving their motor skills while also introducing them to age old practice of weaving khats.

Chakki

Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Cultural property includes the physical, or “tangible” cultural heritage, such as artworks, different practices and rituals used time-to-time. Earlier, people were using various traditional ways for performing their daily chores. One of them is the use of Haath chakki or ghatti for grinding grains into flour. It was done by the women of the house and the pure flour was then used for making scrumptious delicacies in the household kitchens. For the children of today’s era, it is altogether a different experience to use traditional chakki and see the end result (flour) being churned out of it. They learn to have proper hand-eye coordination and increase the physical strength of arm muscles. It is an undoubtedly engrossing activity for the kids.

Let’s do and understand the process…

Creative wall

A wall and colours and lots of fun, let imagination soar and take various perspectives as children explore this creative wall.

Macrame

The benefits of macrame art go beyond the simple hand movements of knot tying. It has a calming effect on mind while also making kids practice pattern follwing. Not to miss the joy at creating intricate and beautiful designs through knot patterns

Making Incense sticks

Simple things that children see in use around the household, now they can see the process and try their hands at this every household product- incense stick. Making incense sticks require rolling the material very precisely on the bamboo stick, its sure to challenge children’s abilities and would bring in its own kind of fun.

Hand knotted Weaving Loom

When children see people working with their hands they realize the magic that we have within us to transform things. Come explore this hand knotting technique for making rugs