Unit on India

"You are feeling fine!" I kept telling myself. But around lunchtime I knew that just taking two aspirins, and not taking my temperature, was not going to help. I needed to go home. A visit to the doctor's office was not such a bad idea either. Joy Holmes volunteered to stay with my children until the substitute teacher came. She asked the class to get ready for lunch. 

As I was putting my things together I heard, "But it is Friday and we say our Indian grace on Fridays." I thought that I could wait for a few minutes and help them say the Grace. "Well, how about saying it next Friday?" suggested Joy. "Good solution!" I said and was almost out of the door when one of the students said, "I will say it and everybody can join me." I stopped in my tracks. They all said the Marathi (my mother tongue) Grace flawlessly, pronouncing each and every word perfectly, even the phrase "Jeevan kari jivitwa unna hay poornabrahma." 

If there are moments in your life when time stands still for you, this definitely was one of them for me! Something that we had started just for fun had taken such a wonderful turn. Suddenly, I realized that learning about India was not only fun for my first graders but they were genuinely interested in learning about the country. They wanted to play the Indian games, sing the "elephant song," and do the sun salutations because they were learning something new, something different from their everyday experience. Last year a mother called me at home to tell me that she found her son doing his sun salutations early in the morning; he explained that the ritual is done to greet the rising sun.

Even though we officially start our unit on India around the end of January, I think our study of India really begins in September. Someone asks, "Mrs Joshi, doesn't 'hathi' mean elephant in Hindi?" "How do you know?" I ask. "My brother told me." Of course! Her brother was in my class two years back and sang beautifully the elephant song, "Chal chal chal mere sathi, O mere hathi !" And so it starts. Before we know, we find India on the globe, we play a game of langdi, and we listen to many folk stories. The children's enthusiasm is limitless. Click here to see our India assembly.

Every year I add something new to our unit on India. "Maybe this song is too difficult.  Maybe they are too young to learn sand art," I say to myself. But then I do it anyway, because I know the children will want to try it. Their eager faces tell me "Teach us, we will absorb it!" Then we sing in Hindi, do Gujrathi dances, play Marathi games, dress in Indian clothing and take our imaginary trip to India. From there the children write postcards to their parents describing how wonderful it was climbing the Himalayas, how breathtaking the Taj-Mahal was, and what a tasty meal they had with Mrs. Joshi's family, ("Even though it was hot and spicy I could eat it because I drank a lot of water!" ). Click here to learn more about India.

Then comes the highlight - the first graders learn to write their names in Hindi. After practicing for several times the children make their name-plates. They decorate them with pictures of elephants, peacocks, tigers, "Tiranga" the Indian flag, and many, many Indian things. They compose cinquains, 5 line poetry describing what they've learned. They learn that India is not just snakes, tigers, or elephants. India is computers, movies, a game of cricket and people like athletes, movie stars, engineers, doctors, and yes-teachers! 

Click here to see some great web sites about India.