Holi, widely known as the Hindu festival of colors, is a joyful annual celebration @ the advent of spring. Typically Holi is observed in March in India, Nepal, other South Asian countries & across the diaspora. The festival celebrates love & signifies a time of rebirth & rejuvenation — a time to embrace the positive & let go of negative energy.
One of Holi’s most well-known traditions, people dress in all white, come out to the street & throw colored powder known as Gulal of Holi powder @ each other. The pigments & colors of joy all symbolize different things. Blue represents the color of Lord Krishna’s skin, green: spring & rebirth, red: marriage or fertility, & yellow: commonly used in ritual and ceremony & symbolize auspiciousness.
One of our favorite books about Holi is the Indian Festival of Colors by Surishtha Sehgal & Kabir Sehgal. In the story siblings Mintoo & Chintoo are busy gathering flowers to make into colorful powders to toss during the festival. When @ last the big day comes, they gather with their friends, family, & neighbors for a vibrant celebration of fresh starts, friendship, forgiveness, &, of course, fun!
After reading this story we invited the children to create a festival of colors just like the story by pressing flowers. We provided an array of colorful flowers, wooden mallets, rollers, & poster paper. We laid some safety guidelines & told the children they were going to use the tools in order to create the pigments from the flowers just like Minitoo & Chintoo on to the paper. We also had our annual Festival of Colors Party. All the children were asked to wear white shirts, we placed holi powder, & invited the children to throw the powder.
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