In India, folk art called “rangoli” decorate the floors of entryways during times of celebration as a way to welcome guests into the home. Rangoli can be made of many different things and can take different shapes.
In this activity, your Little Explorer will develop their fine motor skills and practice spatial awareness while creating their own rangoli!
Supplies:
An outdoor area to take a nature walk
A bag for collecting items
An open, flat area on the ground - like a sidewalk, patio, or driveway
Directions:
Take your Little Explorers for a nature walk. On your walk, look for items of different shapes and colors and collect them. Make sure to get a lot! You may want to get multiples of each item. For example, 8 yellow leaves, 16 red leaves, lots of acorns, etc. Once you think you have enough, find a flat clearing on the ground and invite your Little Explorer make a beautiful design with the items.
Talk About It:
Look at this beautiful rangoli!
This one is made of chestnuts, pine needles, and leaves. Let’s take a nature walk and see if we can find some beautiful objects to use for making our own rangoli. Here we go! Look at these beautiful acorns! Let’s get a bunch of them. Oh, you’ve found some shiny, green leaves. Let’s get some of those too. Ok, do you think we’ve found enough items to make a rangoli now? Awesome! What are you going to make? Let’s look at all the different colors and textures of the items we found. What shapes can you make with them?
Take It Further:
- If you want to keep your Little Explorers’ creations, consider doing this activity by pressing the items into a circle of clay and letting it harden.
- For slightly older children, you can introduce the concept of symmetry. See if they can make the design the same on both sides.
- If a nature walk is not an option, children can create designs with colored rice, beads, lentils, or even with stickers on paper!
We would love to see your Little Explorers' creations! Please tag us at @littleexplorersbigworld on Instagram for a chance to be featured on our stories!
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