Grandparents Day, Onam, and Fall Lantern Festival

We started the week talking with our grandparents and remembering some of our favorite moments with them.  She remembers sharing apples and strawberries, reading stories, exploring new places, building and making videos.  We've read lots of books about spending time with grandparents.  In Tambourine Moon, a grandfather walks with his granddaughter through the city at night while telling the story of the night he met her grandmother.  Tangerines and Tea, My Grandparents and Me is an alphabet book about staying with grandparents overnight.  Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa is also the story of an overnight visit with grandparents, as well as a forgotten lovey.  This is one of Genevieve's favorite series.  The author recently passed away from brain cancer, and I recommend reading one of her books with a child in honor of her life.  In Max and the Tag-along Moon, Max watches the moon follow him home, feeling his grandfather's love the whole way.  In Grandma's Smile, a little boy travels to find his grandmother's missing smile.  The Mitten is about a lost mitten, knitted by a grandmother, and serving as a temporary shelter for several creatures.  Silas's Seven Grandparents is a book about the fun and challenges of having several grandparents.  Grumpy Grandpa was a favorite, about a grandpa who has forgotten what is like to be a kid.

Onam is a festival in Kerala, India.  Long ago, Mahabali defeated Indra and became ruler of all of Indra's territory.  He is believed to have been a good leader in Kerala, treating people equally.  The people were happy and without worries, no children died, and there wasn't any lying or theft.  However, as great as he was for the people the demigods were not happy with his rule.  Vishnu came to him in the form of a dwarf.  Mahabali promised him a gift and Vishnu asked for no more than three steps of land.  Mahabali agreed and Vishnu grew and stepped over heaven and earth.  Mahabali kept his word as a man of honor, and is allowed to visit each year at Onam.  People celebrate by creating designs in their yard using flowers, wearing new clothes, cleaning out their house, dancing, feasting, and participating in the great snake boat race.  It is also a time of thanksgiving, celebrating the harvest with a great vegetarian feast.

We didn't have a lot of flowers left, but we did have some colorful sand, so we went outside and created a sand painting.  We also read the colorful My Mother's Sari, celebrating the beautiful patterns and colors.  It also includes instructions as to how to wear a sari.

The Lantern Festival goes by many names throughout Asia - Chusok and Trung Thu being some of them.  It is a festival of thanksgiving and celebrating family.  Each country may celebrate it slightly differently, but it is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.  This year it coincides with the full moon on 16 September.  Celebrations often include a visit with family and special moon shaped foods, like rice cakes, moon cakes, and pomelos.  They remember ancestors they have lost, visiting their gravesites and burning incense and paper gifts.  Families celebrate each other and the harvest.  That night they use lanterns and candles to represent the light of the moon.  Children might wear masks, sail boats, and watch unicorn dances.

We've been studying the moon this week, noticing it's size and shape and watching to see if it follows us.  We noticed it's up in the afternoon, but we can't see it in the morning anymore.  We read Ba Nam, which is an older book but it follows a family visiting the ancestral plots.  We also read The Sun, the Moon and the Gardener's Son, which is a fable with the sun, moon, and rainbow fairies.  The Moon's Almost Here is illustrated by Tomie dePaola and says goodnight to several animals as mime Pierrot and his child prepare for bed and watch the moon.  Thanking the Moon is a nice book for younger kids that follows a family at their mid-autumn moon festival.

What else is new?  Genevieve has been practicing counting (3,1,7,8,9) and riding her tricycle all by herself.  She is good with colors and shapes, body parts and the letters G and T.  She also likes to remind me that her arm is happy, because I told her about her humerus when she hit her elbow.  She's really interested in her calendars, both to review what we are doing each day and to see the month's activities.  She's looking forward to the day airplanes and birthday cake show up on the calendar to show family will be coming to visit for her birthday.  We've started a new round of classes - storytimes, dance, music, gymnastics and soccer.  Tobias is pulling himself up all the time, and trying to stand on his own.  When he's not trying to stand, he's usually crawling.