#Activity 1: Sand Play, #Activity 2: Glass Painting, #Activity 3: Fun with grains
Divya Rabindra@NFC, divya.r@news4children.com
Meditating with children! This may sound like an oxymoron but let me assure you that you are going to love this activity with your littles.
So how exactly do we do this? By working on a mandala together with your children.
Mandala is a Sanskrit word which means a “Circle” that represents wholesome or completeness just like the circle. Mandala takes you to an imaginary land and let’s you activate that creative part of your brain and brings that out on paper. It’s usually a circle within a square and you then fill it in with objects you like. Before you even begin creating a masterpiece out of your frame of mind, there are some essentials that aid in meditating 🙂
First, ask Alexa to play calm music for you. She will mostly play “Mellow Folk “ on Amazon music. Parents if you haven’t already discovered this station then you ought to give this a try. If Alexa doesn’t live in your house then just do it yourself. I like her at times like this, though I must say she doesn’t seem to get my “South Indian” accent sometimes.
Second, light a candle that gets you going. Some aroma that induces a serene working atmosphere for you and your child.
Third, grab all the materials you and your child would like to work with. Markers and glitter gel pens to color are a hit in our house. Go with what you have available in your house. And of course a good old plain white sheet of paper. You most definitely need a ruler if you can not draw a straight line like me and some different sized round lids that are already lying in your house for the circles. And of course a pencil.
Four, discuss with your child if they have a theme they would like to work on. My daughter wanted to make a valentine/heart themed Mandala.
Five, we began with drawing 3 concentric circles. Then draw a square touching the 4 points of the outermost third circle. We then drew a curvy square around the normal square. Since my daughter wanted lots of hearts, we went about drawing varied sizes of hearts initially aligning them to fit within the circles. Then she included objects inside her mandala like stars, more tiny circles, owls, leaves and vines. It’s amazing to see their thought process unfold onto the paper. She was the design head and my hand worked the way her brain wanted it to. We worked on mutual respect discussing and accepting ideas and working a way around not expecting unrealistic artistic skills from a mother 🙂The focal point becomes the picture on the paper and nothing else. Then comes the flow of energy through colors. It soothes and calms to just hold a color and let it flow. Color parents, it heals. It’s therapy for free. We just sat on the couch working on our masterpiece for hours and we enjoyed the quality time we spent together and of course our finished product.
Do share your master pieces.
Peace!
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