Hear n Speak: Holi based language activities

Holi, the festival of colours, is the most popular spring festival of Hindus.It signifies the victory of good over evil and marks the end of the winter season and the commencement of warmer summer days in Northern India.
There is so much that you can teach your child about the festivities through simple enjoyable activities. Here are some ideas..

Colours

Cut different coloured balloons from glazed paper sheets. Stick them on a scrap book or just play with them on a table/mat. You can play a colour matching game, get your child to identify or name the colours, revise numbers with the colourful balloons etc.
Get messy with the colourful gulal available in the market. Spread it on white paper sheets to make butterflies or flowers.This would facilitate eye-hand co-ordination too. Age no bar!
Dab some gulal on your face to revise the facial features. You can give 2 -3 step instructions to make the game tougher.e.g - Dab the red gulal on your forehead, yellow on your right cheek, green on your chin and pink on mine.. etc. This activity will help to improve listening skills.It can be modified depending on the language age and abilities of your child.
Make a Rangoli on the floor.
Finger painting with different colours. Children love this!
Create new colours by mixing them.. e.g - yellow + blue = green, red + yellow = orange etc.

Go Shopping

Great activity to get the Holi related objects in your little one's vocabulary bank.

commonly bought items - gulal, pichkari, balloons, glitter, water colours, mithai,namkeen,dry fruits etc.

Ask your child to choose the items she likes. Giving choices always encourages better language expression

In the Kitchen

Holi is also a festival for foodies! Get your little one to help you in the kitchen while you prepare or arrange the grubs. You can do simple activities of sorting and arranging. Mix the sweets in a bowl and ask your child to sort the similar ones in a separate plate.
Transferring of food items can be another activity.
For bigger children, you can give multiple instructions and also ask them to tell you the sequence of making a particular sweet/mithai etc.
Get a cake ( or even cupcakes) and have your child decorate it with different coloured frostings/gems/smarties etc.

Memory games

Take turns and name as many holi related stuff that you can. The winner gets an extra sweet to munch :)
You can also ask your child to draw these objects and colour them.
For bigger children - List out or sing Bollywood/regional Holi songs(Antakshri)

Photo Album

Make sure you click pictures of your child playing with the colours and water.Encourage her to meet the children in the neighbourhood and get naughty!
Create a photo album ( printed or even an array of pictures on your computer should suffice). Ask your child simple questions based on the pictures.Great task for improving retrieval from the past.
You can share and talk about old Holi pictures from your childhood days too!