The good thing about moving to a ground floor house is the front yard. We wash our yard every morning and do Rangolis albeit with chalk.
The first few days I drew traditional designs that I remembered. Then I started drawing trees, lotuses, birds, peacocks and lamps. Then I started matching it with the weather. Peacocks when it rained. Lakshmi tries to draw with chalk in the front yard too.
When we went to Bangalore my mother taught her to use the rice powder. She spread it around and said she had drawn clouds.
My mothers house has rough black granite where the Rangoli is usually drawn. She played there with stencils one day.
One day she started writing numbers in Chalk. We wrote till 10. Then from 11 till 20. Then 10, 20 thirty till 100. Then 10, 100, 1000 till 1followed by seven zeroes. She now knows there are large numbers.
Right now she can count exactly till 5. But can recite till twenty. Just for fun she goes "2 and 2 is..." and we say twenty two. 6 and 6 sixty six.
We have just started with saying if you have 2 fingers and we have three and she tries to count it accurately.
We now play a board game called "the Hungry Caterpillar" game where she has to spin a wheel with five numbers. she can take her caterpillar on the spaces by counting five accurately.
But that day the writing numbers game, which I suspect is more a drawing game, then turned to drawing the leaves and flowers in my mom's garden.
I still continue it. We returned to a very hot Delhi. On the day the first showers in June came, I had just gotten out to shop. I turned the car around and got home. We watched the rain. Then played with the wiper and later brought out the chalks. We drew the potted palm tree. I drew the bowls that were in the pot, one a bird bath and another which has flowing jade. She coloured the water. Then we drew a bird...we draw, write letters and numbers and it is all the same...
When the water dries the chalk marks appear so bright...it is a treat to watch.
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