Pongal Festival Activities for Kids at the Indian Heritage Centre

Here I am with some Pongal festival activities for kids. We were in Little India and could join open house workshops and activities organised by the Indian Heritage Centre (IHC). The event was a good opportunity for everyone to improve cultural awareness while having hands-on experience with some activities that are related to Indian culture and Pongal Festival. All the activities were family-friendly where we could help or try together with my son. The Indian Heritage Centre was crowded and many families participated in these Pongal day activities with their kids.

This Sunday, the second day of the Pongal Festival, we were in Little India and we planned to visit Indian Heritage Centre to participate in these activities and to gain more ideas about Pongal Festival. My son learns the Tamil language in school and he attends a Tamil tuition class for extra support. This is a good opportunity for us to visit Little India every weekend and catch up with interesting programmes and activities while enjoying the main attractions of Little India.

What is Pongal Festival?

The Tamil community celebrates the Pongal festival as a harvest festival. The main aim of this celebration is to thank the sun, mother nature, and farm animals who helped achieve a good harvest. This celebration spreads over four days: Bhogi Pongal, Surya Pongal, Maatu Pongal, and Kaanum Pongal. This year Pongal festival is from Saturday, 14 January to Tuesday, 17 January.

Pongal Festival Activities

Below are the Pongal Festival activities we enjoyed and engaged at the Indian Heritage Centre, Singapore. In a few months ago, we participated in Deepavali Cultural Craft Activities with the kid at the Indian Heritage Centre. Reminding of those activities, here are the Pongal Festival activities that we could join with our son.

Learn about Pongal through different displays

First, we learned about the Pongal Festival through different displays. While there were murals behind, there were actual displays such as clay pots and oil lamps that are used by the Indian community to celebrate this festival.

Pottery Demo

This was an interesting experience for us. Kid could see how pottery is made through this demo session. The craftsman Mr.Hemachandran M demonstrated how Pongal Pots are made.

Colouring activities

There was a corner dedicated for children for activities such as colouring. There were colouring sheets and worksheets with pencils and colour where children could engage in colouring and similar activities.

Through these colouring activities, children could learn the basics about Pongal Festival.

As our child was supposed to attend his Tamil language class, he had to hurry when he was half done with the colouring. However, after the class, we again came back to the Indian Heritage Centre to participate in other activities.

Making a Pongal Pot Pencil topper

The next activity is to make a Pongal pot pencil topper. This workshop area was crowded with many families and even adults. Everyone enjoyed colouring Pongal Pots that were given free of charge. All the colour and paint brushes were provided and both kids and adults enjoyed colouring their Pongal pots to make a pencil topper.

DIY Cattle Magnet

In this activity, children could create a decorative Cattle Magnet using the items given by the IHC. We engaged in this activity after my son’s class and it was the afternoon session. We were lucky that my son was the last participant who could engage in this activity as the necessary items were all finished. 🙂

Cook Sweet Pongal

The next display was a Pongal pot with the necessary ingredients for cooking sweet Pongal. The visitors could have an idea of how to cook Sweet Pongal and its ingredients. This display was good as a photo opportunity too.

Festive House Photo Frame

This was a fun and memorable activity for families. The hosts took a photo of the participant. It could take with family and friends too though I did not join with my son. After a few minutes, they gave us the printed photo. There were stickers and photo frames where participants could use to decorate their photo frames. My son used a few stickers to decorate his photo frame.

Decorating a photo frame was one of the best Pongal Festival activities for kids.

Henna Tattoo

The next activity was to apply a henna tattoo. My son liked to have a spider web on his hand and the artist was clever and creative on this henna tattoo.

Dancing and Music performance

There were dancing and cultural performance outside the IHC. We could enjoy this show too although I couldn’t take a clear photo as it was crowded.

Finally,

The Indian Food

We never forgot to taste delicious Indian food while we were in Little India.

We had food at Madura’s Vilas which is a vegetarian food restaurant located on Buffalo Street. We usually visit this restaurant when we are in Little India. On this day we had Dosa, Vadai, and tea for our meal together with different chutneys and curries. As it was Pongal day, we also received sweet pongal.

It was a great day in Little India and we could learn more about the Pongal festival while having family bonding time together.

These activities were provided by the Indian Heritage Centre (IHC) for free as part of their Pongal Festival Celebrations.

Do you like to visit such cultural workshops and shows? Do you think these Pongal Festival activities for kids are exciting and educational? Please share your thoughts below as a comment.

Check these Racial Harmony Day activities too.

Below are other posts that share different cultural activities. Please check if you have missed those.

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