Chapter 7 — The Big Laddoo

The poem asks children to imagine what would happen if all the laddoos, all the children, and all the seas in the world were each combined into one giant thing. It ends with the Big Child throwing the Big Laddoo into the Big Sea and making a huge splish-splash.

The chapter introduces two new words: sea and splish-splash. Splish-splash describes the loud, fun sound made when something big falls into water.

Jithu and Meena are friends. Meena cannot see properly, and on her birthday Jithu gifted her a box of mixed sweets. She felt the sweets and picked out the big laddoo by touch, saying she loves laddoos. The story prompts children to think about how Meena recognised it was a laddoo without seeing it.

Children practise consonant blends — cl, pl, and bl — by using words like clock, cloud, play, plum, blue, and blanket in sentences. This helps them read and write words that begin with two consonants together.

The matching activity pairs male and female names of animals: cock matches with hen, lion with lioness, peacock with peahen, bull with cow, drake with duck, and horse with mare.

Khichdi is a popular Indian dish made by cooking rice and lentils together. The chapter mentions it because it is prepared especially during the Sankranti festival, connecting food with Indian festivals and culture.

Sankranti is a harvest festival that thanks the Sun God for a good harvest. It is celebrated across India with different names: Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Lohri in Punjab, Bihu in Assam, and Maghi Sankrant, Makara Sankranti, Sakraat, and Magha Saaji in other regions.

The chapter lists several regional versions: Gujarati khichdi from Gujarat, Pongal from Tamil Nadu, Bihari khichdi from Bihar, Bajra khichdi from Rajasthan, Kichuri from West Bengal, Bisi bele bhat from Karnataka, and Moong khetchir from Kashmir.

Children are asked to place different objects — a piece of paper, a small stone, a green leaf, a pencil, an eraser, a feather, and a spoon — into a tub of water one by one to observe which objects float and which ones sink.

Children are asked if they have seen or eaten a big laddoo, what different kinds of laddoos they have eaten, to name round things and sort them into things that can be eaten and things that cannot, and to imagine what happened to the Big Laddoo after it was thrown into the sea.

Chapter 7 belongs to Unit 3 titled 'Good Food', which connects the poem and activities to the theme of food, festivals, and the culture around eating in India.

In the 'Let us learn' section, children are asked to write words that describe a laddoo. This activity builds their vocabulary of adjectives — words that tell us about the size, shape, taste, or colour of something.