Diwali is one of the biggest celebrations in the Hindu, Jain and Sikh calendars. It is often known as the festival of lights. It is celebrated with bright lights, cleaning, dressing in bright clothes and celebrations with friends and family. It symbolises the triumph of light over darkness.
It is a great celebration to include in your learning calendar at your child care centre, especially if your centre has a lot of students from these religious groups or from India and South East Asia. If you're not familiar with how to celebrate with your class, check out some ideas below.
Light up the day
While you are mainly at the child care centre during the day, there are still many fun activities you can do on the theme of light. You can try cutting different shapes out of cardboard and laying these across the face of a torch to make interesting shapes with the light, and experiment with layering sheets of cellophane across the face of the torch for different light effects.
You can try shining these into dark boxes to observes the effects during the day. Not only does this integrate the 'lights' theme of Diwali, but also intersects with early science themes around lights and shadow, and colour addition (demonstrating that some colours laid over each other make a new colour).
Dressing up
Why not have a special dress up day where everyone comes in their brightest clothes as part of your celebration? Any children whose families celebrate Diwali at home can come in their cultural outfits. Be sure to invite parents in as well, as they may also like a chance to show their traditional costume and share their heritage with their child's friends. As there are different styles of celebration depending on location and religion, it can also be a great way to show that there is a lot of variation in the way Diwali celebrations occur around the world.
A party with sweets
While most centres have a healthy eating policy, you can still have a delicious sweet feast using naturally sweet and colourful foods such as fresh fruits and dried fruits, along with yoghurts and custards. Why not join the kids from each room together in a whole centre party and play some Bollywood music to get the kids up and dancing? You can decorate the centre with bright flags and paper lanterns.
Diwali is a widely celebrated festival around the world. Celebrating Diwali in your centre is a great way to create a welcoming environment for families from any backgrounds and help to teach the children about different cultures.
Share27 October 2015
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