Happy Diwali!

Today we have been learning about Diwali. We know that some people across the world celebrate Diwali as part of the Hindu religion. We thought about some of the things we celebrate throughout the year, how we celebrate them, and compared these celebrations to Diwali. We learnt that Diwali is the festival of light and promotes the triumph of light over dark; taking away all of the bad in the world. We also know that Diwali marks the Hindu new year and it is a time to celebrate with friends and family. Hindus celebrate by making and sharing food, cleaning their houses for new year, having family over, decorating the house and front door with Rangoli patterns to welcome the goddess Lakshmi, visiting the temple and decorating it, having firework displays to light up the sky and making diya lamps to put in the window to light up the street. Diwali is usually in October or November and changes every year. The festival lasts for five days and this year it began on Saturday 14th November. In class we made our own diya lamps using clay, learnt how to make mendhi patterns and created colourful Rangoli patterns indoors and outside with chalk!

If you would like to watch a video about Diwali at home, here is a link to CBeebies: :) https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/lets-celebrate-diwali