Happy Diwali!
Our Diwali Celebration
Understanding the World!
Last week was Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. It is the Indian New Year and is probably the biggest holiday for people from India.
To honor this holiday from Sid's culture we did today a very colorful activity in class. We did "Rangoli" with the help of another teacher, Ms. Kashmira,, who's also from India. A rangoli is a colorful design made on the floor near the entrance to a house to welcome guests. At Diwali, Hindus draw bright Rangoli patterns to encourage the goddess Lakshmi to enter their homes.
Ms. Kashmira showed us a video with a Diwali song and she also gave bindis to all the girls. She explained this tradition to us with beautiful decorations. Thank you Ms. Kashmira!
We had fun, we learned about another culture, we showed respect and we enjoyed this celebration with our friend Sid!!
Thank you to Sid and his Family for this amazing experience!
Ms. Kashmira and Sid working together
Our own Rangoli
Ms. Kashmira showed us a video with different Rangolis
The Girls using Bindis!
We are Citizens of the World
To make our Rangoli, first, we draw a symmetrical pattern with pencil on a large piece of paper. Each child was given a small cup of colored rice, and instructed where to sprinkle it.
As the children being to fill in the sections with rice, Ms. Kashmira was able to guide the children to add more rice, and easily could brush away spilled colors without compromising the design.
So pretty!!!!! If you’d like to learn more about rangoli, here’s another article with videos.