Our Diwali celebration November 2013

After watching a film about how a family in Leicester celebrate Diwali, we planned how we would prepare for our own Diwali party! We made our own Rangoli patterns. Older children had to design their own symmetrical shape before colouring with a symmetrical pattern. We also cleaned the room, as it is traditional to clean up before inviting guests for a big feast. We prepared Divas to hold our candles for the festival of light.

We learnt that Hindus give each other special sweets for Diwali, so we made and decorated our own Diwali sweets. We were hoping the goddess Lakshmi would come to bring us wealth in the form of presents, so we laid out her footprints to show her the way to our door.

The time for our Diwali party was drawing near, so our final preparations were to light the candles and lay out the Rangoli patterns to welcome the goddess Lakshmi to our hall.

We watched this video about Diwali with a puppet show, then did our own version. Click on the picture below to see a clip of our improvised version! It is traditional to retell the story of Diwali during the feast, and the stars of our show were: Raegan as Princess Sita, Charlie as Prince Rama, Evan as his faithful brother Lakshman, and Tyler as the evil demon Ravana!

Finally it was the feast itself, where we unwrapped presents, ate our Indian snacks and sweets, and listened to traditional Diwali songs from India.

Happy Diwali! 7