Explore Diwali with the modern gang
Diwali is a five day ‘festival of light’, celebrated by Hindus all over the world.
It symbolises the spiritual ‘victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance’.
‘I loved learning about the history of Diwali. Our teacher told us that it celebrates the victory of ‘knowledge over ignorance’ so in that spirit I’ve been reading about it all week. Did you know Diwali can be celebrated by lots of different religions, including Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists?’
- Bex
Cultural celebrations like Diwali are a great opportunity to explore the richness of other cultures and religions with your family. Exposing your children to different customs will help them grow up to be more curious, empathetic and open-minded adults. Moreover, exploring different cultures through celebrating colourful events like Diwali is a great way to make these conversations engaging for your little ones.
‘My family loves to celebrate Diwali so I was so excited to be able to tell my friends at school all about it this year. I even bought my sari in for show-and-tell this week. It’s a vintage one, passed down through the women in my family and we like to wear them when we set off our fireworks at home. I loved showing the beautiful colours to my friends and telling them about our traditions. It’s so cool to share part of my heritage with my best friends Maya and Bex’
- Nisha.
In the UK, Diwali is widely celebrated. In fact, the city of Leicester in England hosts the largest Diwali celebration outside of India in the world.
‘Our classroom is being filled with fairy lights and pretend candles. The teacher asked us to bring in different coloured jam jars to put the lights inside. The weather is so gloomy and dark at the moment that when the candles are lit they make the inside of our classroom look like a rainbow.’
- Maya
‘I’ve been saving my jam jars for weeks so our class could have the best Diwali display. I’ve also been working on my art and today I’m going to bring it into school and show my teacher. Diwali is often celebrated with firework displays, so I’ve been using all my crayons and drawing giant colourful explosions of light. I hope everyone likes them!’
- Max
Click here to learn more about the importance of cultural diversity in our modern range.
