November 2023 - Diwali

Class: Rainbow Room Year: 2023 - 2024

Diwali, or Dipawali, is India's biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas holiday is to Christians.

At nursery, the children have been engaging in activities which relate to Diwali such as making a dessert made from carrots called Halwa, creating Rangoli patterns and we also had a special visitor from a lady called Purvi.

Purvi is from India and she came to talk to us about Diwali, the festival of light. Purvi told us the story of Rama, Sita and the Demon King, she used actions to help us to understand the story. She explained that they get their houses ready to celebrate by cleaning and putting up decorations. They also have fireworks and sparklers.

Purvi told us all the story of Rama and Sita. There was a Demon king and he wasn’t very kind, he had 10 heads! One day Prince Rama and Princess Sita walked to the Forest where there were tigers and elephants. The demon king took Sita! There was a monkey army and their leader Hanuman told Prince Rama he would help him rescue Sita so off they went to find her. They had a big battle and killed all the demons and the Demon king and rescued Sita!

People put lights out to welcome Princess Sita back home and that’s why Diwali is called the Festival of Lights and people put lights out today.

We dressed up and joined in with some dancing, it was lots of fun!