Celebrating Diwali with Purple Mash

Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is the biggest festival in the Hindu calendar and is celebrated in October or November each year. This year celebrations fall on Thursday 4th November.

Diwali symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. The celebration involves several million lights illuminating rooftops, doorways and windows in temples and buildings across the countries where the festival is observed. The festival unifies religions, regions and cultures bringing together Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism along with Hinduism.

Here at 2Simple, we are celebrating Diwali with several resources you can use on Purple Mash. We are celebrating light and colour and invite your class to be creative and get involved.

Writing Projects:

Use our writing templates to celebrate Diwali. Our Special Clothes template allows students to drag and drop clothes onto children getting ready for their Diwali celebrations, write about how they are feeling and why Diwali is so important to them. There's also a mouth-watering exercise giving children the chance to write step-by-step recipe instructions for Khajur Burfi (Diwali sweets) and they get the chance to explain how one boy celebrates the festival by creating a leaflet.

There are also two postcard templates, allowing children to show off their Diwali knowledge and exercise their imagination at the same time. They could write home from India, describing what their homestay with an Indian family is like, or how they celebrated Diwali in a temple.

Paint Projects:

We have several paint projects that you can use to get involved. Rangoli is an art form, originating in the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or the ground using materials such as coloured rice, coloured sand, quartz powder or flower petals. We have several pre-populated Rangoli templates for you to use to make the most colourful design. You can also design your own Mehndi to celebrate.

However you are celebrating Diwali this year, please share your work with us on Facebook or Twitter.