How do you educate and explain Diwali to kids (when you possibly don’t know lots about it yourself)?
If your child comes home from nursery with a clay pot decorated with sparkles and gems, holding a tea light, chances are that they made a ‘diya lamp’ (pronounced ‘dee-ya’) and are learning about Diwali.
You can continue encouraging their curiosity at home too with the help of a few resources and fun arts and crafts activities.
So what is Diwali, and how do you explain it to your toddler or child?
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What Is Diwali In Simple Terms?
Put simply, Diwali is a Hindu festival of light. It’s a time when people celebrate light overcoming darkness and good triumphing over bad. People light lanterns (diya lamps) and spend time praying and celebrating with family, looking forward to the season ahead. The festival lasts for five days.
Diwali is an integral part of culture in many British communities. As well as lights and celebrations, there will be fireworks. People decorate their homes with flowers and many make rangoli patterns on the floor to welcome visitors.
5 Key Elements Of Diwali And How To Explain Them To Your Kids:
1. It’s A Festival Of Light
Make a diya lantern together to help explain to your toddler that Diwali is a Hindu festival of light. People light lanterns and lamps to decorate shops, houses and public places. These lamps are called ‘diyas’.
You can make a diya lantern with your toddler and talk about what it means as you decorate and light it.
To make your diya from scratch, get some air-drying clay to roll into a ball. Use your thumb to make a hollow for the tealight and use a crafting or playdough tool to add indentations in the clay round the edge. Your toddler will enjoy adding paint and self-adhesive jewels when it’s all dry. You can use battery-operated tealights for safety with your toddler.
If you want to make a paper diya, here’s a video which shows you how – you’ll need to help toddlers with the folding!
“Both my children made diyas every year at nursery, so they knew a lot more about Diwali than I did!”
– Liz, Team Happity
2. Light Over Darkness
Fireworks lighting up the night sky are an important part of Diwali.
Making a Diwali firework picture together is another way of showing how light overcomes darkness and good overcomes the bad in Diwali. See our blog post on autumn crafts for ideas about flicking paint onto paper to look like a firework, or using a toilet roll tube to decorate as a firework.
You may catch some fireworks too in your local area. These are a great visual way to show your child how light can get rid of darkness. Try asking simple open-ended questions like ooh what’s that in the sky? What’s it doing? What do you like about lights? How do the lights make you feel? (happy/good/warm/excited)
Depending on your child’s understanding you may be able to say something like Do you like the dark? How do you feel in the dark? or Some people are afraid of the night. How can we help them? By putting lights there. Some older children may be able to take it even further with. How can we help people if they’re feeling sad or scared?
3. Welcoming Guests Into Your Home
Rangoli floor art patterns are traditionally made and displayed at the entrances to houses alongside diya lamps. They symbolise welcoming visitors and the Hindu goddess Lakshmi.
If you already have a welcome sign or welcome mat at your door, try a bit of role play. ‘Invite’ your child or teddy bear in through the front door, or into a room in the house.
Then try making a floor art pattern together. You can use scrunched-up tissue paper, coloured sand, petals, rice – anything that your toddler can arrange in a pattern. The more colourful the better, as it will make visitors feel really welcome!
If you want to make patterns but keep your art on a tray or table, maybe use Lego/Duplo bricks or large HAMA beads. These are for pre-schoolers aged 3-4 years and are known as Maxi Beads, or My First HAMA.
Check out our post on Diwali crafts for toddlers for more ideas like making Torans, hand art and sweets.
4. Family And Friends Celebrating Together
Read a picture book about Diwali together to show how families decorate their houses, wear new clothes, make food and exchange presents.
Choose a simple board or picture book and focus on the idea of Diwali as a festival of light where friends and family celebrate together. Choose a book with lots of pictures and try and ask questions like what can you see in this picture? What are the people doing? How are they feeling? Do you like dressing up/giving presents. How are they celebrating together?
Using a familiar children’s character like Peppa Pig can be a good idea as it tells the story of Diwali in an age-appropriate way and gives you ideas of simple things families can do for Diwali.
“So we have been celebrating with our son since he was born, but we actually explained it best using a Peppa Pig book! It’s explained really well in there and that’s how he understood it best.”
– Sonia, Parent
5. The Date Of Diwali Changes Each Year
Put or draw a sticker on your calendar to help your toddler understand when Diwali is. Diwali is a different date each year, depending on the moon. It’s always between October and November though. Once you know the date (it’s from October 29th to November 3rd this year with main celebrations on either October 31st or November 1st), you can add a sticker or picture with your toddler on the calendar.
Fun Books To Explain Diwali to Kids
- Peppa Pig: Peppa’s Diwali
Join Peppa Pig as she learns about Diwali at nursery and home. Click here for an audio and video version of the words and pictures.
- Baby’s First Diwali
This picture book for baby’s first Diwali has colourful pictures and explains simply about making rangoli patterns and decorating houses with flowers.
- Celebrate The World: Diwali
Here’s a colourful board book to help your little one learn all about the festival of light. Learn about how lamps and lanterns decorate many important public places and how people buy presents for friends and family.
- Usborne Little First Stickers Diwali
Here’s a fun sticker book for little ones to add stickers to all the different scenes.
Fun Videos That Can Help To Explain Diwali To kids
- You can look at the pictures and see Peppa Pig’s Diwali book read aloud here.
- Here’s a CBeebies episode called ‘My First Diwali’ where you can follow Deeya and her mum as she celebrates the festival.
- Check out this BBC Bitesize page for the story of Diwali in ten easy pictures. And here’s a little video from CBeebies telling the story of Rama (pronounced rarm) and Sita.
Fun Craft Links and Reading About Diwali For You
- Here’s a fun post about decorating diyas with one and three-year-olds.
- Read more about rangoli here and how people place diya alongside them
- Here’s a no-mess paper plate rangoli to try with your toddler using coloured paper.
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