The Problem
We wish to engage the preschool, preK and Kindergarten students at our school, and by extension their families, in multicultural learning and becoming committed to diversity, and in this particular instance will seek to do that by having a Diwali Festival Celebration for them where we will celebrate the Hindu/Indian Festival of Diwali, sharing about the traditions and customs that go along with this festival and engaging in fun and enjoyable activities with the children, and sending home take-home kits for the children to share with their families about what they have learned.
Our Plan
We will have students in preschool, preK, and Kindergarten in the After School Program be read books about Diwali in the days leading up to our Diwali Festival Celebration and do several Diwali crafts which we will use to decorate the gym where the Celebration will take place. On the day of the Festival, the R&S Club students will decorate the gym with candles (LED Ones) and strings of lights, and rangoli pictures and other Diwali-type decorations, and set up the snacks, which will be actual Indian desserts made by an Assistant Teacher at the school who is recently arrived in the US from India. Then at the time the Celebration is to begin, we will play Diwali music as the children arrive, and have them come into the candlelit room and sit down, and will serve them snack and enjoy the quiet, festive environment. Then after a little while we will have some dancing, and then we will give out rangoli patterns for the children to color and ask them what they know about Diwali and remind them of the basic facts about this festival we are celebrating. We will end with a couple of Diwali stories, and giving each child a luminary bag with a candle and their rangoli pictures to take home with them.
