Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights, held during the period October through November. It is particularly associated with Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and it is the biggest holiday of India. Diwali is considered just as important as Christmas is to Christians.
Diwali is celebrated for five consecutive days.
On the second day, people decorate their homes with clay lamps and create design patterns called rangoli on the floor using colored powdered or sands.
Today’s post is a kid’s craft of a rangoli made with glass marbles. Instead of making a rangoli on our floor we are putting it up in a frame to display.
All you need is:
- 8×10 picture frame
- a rangoli print
- a bag of assorted color half marbles
- colored glue (white glue with a few drops of food coloring)
Little one had a friend over. We talked about Diwali and the Indian folk art called rangoli. We discussed the beautiful and intricate patterns that are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals.
Before they made their very own rangoli I showed them various images of rangoli, and they sorted the marbles by color.
Now it was time for the kids to get creative, and make their own patterns with the half marbles.
For their rangoli they used a dab of glue on the bottom of the marble, and they would place on the pattern. Once completely dry colored glue was used around the spaces to add more color to it.
Pin for later!
For more on India read these fun posts:
Cooking with Kids: Kulfi a Frozen Dessert from India
Discovering India with Kids
This post is part of the annual Diwali for Kids blog hop from Multicultural Kid Blogs! See the posts below for great ideas on celebrating Diwali with children. You can find even more ideas from last year’s series and on our Diwali Pinterest board: