1R STEAM Week

This week we were exploring how Diwali is celebrated through Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. It was an incredibly fun week where we were able to learn about another religion and show respect to other cultures through hands on investigations.

We are so lucky to be part of the diverse, unique, supportive Broad Heath family and we love to learn about each other’s cultures and traditions. We found many similarities between religious celebrations and many differences too!

At Diwali, ladies have beautiful mehndi patterns on their hands. We looked at many different designs and decided which we liked best. We then designed our own! The children shared that ladies also do this when they celebrate Eid or weddings too.

At Diwali, people light diva lamps to welcome the goddess Lakshmi into their homes. They also remember Rama and Sita’s return home. First, we looked at some real divas that Mrs Patel kindly shared with us.

We then explored different materials and designed our own divas.

We then created our divas, following our designs.

Finally, we tested our divas using a tea light candle.

Can you tell me what happened? Which materials were the best choice for a diva and why? Which materials were not suitable for a diva lamp and why?

Next we made divas using clay.

We were lucky enough to visit the local Hindu temple. Mrs Patel shared her knowledge and we learnt so much. It was such a beautiful, peaceful place and the children were so respectful. Thank you so much to Sofia’s dad, Hurayn’s dad and Nathan’s mum for joining us. We really appreciate your support!

Diwali is a festival of light. It is celebrated with fireworks! We explored light with torches and different materials to see if we could change the colour. We learnt some new vocabulary: opaque, translucent and transparent. We also created some beautiful firework pictures using different media.

In the story of Rama and Sita, the monkeys built a bridge to rescue Sita. We worked in teams to design our own bridges. We worked hard to build them and tested them too.

Diwali is a very colourful festival! We learnt to use the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) to make other colours.

At Diwali time, people also create Rangoli patterns on the floor. We created our own using rice, stencils and sponge painting too.

The children took part in a Diwali themed yoga session with Mr Rawlings, performing poses such as lotus, tree and child pose.

To end the week, the children brought in some amazing snacks and treats to share, as well as having a Diwali disco! What great fun we had!

Miss Smith had to make sure Lilah got involved with the learning too!

As you can see, we most definitely answered our big question! So, tell me… HOW IS DIWALI CELEBRATED?