Diwali is a very special festive for my husband and me. We celebrated this festival in India as kids and would love to pass down a little of this culture and tradition to our toddler. Some of the few things (among many) I love about Diwali are waking up early to make a Rangoli (a traditional Indian design made with colored sand); the beautiful lights/lanterns that light up the whole house and obviously the fire crackers.
Activity 1: Fireworks in a Jar
Best for (2 year and up) color exploration and simple science
Material Needed: A tall jar filled with warm water, Vegetable Oil and Water based Food Color
Diwali or New years, fireworks in the sky are always fun to watch, but not really safe for young kids to handle. Instead try this easy and fun science experiment which uses just a few simple kitchen supplies. Kids will love exploring these colorful fireworks in a jar! You can play the fireworks sound in the background like we did or just enjoy a silent firework display.
Fill a tall jar 3/4th way full, with warm water. Now slowly pour 4 or 5 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the jar. The oil will float on top of the water. Now add 4 drops of each food color you have in the jar. Add all the colors at once or one at a time. Now sit back and enjoy your fireworks in the jar.
Liquid density is a fun experiment for kids to explore as it combines physics and chemistry. Water is heavier than oil, so it sinks to the bottom of the jar while the oil floats on top. When you add water based food coloring to the jar, it does not mix with the oil on top, but slowly begins to sink. Once they reach the water in the jar, they start to dissolve in the water and this makes for a beautiful fireworks display.
Adding the food colors in the jar to the oil layer first, slows down the water and food color from mixing. Even if it’s difficult for the young kids to understand this, it’s still a great visual display I think.
Activity 2: Easy kid friendly Rangoli
Best for (1 year and up) fine motor skills, color exploration, sensory play, creativity and decor
Material Needed: Rangoli Design Print on thick paper (free download at the end of the post), White Glue, Colored Sand (or Rangoli colors), Glitter (optional) and a tray (to contain the mess).
Last year during Diwali while I was making Rangoli, my son showed interest in wanting to make his own. But he wasn’t happy when it did not turn out quite like his mother’s Rangoli. So for this year we tried another way to approach this. You do get stencils in the market for Rangoli designs, but I like to store any and all Art my kid makes, so stencils wouldn’t have worked for us.
Keep the designs simple for younger ones. I am sharing a free template of 3 simple designs for Rangoli in this post. You can print those on a thick paper or just draw your own. Now trace the design with the white glue. Make sure to get a glue bottle that is easy to hold and use for this.
Now place the paper inside a tray and have your kid sprinkle/pour/throw sand on the paper. Let them choose how to interact with it. Sand is a great option for sensory play. You can be specific with the colors or random. It will turn out beautiful either way. Once they have covered all the areas of the paper with sand, ask them to slowly pull the paper out.
My son loved how the sand trickled down slowly revealing the colorful Rangoli design. The sand will get stuck to the areas that had glue, while the rest will just slide off. We even used glitter to add that bling element to the festival. Older kids can try their hand at tracing the design with glue. My son wanted to try it and I made small hearts and wrote his name on paper. He did surprisingly well with the glue tracing.
Just go with the flow and see what works well with you and your kid. The best part is you can save these beautiful designs as artwork.
Watch this space as we add more Diwali activities.