Lesson video

Hi team and welcome to your lesson this week with me, Mrs. Garrard.

Now I know that you've been learning all about Diwali and celebration this week.

So in our lesson today, I thought we could create our very own diya lamp.

Let me share my screen with you.

So the first thing we'll need to do for our lesson today is gather some resources.

Then we'll think about what a diya lamp is.

Then next we'll think about why diya lamps are important.

And then finally, at the end of our lesson, we'll create our very own diya lamp.

So for this lesson you will need quite a few things.

You'll need a bowl, a spoon and some measuring cups.

That's the um, equipment that you'll need.

You'll need some ingredients to make some salt dough.

You will need some flour, some salt and some water.

And then finally you'll need some equipment to decorate your diya lamp.

You'll need some paint and some glue, maybe some gems if you'd like them and a tealight.

Pause the video now and gather all of the resources together that you'll need.

What is a diya lamp? So a diya lamp is a lamp made from clay.

It's a little pot that is made from clay and inside the pot, it has a cotton wick, that's been dipped in ghee or vegetable oil.

Can you see in the picture there's a little black, it looks like a thread, that's the wick of the diya lamp.

And it's used in celebrations at Diwali.

At Diwali, people light diya lamps as part of their celebration.

Why are diya lamps important? So diya lamps are important to the people of the Hindu faith and they use them during their Diwali celebrations.

They light them and when they light them, it's to ward away the darkness.

Watch the video and listen carefully to the instructions so that we can make our very own diya lamp.

This slide shows you the ingredients and gives you some direction about how to make some salt dough.

When you watch the video you'll see me watching it so you could follow my instructions on the video too.

So in my bowl, I have got two cups of flour and I'm adding one cup of salt.

Then I'm going to mix them together.

And now I'm going to add one cup of water.

Can you see how I'm making a little well in the middle of the flour and the salt mixture? Now I'm going to pour in a cup of water.

I'm going to pour a little bit in first and then add a little bit more.

You don't want to put too much in at once because it, our dough might go sticky.

Can you see how the mixture is beginning to mix together and form a dough? It's a bit sticky at the moment.

I'm going to add some more flour and salt in from the edges and a little bit more water to bring it all together to combine to make a dough.

See how I'm using my spoon, I'm going round the edge of the bowl to incorporate all of the flour and salt.

Can you see how it's beginning to make a dough? Just a bit more water.

That should be enough.

Now I'm going to use my hands to knead the dough together.

I've got all of the flour and salt is combined, so now I'm going to use my hands to knead the dough into a smooth mixture, smooth dough should I say, a mixture.

There we go.

It's a little bit sticky, can you see how it's sticking to my hands? It's a little bit sticky so I'm going to use a little bit more flour to dust the dough so that it doesn't stick to the work surface and it stops sticking to my hands.

Kneading it a little bit more.

Now I'm going to dust the dough with the flour.

Remember I said I was going to dust it so it stops sticking to my hands? Just the right consistency for our salt dough.

Now we're nearly ready to form our diya lamp.

That's a really big piece of dough, I don't need a piece that big.

So I'm going to break a piece of dough off to make my diya lamp.

It's about a handful, It's about a handful.

Can you see how I'm rolling the dough between my palms to make a ball? That's the first thing you'll need to do.

You'll need to make a ball.

Now I'm going to use my thumb and push it in the middle of my lump of dough and then use my fingers to move the edges outwards, to make the shape of the diya lamp.

Can you see how it has a kind of point at the front? You see how I'm using my hands to do that? My thumbs? And then I'm shaping it with the palms of my hands, pinching the edges and then I'm just checking to see if my tealight will fit.

It will fit.

That's good.

Now I have to be super patient and wait for it to dry.

Once it's dry, then you'll be able to decorate it.

You can leave it on the side to air dry, or you could ask your parent or carer to cook it in the oven for a little while.

Now I'm ready to paint my dough because it's dry.

My diya lamp is dry so I'm ready to paint it.

I've chosen red paint.

So I'm going to cover the surface of the diya lamp with my red paint.

And I didn't have any gems or glitter at home, so I'm going to paint some patterns on my diya lamp.

But if you have some gems or some glitter, you could add those to your diya lamp to make it extra special.

You see how I'm carefully making sure all of the surface of the diya lamp is painted? The sides.

While I'm painting it, I'm thinking about what kind of pattern I could paint on the outside of the diya lamp.

I've got some colours that I've chosen that I think go quite nicely with red.

Yellow and orange.

So they're the colours that I'm going to use for my decoration.

Nearly finished.

Now I'm going to use a thinner brush to make some patterns.

I decided that I would use spots and stripes to decorate my diya lamp.

So I'm just finding a thin new brush and I'm going to paint some spots and some stripes around the edge of my diya lamp to decorate it.

Then I'll just need to wait for my diya lamp to dry, for the paint to dry on it, and then not be able to put my tealight inside.

You see how I'm putting dots all around the edge.

Should we see a picture of my completed diya lamp? There we go.

That's my completed diya lamp.

Can you see how I've put the tealight inside? And I lit the wick, but that's because I'm an adult, you won't be able to do that.

You'll have to ask your parent or your carer to do that.

And it's really important that while you're near your diya lamp, you're super careful that you don't bump it and that you have a parent or carer with you at all the time that the diya lamp is lit.

That way you can make sure that everybody stays safe.

Team I really hope that you enjoy making your own diya lamp as much as I enjoyed making mine.

If you would like to, you could share your work with Oak National.

You could ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I'll be really excited to see all of the different patterns and decorations you use on your diya lamp.

Team, that's the end of our lesson today.

It's time for me to say goodbye.

See you next time.