Lesson video

Hello everybody, my name's Miss Hughes.

What's your name? It's great to have you for our lesson today because in this lesson we are learning about a very special religious festival.

Does anybody know what festival we're going to learn about? There's a clue in the picture.

Some of you guessed.

We are going to learn about Diwali and in this lesson, we will understand why some people celebrate Diwali.

There are three lessons in this unit, you can do them all or just choose one.

The first is with me, the second with Miss Sidenius, and the third with Mrs Garrard.

Give them a wave, they're excited to meet you.

In this lesson, we are going to learn about what a religious celebration is.

We're going to listen to the Diwali Story, think about ways that Diwali is celebrated, and then draw something called the Rangoli patterns.

Don't worry if you don't know what that is, we'll go through it later.

Now, in this lesson you will need some plain paper, some glue, and some beans or seeds or you can use pasta shapes or even bits of paper.

Pause the video here, get what you need, and join me when you're ready.

Have you got everything? Great.

Let's think about religion and religious celebrations.

Religion is a set of beliefs that people have about a superhuman force, something that is bigger than us.

All religions are different.

Some religions worship gods or a god and some religions believe in something else.

There are so many different religions.

Here is a picture representing just some of the religions.

Do you have a religion? Tell the screen what it is if you do.

Now, we're going to be learning about Diwali today and Diwali is a religious celebration.

Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Light so people who follow the Hindu religion will celebrate Diwali.

Now, Diwali comes from a story from a very, very long time ago.

So get comfortable and we'll begin.

This is the Diwali Story.

Long long ago lived a prince called Rama and his beautiful wife Sita and they were banished to a forest far away.

But, there was an evil demon king.

His name was Ravana, his name was, and Ravana had 20 arms and 10 heads and Ravana heard that Sita was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.

So, he played a trick, he disguised himself and he kidnapped Sita and kept her locked away.

Sita had been very clever and as Ravana kidnapped her, she dropped pieces of jewellery, leaving a trail for Rama to find her but that was not an easy job and Rama and his brother Lakshmana looked for Sita for months.

They didn't find her but they did come across a monkey king whose name was Hanuman.

His name was? And Hanuman agreed to help Rama and Lakshmana to find Sita.

He collected all of the monkeys in the land and they went into battle.

It was one of the greatest battles of all time, it lasted 10 whole days.

It looked like evil king Ravana was going to win, but just then, Rama borrowed a special bow and arrow and shot it at Ravana, killing him.

They rescued Sita.

As Sita, Rama and Sita walked back to their kingdom, it was dark and they couldn't see where they were going so the people of the kingdom lit lights and lanterns called diya lamps to see them home so they knew their way.

The end.

I loved learning that story, it's made me understand why people use lamps to celebrate Diwali.

Let's think about Diwali now.

Diwali is a time where we remember that good always triumphs over evil, or, if we're thinking of the story, we can remember that Rama, the good man, triumphed over king Ravana, the evil man.

We celebrate Diwali in lots of different ways.

In the school I work at, we celebrate Diwali by having a party and all of the parents and children come into school and we light lamps and we have a feast.

There are some other ways that people celebrate Diwali.

Call them out to the screen if you know them.

Some people celebrate Diwali with fireworks.

Ah, fireworks cause a big light in the sky and Diwali is the Festival of Light, maybe that's why.

Some people celebrate Diwali by lighting these beautiful diya lamps.

They put them all over their house so that little lights light up their house.

Some people draw beautiful Rangoli patterns on the floor and Rangoli patterns bring us luck.

And some people celebrate Diwali by having a feast.

If you celebrate Diwali, tell the screen what you do to celebrate it now.

Some of you have mentioned things that we've just talked about and some of you have different ways of celebrating, how great.

Now, we come to the final part of the lesson where we will design our own Rangoli pattern.

But what are Rangoli patterns? Well, Rangoli patterns are drawn on the ground and they come in lots of different designs.

Rangoli patterns are symmetrical.

That means they're the same on both sides.

If you cut a line down the middle of this pattern, each side would look the same.

Rangoli patterns are symmetrical.

Now Rangoli patterns are also very colourful too.

I like that this one has reds and blues in it whereas this one has a pink and yellow and green pattern.

And people make Rangoli patterns because they're a symbol of good luck in the Hindu religion.

I love these patterns.

I would love to make my own Rangoli pattern.

So that's what I'm going to do and I'm going to do that by using some beans, paper, and glue.

Let me show you what I will use for my Rangoli pattern.

I've chosen some beautiful yellow currants that look like jewels.

I've chosen some almonds because they have a great shape on them, I thought it was really interesting.

I've chosen these pumpkin seeds with a black and white pattern on them, can you see them? And I've chosen some round green peas.

I wonder what you've chosen for your Rangoli patterns.

Tell your screen.

Great, I think I'm ready to begin and my first step was to draw the outline of my pattern.

I'd like a star shape so I'm going to do a cross and another cross.

Now, I'm going to put pumpkin seeds around the star, making sure the amount is equal on each point.

Oh, I'm going to need three for each point.

First I make a cross.

And then I make a star.

Now we're only placing them here, so they will wobble a little bit, but that's okay, we'll stick them down later.

Next, I'm going to get the currants that look like jewels.

I'm going to go around the edge of my Rangoli pattern to make a sort of circle.

Making sure I put two currants in between each group of seeds.

One, two.

One, two.

Count with me.

One, two.

One, two.

One, two.

Great, I've gone all the way round to make a sort of circle.

Next, I'm going to use my peas.

I'm going to put one pea in each segment.

Now the peas are a sphere shape, so they might roll around a little bit but that's okay because I can stick them down later.

Two more, one, two.

And finally, I'm going to use the almonds and put one almond in the middle.

To make sure it's symmetrical, I'm making sure that the points of the almonds are facing the same way.

And there's my Rangoli pattern.

It's symmetrical which means if you cut a line down the middle, it would look the same on both sides.

I'm a little bit worried they're going to, the seeds are going to fall or move.

What can I do to make sure that they stay in the right place? That's right, my next job will be to stick them down.

Now it's your turn.

I wonder if your Rangoli pattern will look like mine or if you use different things or make a different pattern.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I've loved making my Rangoli patterns with you.

I hope you enjoy making yours too.

Have a lovely day, bye.