The morning of 22^nd October truly reflected the school’s vision to ‘Celebrate Diversity’ where children from the Early Years Program came dressed in festive Indian clothes or fun-costumes of their choice to celebrate Diwali and Halloween. Parent volunteers with the support of homeroom teachers and staff from EY1, EY2 and EY3 helped organize the activities for this fun-filled morning. In the spirit of Halloween, the festivity started at the EY3 homeroom with the reading of a book called ‘Spider Sandwiches’ written by Claire Freedman; followed by watching a video on ‘Why we celebrate Diwali?’. The link to the video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp59n0So-XE&feature=youtu.be

Soon after, children moved to the basketball court, where parent volunteers organized four different activity stations including Diya decoration, Glitter tattoos, Card-making and Flower-rangoli. Each activity station offered sensory play opportunities encouraging children to exercise their creativity and fine motor skills. Each child decorated a Diya(clay lamp) with glitter, glue, sequin and pom-poms, and collaborated with each other while filling the Flower-rangoli, i.e., colourful pattern on the basketball court, with fresh flowers. The Flower-rangoli decorations further encouraged a small group of children to draw their own patterns with colored chalk on the basketball court, adding to the festive morning. This year children did not go trick-or-treating but they enjoyed getting temporary Glitter tattoos on their hands and arms. Further, in the festive spirit of fun, love and joy, children across the three EY programs made Halloween or Diwali cards expressing their love for their families and friends at the Card-making station.

Overall, it was a splendid morning bringing together a local and global celebration – Diwali and Halloween – with the smell of fresh flowers, background music, and a bit of dancing and singing with children, teachers and parent volunteers.

Sruthi Javdekar – Primary Class Representative.