Diwali Classroom Activities and Lesson Ideas

Diwali is the most important holiday of the year in India and a time for great joy and happiness. Diwali is filled with good food, fireworks, vibrant and colorful decorations, and special candles. Here are Diwali classroom activities and lesson ideas your students will love!

In this post, I’ll share fun facts, activities, crafts, and even ready-to-use lesson plans to teach your students about:

Diwali Decorations
Diyas
The Festival of Lights
The Significance of Rangoli
The Diwali Feast

Diwali Classroom Activities & Lesson Ideas

Diwali activities, crafts & lesson ideas for kids

Decorating for Diwali

To prepare for Diwali families deep clean their homes and decorate the outside with lights and garlands of brightly colored flowers. Inside families burn jasmine incense and light candles.

Watch Video About Diwali

Diwali - Festival of Lights | National Geographic

Rangoli

Decorating the doorway is a big part of Diwali. Indian families decorate their doorways to welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth into their homes. They create beautiful patterns, called rangoli, on the floor using brightly colored rice powders or sand. The most common patterns are shaped like a lotus blossom, a symbol of welcome.

The Festival of Lights

Diwali On the second day of Diwali, we decorate our homes with lit terra cotta lamps, called Diyas. These clay lamps symbolize the inner light that protects us from spiritual darkness.

The Diwali Feast

Diwali is a night of songs, dance, and fireworks, but first families have a feast! Some of the traditional foods served are Choddo Shaak made with fourteen different leafy greens, and Poha, a flattened rice that is prepared five different ways.

Trays of traditional sweets and snacks, most made with spices and nuts, are put out each day for when friends and relatives arrive.

Diwali Classroom Activities & Lesson Ideas

Diwali PowerPoint

Take your students on a virtual field trip to learn some of the special holiday traditions for Diwali.

This ready-to-use teaching PowerPoint is the one I use to teach about the five days of Diwali, traditional Diwali decorations, rangoli, the Festival of Lights, the Diwali feast, and much more!

Filled with captivating photos from real celebrations that will excite your students as they learn about Diwali and all its colorful traditions.

Diwali Powerpoint for teaching about holidays around the world.

PowerPoint source here or on TPT

🎇 All About Diwali for Kids | 1 November | Twinkl USA

Make A Diya Craft

Have your students make a postcard from India! Make a Diya craft out of construction paper and yarn and glue it to a postcard as a travel souvenir.

This Diya postcard craft and the templates are part of the Diwali lessons we do during our holidays around the world unit. Our students travel to different classrooms to learn about the unique customs and holiday traditions in countries around the world.

Holidays around the world postcard crafts from different countries.

They make postcard crafts for each country before stamping their passport and departing! See more of how we do it in my classroom and all the magical ways to teach holidays around the world.

Diwali Lesson Plans

Learn much more about Diwali with an entire week of activities, teaching slides, a fun suitcase folder, and a travel passport with these Holidays Around the World lesson plans!

I’ve created a complete unit for teaching holiday traditions in 14 countries. Each country has detailed, scripted lesson plans with related books and videos, boarding passes, a teaching PowerPoint with actual photos of the countries, and even a short quiz as an exit ticket before students depart! (they make it super easy to take a quick grade!)

Holidays around the world folder suitcase with all the crafts, reading passages and passport that go with the unit.

This unique holidays around the world unit is available here in the Around The Kampfire Shop and also in my TPT shop.

Diwali Reading Comprehension

Add comprehension practice with leveled passages about Diwali traditions in India! These passages also include a digital version that you can project on your whiteboard and use during a lesson or make it a partner activity during your literacy center time.