It’s been quite a few years now since we’ve visited India. This Diwali season is reminding me of all the festivities that happen especially at the front gate of our family’s home in India.

Here is a typical family’s lifestyle in India at the front gate including a few special events of a lifetime.

The Front Gate in India

Growing up in the United States in a typical suburban neighborhood, I never knew what it would be like to live in a big city and to have a home that needed a front gate. Then, twelve years ago, I married my husband who just happens to be from India.

Since then I’ve had the chance to visit five times to stay with his family in New Delhi, India. Here’s a peek at my latest trip to India.

As I look through my pictures I noticed that, on my first trip to India, my son’s first visit, and my daughter’s first experience, there were lots of pictures of the front gate to our family home. I thought it might be fun to take you on an adventure through the daily life of India from the Front Gate in a typical middle-income home in New Delhi, India.

Welcome

For the first time, you visit a home, many times you will find that there are garlands or marigolds and banana leaves hanging to welcome visitors. You feel so honored to be welcomed in such a manner.

There is also a special sign at the entrance of some homes with blessings and who resides in the home.

Animals Visit

We were so excited to see that many days the cows and other stray animals would roam from gate to gate looking for food treasures of the day. Many homes keep their scrap foods for the animals that pass. It’s a simple way of having no waste and providing a blessing to those around you.

We were very surprised to hear the noises that would come around the neighborhood with the wild monkeys who would pass through You have to be cautious when they are present and generally most residents will go into their homes and shut the doors so that no unwanted visitors will enter.

Vendors Visit

Each morning you awake to the sounds of vendors passing by with the various items that they are selling from their carts. We would go out and buy any fresh produce we wanted for our meals that day or the next day. Here’s a picture of my daughter buying bananas with her Dadi Ji from the vendor.

You begin to recognize the specific calls of each vendor to listen for as they walk down the streets of the community.

Daily Cleaning

We were fortunate enough that there was a local resident who our family pays to come to the gate each day and ring the bell to come and clean the house. She would sweep and mop the floors, even the outdoor area. It’s very dusty in New Delhi, India.

My daughter was fascinated by the brooms that our housekeeper would use. She had fun practicing on her own by the front gate.

Festivals

Diwali is the festival of lights for Hindus.I had the chance to visit India during this occasion and see how absolutely beautiful the streets become as they are all lit by candlelight and lights. Here’s the view from our front porch.

For additional Diwali Activities {click Here}

Gardening

There were so many little gardens inside of each gate as we passed through streets of India. Many are marigold plants that were growing from seeds from the marigolds that had dried from the festivals and temple offerings. You will also at times find a special plant called “The Money Plant” growing too.

Indian Weddings

When there is a marriage in the house the tradition is to hang lights on the front of the house. I know technically it’s not the front gate but it is something you’ll see. It’s absolutely one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen as you travel at night.

Here’s a picture of our home covered with bridal lights and one tired little flower girl and my husband.

When a groom leaves their home for a wedding they will usually leave with a baraat. A baraat can become a large procession, with its own band, dancers, and fireworks. The groom and his horse are covered in finery and do not usually take part in the dancing and singing.

As a bride, the front gate also becomes the last place they stop before going to their new home, oftentimes the groom’s parent’s home. I’ve been through the process twice in India and the feelings are overwhelming from the bridal party as blessings are shared. When the car pulls away slowly, the bride’s brothers and cousins will push the car signifying that they have given her a push ahead as she begins her new life with her husband.

Here’s a picture of my sister-in-law as she leaves our home as a new bride.

Safety in India

Unfortunately, the front gate is there to keep families safe. As with any large city you have to be aware of others and protect your family. I think that it was an eye-opener to me the very first time I went to India how much EVERYTHING needed to be locked up.

My daughter was really obsessed with the locks while we were there and had fun pretending to open them.

The Real India Gate

At the center of New Delhi stands the 42 m high “Arc-de-Triomphe” like archway in the middle of a crossroad. Almost similar to its French counterpart, it commemorates the 70,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting for the British Army during World War I. The memorial bears the names of more than 13,516 British and Indian soldiers killed in the Northwestern Frontier in the Afghan War of 1919.

Here are some Books about India.

Thank you so much for joining me on my reflections on the front gates of India.

The more time I spend with my husband’s family and the more time in India we visit I feel like I grow in knowledge all the time. As I learn every day more and more about India I share them onto our India Pinterest Board. Come follow along !

Follow The Educators’ Spin On It’s board India Culture and Hindi Language on Pinterest.

You may also enjoy these activities about India for kids…

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

DIY Holi T-Shirt for Kids

We prepared for our Holi Color Fun this year by making our own Holi T-shirts. This way we can continue to wear them and remind us of all of our Colorful Fun for Holi.

It was literally made in just a few minutes but turned out to be a big hit with both of my girls and also our friends that came to join the fun.

We invited some friends for their very first Holi experience so we wanted to make it memorable.

We took a plain T-shirts and plain onsies for the babies and fabric paint. 

Then we found foam letters around the house to dip into the paint.  The best size for us were the foam letter we already had for other craft projects. My daughter dipped her letters in the paint and then placed them onto her shirt.

Once we started the color and water fun she was ready to have fun and get messy!

We got MESSY and had so much FUN! Even my 1 year old got into the FUN!

Holi is a holiday that surpasses our differences and focuses on the oneness of our humanity
~ Generation Ginger

We used Washable Finger Paints for the little ones to help with cleanup.

And made a special bucket for them to play with on water toys and water balloons.

(Use Caution Balloons are a choking hazards for small children, adult supervision at all times)

This is what you wear traditionally in India a White Solid Kurta Pyjama 

HOLI ~ The FESTIVAL OF COLORS

Background Info about Holi

Around the world, Hindus are celebrating Holi, the Festival of Colors. Holi is a popular springtime celebration observed on the last full moon of the lunar month.

Participants traditionally throw bright, vibrant powders at friends and strangers alike, celebrating the arrival of Spring, commemorating Krishna’s pranks, and allowing everyone a momentary freedom — a chance to drop their inhibitions and simply play and dance.

Celebrating Festivals from other countries is always a great way to connect to that culture and learn about new things!

Here’s our favorite Holi songs on youtube!

You know since we’re always putting the Educators’ Spin On It. I had to have an Activity to go with it!

So here it is, Make your Holi Color Book!

Make your Own Family Holi Book of Colors

1. Create a simple Color Book to remind us of all of our Colorful Fun!
2. Draw members of our family, one on each page. Then write a color word on each page.
3. Using a paint brush and water colors, splatter painted each page according to the color.

We’ve been working on Family Names and Color Words in Hindi so it was the perfect time to use both in our book!

Holi Books for Kids

Here are some books about Holi.

Celebrate Holi With Me! (From The Toddler Diaries)

Amma, Tell Me about Holi by Bhakti Mathur

Festival of Colors by Vashti Harrison

Holi Colors by Rina Singh

Want more Holi books for Kids? Explore these colorful children’s books about Holi!

What is Holi?

• Background of Holi & Activities from Putti Prapancha
• Videos of Holi collected by Gnaana
• Song about Holi

Festival Colors Holi High Quality Colors, 50 Gram Packets (Pack of 10)

Activities for Holi for Kids

• Bubble Paint Virtual Holi at Putti Prapancha
• Body Tracing and Paint Splatter from Putti Prapancha
• Rainy Day Chalk at Golden Gleam
• Make your own HOLI letters by Gnaana

Our Holi Friends!

Happy Holi from our Family to yours! 

We’re working on our Colors! We made a Color Book that uses various learning opportunities to learn how to identify, spell and read Color Words in Hindi. We created Paper Bag Book using Hearts, English, and Hindi Color Words.

You can make your own Paper Bag Book too with ANY language!

Paper Bag Color Word Book in Hindi

Supplies

For our Hindi Paper Bag Color Book, we grabbed our supplies

• 5 Paper Bags
• Stapler
• Glue
• Scissors
• Colored Hearts
• Magazines

Directions

To create the book we cut off the bottom of the paper bags to create more openings and also to create our containers to sort our hearts into.  

Then we stapled the book together and covered it with a Valentine’s Day Napkin that we had around the house.

The next step was to cut the Hindi words and glue them on to the book and attach the English Words onto the Hearts.  We also glued the Hindi and English words onto the Paper Bag Containers for sorting colors.

We will also practice writing the color words over the next week on the Paper bags using Markers and Crayons to create more multi-sensory learning. Add to this activity by cutting out pictures from a recycled magazine that related to each color throughout the week and then placing it into our color containers made from the bags.

We also cut out the Hindi Letters so that we can spell out each color word in Hindi. We used these letters Printable Hindi Letters  .

You could very easily do this with just English letters to practice learning how to spell color words or another language. 

Here’s how we use this book with our Afterschool Express with Colorful Heart FUN .

Hindi Resources for Kids Learning

• Online Color Flashcards
• Hindi Words
• Printable Hindi Letters

Found this article about Color in India while searching for Hindi Colors and thought I’d share.  I can’t wait to celebrate Holi soon with our family and friends!

India is a land of colors. A multitude of colors can be seen in the terrain, the sky, the water, and the culture of the people. In fact, a full festival, the festival of Holi, dedicated to color, is celebrated in the month of March every year. Everyone is covered with color, irrespective of their age and status. A lot of meaning is attached to color in India.

In fact even the days of the week have their preferred colors. White clothes are recommended for Monday, Orange for Tuesday, Green for Wednesday, Yellow for Thursday, Red for Friday and Black for Saturday. Red is the color of the bride and the state of being married. Married women can normally be seen with a red dot (bindi) on their forehead. White represents purity, Orange is the color of saints, Green is the color of prosperity.

People in India love color. Color is used effectively to represent various moods and emotions.

Hope you have fun creating your own Paper Bag Color Book. We’d love to see what language you create with your Paper Bag Color Book with your Bilingual Babies!

You may also enjoy these activities for your child…

It’s festival season, it’s time to share with you the best Diwali Books for Kids! This book collection has grown over the years to be able to share with you the various traditions observed during the festival of lights with kids.

Here are my top picks of Diwali children’s books for how to explain Diwali to a child to go along with our popular Diwali crafts for kids!

Disclosure: This post contain Amazon Affiliate links. All opinions expressed are my own.

Top Picks of Diwali Books for Kids

You’re in luck! The volume of adorable Diwali books for kids have grown quite a bit in the past few years, since I had my oldest daughter 18 years ago. I remember searching and searching for just one book to explain Diwali to kids at school, and now there are so many options!

This Diwali book list shares a collection of unique stories, each carrying on the traditions that have existed in many Hindu families over the years. A wonderful way to explore this festival of lights.

Diwali Picture Books for Kids

Let’s Celebrate 5 Days of Diwali! by Ajanta Chakraborty

Shubh Diwali! by Chitra Soundar (Listen to Read Aloud)

The Light Within You by Namita Moolani Mehra

Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar (Listen to the Read Aloud)

Diwali (Celebrate the World) by Hannah Eliot (Listen to Read Aloud)

Diwali: A Festival of Lights (Little Golden Book) by Anita Yasuda

Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth by Sanjay Patel/Emily Haynes (Listen to Read Aloud)

My Diwali: Lights of Virtue by Priya Kumari & Komal Garg

Hurray for Diwali by Anita Thapan

It’s Diwali! by Kabir & Surishtha Sehgal (Listen to Read Aloud)

Reena and the Diwali Star by Ushma Multani

My Diwali Light by Raakhee Mirchandani

Lots of Lights by Kavita Sahai

Diwali in My New Home by Shachi Kaushik

Archie Celebrates Diwali by Mitali Banerjee Ruths (Listen to Read Aloud)

The Best Diwali Ever by Sonali Shah

Happy Diwali! by Sanyukta Mathur

Raaga’s Song: A Diwali Story by Navina Chhabria

A Sweet Diwali by Harshita Jerath

Garland Of Lights: A Diwali Story by Chitra Soundar

Diwali by Sital Gorasia Chapman

Our Diwali by Aditi Singh

Simba’s First Diwali by H R

Amma, Tell Me About Diwali! by Bhakti Mathur (Listen to Read Aloud)

Once Upon a Diwali (Holidays in Our Home) by Anita Mishra

Rani Saves Diwali by Anita Badhwar

The Diwali Gift by Shweta Chopra and Shuchi Mehta (Listen to Read Aloud)

Let’s Celebrate Diwali by Anjali Joshi (Listen to the Read Aloud)

Lighting a Lamp: A Diwali Story by Jonny Zucker (Listen to Read Aloud)

Rama and Sita: The Story of Diwali Books for Children

These books focus on the story of Diwali that focus around the Hindu Gods Rama and Sita. I’ve shared a kid friendly video below too to watch and learn more about The Story of Diwali.

Rama & Sita: The Story Of Diwali by Malachy Doyle (Listen to Read Aloud)

Prince of Fire: The Story of Diwali by Jatinder Nath Verma

The Story of Diwali: Rama & Sita by Jay Anika

Diwali Books for Toddlers

Start early with your toddlers and babies learning about Diwali.

Baby’s First Diwali (Baby’s First Holidays)

Peppa Pig: Peppa’s Diwali (Listen to Read Aloud)

The Dinosaurs Diwali Adventure by Jay Anika

My Divine Friends Board Book by Manasa Gautam and Aarthi Uma

My favorite baby book about Hinduism is My Divine Friends Board Book by Manasa Gautam and Aarthi Uma. It’s a touch and feel book about Hindu Gods. The illustrations are worthy of framing, it’s that good.

Diwali Non-Fiction Books

There’s something quite magical about the festival of lights and seeing it in person. I’ll never forget the first time we experience it in India as a family with my inlaws in their home and neighborhood.

Here are some non-fiction books with real images of families celebrating Diwali, which is also known as Deepawali.

You can learn more about What is Diwali here.

Holidays Around the World: Celebrate Diwali: With Sweets, Lights, and Fireworks by National Geographic

Diwali: Festival of Lights (Orca Origins) by Rina Singh

It’s Diwali! (Bumba Books ® ― It’s a Holiday!) by Richard Sebra

Diwali (Holidays and Festivals) by Acorn

Read Aloud Diwali Books

As you look at each of the books, I went ahead and found a Read Aloud of the story on youtube for you as well. It’s always fun to hear others read stories to our child, especially when you’re learning about holidays that happens around the world.

Support the Diwali authors by selecting your favorite to purchase at your local bookstore or through our links to Amazon by clicking on the image or link. We want to support them to continue to see more diverse books for our children to explore their world through books.

My personal favorite book to teach kids about Diwali is Shubh Diwali!

We’ve selected this book for our Virtual Book Club for Kids featured book of the week. You can check out more activity ideas below and on our Book Club Site and Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook Group.

Book Extension Ideas for Diwali Activities

There are so many fun ways to extend these books with activities for your child. Here are several Diwali Activities to do to learn more about the traditions during the festival of lights.

You’ll find diyas, rangolis, and even pretend play Indian sweet to do with your child.

Rangoli Craft Idea for Kids for Diwali

8 Easy Diwali Craft Ideas for Kids

Flower Rangoli Craft for Diwali

Pretend Play Diwali Sweets with Cardamom Playdough

DIY Indian Stamps

Making Indian Samosas with Kids

Air Clay Diya Craft for Kids

Diya Craft with Playdough and Beads

Diwali Activities for Kids

17 Diya Crafts for Kids

Which Diwali craft or activity will you try first? Tell us in the comments below or share on social media and tag us!

Diwali Activity Books for Kids

One special Diwali gift to give to a child is one of these Diwali Activity books! A fun way to learn about the holiday and make a keepsake for their Diwali.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Little First Stickers Diwali by Holly Bathie

Shlokas and Mantras – Activity Book For Kids by Wonder House Books

My Diwali Coloring Book by Moksha Publishing

Diwali 50 Activity Book: Storytime, Dance-along, Craft, Recipes, Puzzles, Word games, Coloring & More! by Ajanta Chakraborty and Vivek Kumar

Origami for Diwali by Robyn Hardyman

The Story Of Rama & Sita Coloring Book by Jay Anika

You can also try these 8 Easy Diwali Crafts Ideas for Kids!

How to explain Diwali to a child

These Diwali books walk you through the traditions of families across the globe as they learn from family members. It’s so essential to teach kids to respect differences in others.

Let’s work together to help our children understand and respect different faiths. Perhaps take time this festival season to read to your child’s class or friend circle a Diwali book.

Here’s how we started talking about Diwali with my daughters when they were young with their preschool classes.

Click now to learn more about how to teach: What is Diwali

Wishing you a very special Diwali! Enjoy the festival season with these adorable Diwali Books for all ages!

Here’s a fun way to learn about another culture with your child.  Diwali is a celebration for the Festival of Lights in India. You can make your own light be creating a Diya.

Grab your supplies and come join us

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.

 Making Diyas for Diwali with Kids

Supplies for Diyas for Diwali 

• Playdough with Cardamom Spice (like this one)
• Beads
• Battery Operated Tea Light

Explore 17 Creative Diya Crafts for Kids

Create Balls with the Playdough. We used our cardamom scented playdough.

Then press in the middle of the balls to make a place for the candle

Add Beads or Sequins to decorate your Diya

Time to add the Battery Operated Tea Light!

We used playdough to make our diyas again and again for Diwali pretend play. If you’d like to make them to keep, we’d suggest making them from salt dough. You can use this easy salt dough recipe for this.

Song for Diwali for Kids

You can sign this little Diwali song too.

Little Lamps Song

Tune: “London Bridge”

Little lamps are burning bright,
Burning bright, burning bright.
Little lamps are burning bright.
It’s Diwali.

See them lighting up the night,
Up the night, up the night.
See them lighting up the night.
It’s Diwali.

You can light your candle again and again for diwali fun!

Here’s our recipe for how to make Cardamom Playdough with Kids as you learn about Diwali.

CLICK HERE FOR CARDAMOM PLAYDOUGH

Click below for more Diwali Projects for Kids

Make a Flower Rangoli Design with Kids

Diya Crafts for Kids

Making a Diya with Air Clay with Kids 

Making Diya with Recycled Containers and Sequins

Rangoli Craft for Kids with Colored Salt 

Diwali Activities for Kids

DIY Indian Stamp Designs for Kids 

Here’s a glimpse from our front porch in India on the night of Diwali!

** LIKE IT? PIN IT!! **

Plus discover a few more ways to learn about India.

Are you ready to explore India?

Learning About India with Kids 

Welcome to “Around The World in 12 Dishes“. We will be taking you on a journey around the world, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country we visit.

We started our journey the same way Phileas Fogg did in London, UK, and Stockholm, Sweden continued on to Moscow in Russia. Now our next stop is New Delhi, the capital of the exotic sub-continent of India!

Here’s where we’ve traveled so far on our journey…

 Around the World in 12 Dishes

• United Kingdom
• Sweden
• Russia
• India

(**Permission required to share this image of my child on your website**)

India Recipes for Kids

For our first cooking adventure in India, we picked some kid-friendly recipes and tasks that your child can do in the kitchen with you as they learn about Indian Food. We invited a family over for an Indian Family dinner. I had my 5-year-old daughter help me prepare the meal.

Here are some additional options for the best Indian Recipes to Make with Kids.

Mint Chutney Recipe

First, we started by making a Chutney. My daughter went to the garden and picked the coriander and mint and then rinsed and washed them to make Mint Chutney for our Samosas. Keeping safety rules in mind first, she put the fresh herbs into the food processor. 

Then she added a small pinch of salt and red pepper and a dash of lemon juice and water. Then it was time to close it up and push the on button.

Once that was complete she helped me arrange the sliced cucumbers and carrots onto the serving platter for our Indian Salad. My daughter arranged these all by herself, it’s just her way she’s very methodical.

Using fresh vegetables is one way to make Indian food a little less spicy and a great way to get veggies in. 

Now it was time for our guests to arrive for a little cooking fun! We invited a friend and her family for an Indian dinner. 

We decided to make Samosas together with the girls to teach them how to make an Indian dish. With just a little prep work it was super easy. 

Want to start first with just exploring Indian spices, try these tasty Masala fries.

Kid-Friendly Samosa Recipe

1. First, boil your potatoes and dice up the onions. 
2. Then mix them together and add 3 spices. Salt, red pepper, and garam masala. Add the spices depending on your family’s liking. We added just a pinch of each, enough to make sure all the potatoes had a little color to them. 
3. Then we used Won Ton Wrappers to create our Samosas. They are so easy to use with the kids and cook very easily. When making samosas usually you would use Mata flour, which is like a white all purpose flour mixed with water and oil. Here’s an authentic version recipe of Samosa Dough from Manjula’s Kitchen .  
4. To create the samosas I had both girls put a spoonful of potatoes and onion mixture onto the square and then fold it in half after putting water on the edges. 
5. Once sealed you fold it again to make a smaller triangle. 
6. Then it’s a grown up’s job to fry the samosas until golden brown.  We had so much fun making these together! 

My friend’s son who’s 2 and my youngest daughter who’s 1. Even our husbands joined the fun so that they could have more to eat!  We were so busy eating and making Samosas that we never took a picture of the finished product actually! Guess they were a big hit! 

We used the mint coriander chutney to dip our samosas in. We also tried tamarind sauce, which is truthfully my favorite and mixed together is delicious. 

If we had even more time we would have made paneer together like this Shahi Paneer recipe. YUM!

Samosas and Mint Chutney Recipes

We had so much fun at our Indian Family Dinner and enjoyed comparing it to our Russian Family Dinner last month.  It’s fun to see how similar foods can be with ingredients and how different at the same time. 

For our Indian dinner Menu we selected to share Tandoori Chicken, Dal Makhani, Shahi Paneer, Indian Salad and Naan. 

We’ll be sharing more Recipes, Books Activities and Printables about India all month long! 

Here are a few activities about India that we’ve shared on our blog, come check them out!

India Activities for Kids

• Learn How to Cook Indian Recipes with Kids
• 8 Easy Diwali Crafts for Kids
• Rangoli Craft Idea for Kids
• Songs About Holi for Kids
• Learning About Celebrating Durga Pooja with Kids
• Making a Flower Rangoli
• Diwali Printables and Diya Craft
• Holi Fun and T-shirt Craft
• Indian Flag and Printable
• Color Words in Hindi: Paper Bag Craft
• Colorful Fun in Hindi with Activities
• Family Words in Hindi: Family Book
• Exploring India through the Front Gates of India
• DIY Block Stamp Designs from India
• Personalized Hindi Ornament
• Books About India
• Learning about Raksha Bandhan with Kids
• The Best Diwali Books for Kids
• Top Places to Visit in New Delhi, India with Kids

If you liked this recipe you may also like our Diwali Activities for Kids!

Here’s a peek at our family learning about Diwali with our kids. These Diwali activities are simple and informational as you explore the festival of lights with your child.

Happy Diwali!

Learning about the cultures our parents come from is part of a bilingual family. My husband and I both try our best to expose our children to both our faiths, Hinduism and Christianity.

My husband is from India where Hindus celebrate Diwali along with many other festivals. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is one of the most significant holidays in Hinduism.

You can learn more about Diwali here

Learning about Diwali with Kids

I created a very simple handout for my daughter to make so she could learn some of the significant details about Diwali. We shared it with her class at school. 

She and I dressed in Indian clothes and brought Indian sweets for the children to sample. It was a lot of fun. You can show one of these videos too.

Here’s a Printable of the Diwali Handout

Some of the Diwali vocabulary words we introduced and showed examples of…

• Diyas
• Fireworks
• Rangoli
• Sweets
• Lengha
• Kurta
• Sari
• Bangles
• Henna
• Puja

Click now for 8 Fun & Easy Diwali Crafts for Kids

Diwali Resources for Kids

I found several websites to help children understand the steps to prepare for Diwali including decorations and Diwali Puja, which my daughter started learning about last year.

Here’s a sample Step-by-step guide to perfectly perform Lakshmi puja at home

Here’s a photo above of the offering she prepared all by herself.

• Diwali Toolkit to teach others about Diwali.
• Here are some adorable Diwali coloring sheets and cards to create for Diwali!
• My daughter enjoys this video about Diwali in India. I love that they have real clips from the markets preparing for Diwali.
• Here’s a cute video clip of Mickey and Donald getting sweets ready for Diwali with Minnie Mouse!  Diwali with Mickey Mouse!
• Kids explaining Diwali to friends from Global Wonders
• Diwali information on Kid Citizen World
• Even President Obama extended his Diwali wishes too here!
• You can watch Diwali videos for kids here.

Watch these Diwali Videos for Kids!

Click now to see our favorite Diwali Books for Kids!

I think it’s a great idea to relate things to your child with people or characters they may already recognize. It’s a great way to make them feel connected to another culture.

Make your Own Diya for Diwali

My daughter and I decided to make our own version of Diyas for Diwali. Diyas are places outside of homes on Diwali to light up the night. We simply used some recycled baby food jars to create our candle holders. 

We also used glitter paint and sequins with adhesive. It was great fun to sit with my inlaws and create them.

My daughter is more into repetitive designs when she does her art so detailed Indian Art Work is right up her alley. 

It was also a great way to talk about symbols of Diwali with her Dadi Ji and Dada Ji (name for grandparents on Father’s side)

Here’s what our diyas looked like as we lit them on Diwali!

As the holy occasion of Diwali is here and the atmosphere is filled with the spirit of mirth and love, here’s hoping this festival of beauty brings your way, bright sparkles of contentment, that stay with you through the days ahead.

To Learn More About Diwali Click Here

Diwali Craft Ideas for Kids

• Flower Rangoli for Diwali with Kids
• Let’s Learn About Diwali with Kids
• Rangoli Craft Idea for Kids with Salt

Click now for 8 Easy Diwali Crafts for Kids

Plus discover some of our favorite Diwali books for Kids.

Amazon Affiliates links in this post.

One tradition of Diwali is to share Indian sweets with your family and friends to celebrate the occasion. Bringing this to life in playtime, here’s a fun idea for how to make playdough indian sweets with a special ingredient…. cardamom.

Diwali Playdough Ideas for Indian Sweets

Even in the UK when we visited there was this one amazing shop that made the best jilabi I have ever tasted. Here’s a recipe for it from Manjela’s kitchen.

Although I would love to eat Indian sweets all the time they are pretty sweet. Fortunately, we found a fun way to recreate the sweets at our house every day.

My daughter created her own sweet shop for Diwali using Playdough.

We had so much fun creating Jilabi with our Playdough. It was leftover from our Pumpkin Pie Scented Playdough so it was just the right orange color and then it inspired us to make some more Indian sweets.

Here’s a few other scented playdough recipes we’ve used…

• Pumpkin Spice Scented Playdough
• Lavender Scented Playdough
• Christmas Scented Playdough

Cardamom Scented Playdough for Diwali

We created an indian sweet called Burfi too. This is our favorite since we added green Cardamom pods.

This traditional spice is used in India and is probably my most favorite scent ever!

In Hindi it’s called elachi.

We used my spice grinder, mortar and pestle  from India actually, to make the pods break and the seeds become powder like. If you’ve never ground up your own spices there’s something very magical about it!  First we made a batch of playdough together.  Then we added the ground up cardamom. 

If you’re looking for a good playdough recipes go to Nurturestore, she has so many great ideas!

Then it was time to make some Indian sweets for the sweet shop! You can flatten the playdough and have fun making diamonds. 

We even added aluminum foil to look like the real edible flakes they put on Indian sweets. 

Here’s our finished sweet tray ready for delivery!

Here’s our sweet tray! We made some PlayDiyas with the same cardamom scented playdough too!

Celebrating Diwali with Sweets

I’ve had the opportunity to celebrate Diwali with my husband and his family for the past 10 years. One tradition is that you share Sweets, Dried Fruits Nuts with your family and friends.

I’ll never forget the Haldirams stores in India when you visit. They have a display of sweets that is probably 25 feet long with an assortment of colors, shapes and tastes.

Take a peek at what it looks like as you go in. Here’s one family’s experience.

Here’s an image of sweets being sold at the market in India.

Photo source National Geographic

Diwali Sweets Recipes

Some of the more common sweets exchanged  and served for Diwali are 

• Soan Papdi
• Ras Malai
• Kalakand
• Cashew Burfi
• Coconut Burfi
• Carrot Halva
• and even Kheer

Each of the Indian sweets are linked to a recipe so you can make at home to create these special treats.

Diwali Sweets Online

Here’s some Indian Sweets available on Amazon to try out or at your local Indian Store.

Books About Celebrating Diwali

Here are a few books we’d recommend about the Sweets In India.

Want to learn more about Diwali, check out these Diwali books!

Here are some more ideas for creating your Diyas for Diwali which are lit the night on Diwali all over the exterior of homes in India.  We even have some printables about Diwali

You may also enjoy these activity ideas about Diwali and India for your child…

Learning about other cultures during the holidays with kids can be fun. Here’s how to create an ornament using another language.

The very first time I arrived in India I stepped out of the car from the airport and heard a very familiar tune…. I stood there for a moment observing the Diwali lights and realized that I was hearing Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells coming from the lights at the house across the street from my husbands home.  

The second time I visited was the day after Christmas and you could see homes here and there throughout New Delhi with their Christmas lights and Christmas stars in their windows. Christmas is observed in India if you look for it.

“People from different religions live together and all the festivals are celebrated with great joy and enthusiasm irrespective of the religion.” Source: Tourist Places India

India has mainly Hindu and Muslim however, over the year,s Christmas has become an annual ritual celebrated by many.  There are around 3% of the population who are Christians that attend a midnight mass where the churches are decorated with poinsettias and lit with many candles. 

However, you can also observe it being celebrated in a secular way by finding Christmas trees in the malls, upscale hotels, and in front of some sweet and card stores at Christmas time.

When I discussed Christmas with my husband’s family who live in New Delhi, which is a very large city, they said that in their family the did observe Christmas.  They had the day off from work and from school, which is common for many holidays in India.  They said that they exchanged one gift with each other.  My mother in law even mentioned that she had Christmas Performances at her school which was run by Christian missionaries.  I’m sure other regions in India are different as well.

I’m so excited to share with you ways that are family is teaching our children about their heritage from India.  Here’s a fun way to create an ornament using your child’s initial in another language.  We choose to make both girls first initial in Hindi to hang on our Christmas Tree. My sister in law had this brilliant idea last Christmas and shared it on her website, Niwas – Where Our Heart Belongs.  She wanted me to share this with our readers too!

Personalized Hindi Ornaments

To make simply use a glass ornament and hot glue sequins onto it using the outline of the letter your child’s name starts with.  Click here for the Hindi alphabet and resources for kids . 

You could very easily so their whole name with smaller sequins too or in another language.

For my daughter’s first Christmas here is a little  baby onesie shape that was created for her.  On the front it’s letter K and on the back it’s letter K in Hindi.

Want to learn more about Christmas in India? You get an extra bonus! Rebekah at The Golden Gleam is sharing to crafts to make with your children to learn about Christmas in India too. We encourage you to check out her Indian Small World Scene and Window Manger.

I hope you have enjoyed your virtual trip to India to celebrate Christmas

We encourage you to stop by Living Life Intentionally to learn about how other countries celebrate Christmas, and she created a FREE Christmas Around the World Ebook and FREE Printable Passport for you children to enjoy this adventure around the world.

You may also enjoy these activities with your child…

Since it was Valentine’s Day last week we worked on making cards for our Family members. To encourage my Bilingual Babies to use Hindi. I had my daughter create her cards with the family members’ names in Hindi.

As a fun activity, we created our own spin of a Family Book based off of Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle into a Hindi Book For them to read. 

You can create your own too with the language you’re working on with your child.

DIY Family Book Using Hindi Words

I had my daughter assemble the book with me by finding similar words and then gluing on the family member pictures. Then I had her write the name as well into the book with her own Hindi handwriting.

We had to use this little cheat sheet I created, it goes at the end of our book to help us out if we ever need to look something up.

Here’s a printable you can use to Make your Own Family Book.

Add Family Pictures and Names onto a Board Book that maybe isn’t your favorite book or that you got from a restaurant.

Here are the Family Hindi Words that we added to our Family Picture Book in Hindi.

Have fun learning family names in another language!

You may also enjoy these activities with your child….