In our kindergarten, we celebrate festivals, such as Diwali, in gentle and meaningful ways. In the Steiner Waldorf curriculum, we don’t intellectualise concepts with younger children. Instead, children learn through feeling and imagination as the teachers create a mood and share information through folk songs and story.
Teaching also supports teachers to share their personal connections, and for Diwali, a number of our Early years teachers are able to share their experience of the Diwali festival comes from their own previous travels, cultural studies and passions.
One of our kindergarten teachers studied classical Indian music before teaching, and we welcomed them to share stories and songs with us, as well as enjoying the decorations they brought to school, gathered on their travels, to help create our sensory mood. We enjoyed foods that are eaten at Diwali and made coloured rice confetti and lanterns. The children were invited to use colourful chalks to share their own drawings, inspired by those drawn by teachers.
We were blessed with visitors from Class 5 who showed us an Indian choreography dance and sang songs for us they had been learning. The kindergarten listened beautifully as they watched the older children confidently perform, looking up to the positive role modelling.
Lived experience, passed down through relationship. From heart to heart, from older to younger, from teacher to child.
A day filled with colour, music and finished with feasting together by candlelight.
