{"id":1981,"date":"2023-12-11T12:36:21","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T20:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2023-12-11T12:36:21","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T20:36:21","slug":"harry-hooge-elementary-students-celebrate-diwali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/harry-hooge-elementary-students-celebrate-diwali\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Hooge Elementary students celebrate Diwali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TPXK7Uzeq9g?si=o8p0454BLRyBSirj\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Students at Harry Hooge Elementary danced, put on mehndi, and painted diyas to celebrate Diwali last month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDiwali is the festival of lights. It\u2019s celebrated by Jains, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists around the world,\u201d explained Kawaldeep Ghuman, an English Language Learners (ELL) teacher at the school.<\/p>\n<p>Ghuman and her colleague, Grade 4\/5 teacher Vibha Budshah, worked together to put on an assembly to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n<p>The reason they celebrate, she added, is because it represents the students and gives them the opportunity to share their culture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey [see] themselves in the school, they feel acknowledged, they feel welcomed,\u201d Ghuman said.<\/p>\n<p>The assembly included a presentation explaining what Diwali is and why it\u2019s celebrated, a read aloud of Thrity Umrigar\u2019s book, Binny\u2019s Diwali, and a cultural dance performance by a group of students.<\/p>\n<p>The students practiced the dance for a month with Budshah before the big performance day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just did a little bit at a time,\u201d explained Grade 5 student Sophia. \u201cThe first time, we did four moves and we had to practice. We practiced every lunch time, basically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it finally came time to perform, it was a little scary, according to Grade 5 student Maisha.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFreaking out. Stress. But at the end, we were confident,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Myla, who is in Grade 4, agreed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe song is all hyper and it was a good feeling. It didn\u2019t matter if you got messed up, it just mattered if you had fun,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>Grade 4 student Urwah really connected with the dance moves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt like I was moving emotionally, mentally and physically,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n<p>All the student performers especially enjoyed the audience\u2019s reaction to their performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople were cheering and we didn\u2019t expect that to happen,&#8221; said Agrima, who is in Grade 6. \u201cThey were clapping in between the dance and we didn\u2019t expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every student in the school was able to participate in the festivities, one way or another.<\/p>\n<p>After the assembly, the school set up mehndi tables in the foyer with help from teacher and parent volunteers. Students were able to each get one hand adorned with different patterns and designs using henna.<\/p>\n<p>Classrooms were also given their own set of diyas for students to paint with different colours.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15851\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sd42.ca\/assets\/media\/diwali-harry-hooge-8.jpg\" alt=\"A flower design being painted onto a student's hand with mehndi.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students at Harry Hooge Elementary danced, put on mehndi, and painted diyas to celebrate Diwali last month. \u201cDiwali is the festival of lights. It\u2019s celebrated by Jains, Hindus, Sikhs and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1983,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/1983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elementary.sd42.ca\/harryhooge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}