Crafts to Celebrate Ridvan

In my ongoing quest to learn more about holidays I don’t know about (and taking you along for the scroll), let’s learn about Ridvan, which is a 12-day festival taking place in 2026 from April 20 to May 2.

This holiday, also known as the Most Great Festival or the King of Festivals, is part of the Baha’i faith and commemorates when their leader, Baha’u’llah, was exiled from Baghdad in 1863. In preparing to leave the city he spent 12 days in the garden of Ridvan (which means paradise) saying goodbye to his followers and revealing teachings and publicly declaring himself as a manifestation of God. You can learn more about it from this video.

Because Baha’u’llah was in a garden, where roses were gathered each day and distributed to followers, gardens and roses are a big part of Ridvan celebrations.

Delighted Hearts has a beautiful 3D printable you can cut out and assemble to make your own garden of Ridvan. They also have several Ridvan coloring pages with quotes and prayers on them that would be nice cards to make for the festival.

Combine this with the 3D Ridvan garden printables from Home of Peace Studio to make a whole Ridvan scene kids can color and assemble.

Another great resource for learning about Ridvan and Ridvan crafts is All Done Monkey. They have a post all about ways to celebrate Ridvan in community with kids, including having a picnic in a garden or doing some gardening. She also has a collection of craft ideas including rose crafts, crowns, a flower board and more. And why not make some rose cookies to go with your crafting session?

A Gladsome Heart has a 12 page printable activity book that includes the story of Ridvan, coloring pages, a maze, crossword and more.

Enable Me to Grow also has some great ideas for celebrating Ridvan, including a tea party in an indoor tent (how fun is that?), making a flower board (shown here) and a felt garden.

This one isn’t specific to Ridvan of course but you can learn how to make an easy paper rose with this tutorial from Mom Does Reviews.

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply