Wednesday 21^st November 2018

What can Christians learn from the Creation Story?

LO - Make clear links between Genesis 1 and what Christians believe about God and Creation

Read the creation story. Ask pupils to count the number of times that the words ‘good’ or ‘very good’ are used to describe how God sees creation. Discuss what parts of God’s creation in the story were good/very good (ensure that humans are one feature in the discussion). Add any extra ideas to the list describing what Christians think God must be like from this story.

Pupils share a time when they have created something they thought was good or really liked, for example, a story/picture/design/model/ poem. How did they care for their own ‘very good’ creation and how did they want others to treat it? Talk about how people look after the ‘wow’ objects humans created. Explain how many Christians believe that God cares for his own creation, including humans. Ask pupils to write instructions God might give to humans to make sure the world stays ‘very good’; for example, how to look after animals.

Wednesday 7th November 2018

What can Christian learn from the Creation Story?

LO - Make clear links between Genesis 1 and what Christians believe about God and Creation

Read the Creation Story. Ask pupils to count the number of times that the words ‘good’ or ‘very good’ are used to describe how God sees creation. Discuss what parts of God’s creation in the story were good/very good (ensure that humans are one feature in the discussion). Add any extra ideas to the list describing what Christians think God must be like from this story.

Pupils share a time when they have created something they thought was good or really liked, for example, a story/picture/design/model/ poem. How did they care for their own ‘very good’ creation and how did they want others to treat it? Talk about how people look after the ‘wow’ objects humans created. Explain how many Christians believe that God cares for his own creation, including humans. Ask pupils to write instructions God might give to humans to make sure the world stays ‘very good’; for example, how to look after animals.

Wednesday 16th May 2018

Gospel

LO -Give examples of how Christians try to show love to all, including how members of the clergy follow Jesus’ teaching

Explore how far Christians are making the kind of world that Jesus wanted. Look at some signs from a church noticeboard or website showing what is happening in the community. List a range of these activities and ask pupils to decide which are the most important and why. There will obviously be lots of answers, as toddler groups are very important for young families, shelters very important for the homeless, and so on. Get pupils to offer reasons to say which are more important: worship services or caring for the elderly; celebrating a wedding, a baptism or a funeral; reading the Bible or giving to charity.

Today we invited Vicar Craig in to JC3. We talked about a regular day in his diary and discussed differences on a Sunday. Why did they want to become a minister? What do pupils think the role of a church leader actually is? After we completed a timetable to try and reflect a week in the life of a vicar.

Wednesday 2nd May 2018

What kind of world did Jesus want?

LO-Make clear links between the calling of the first disciples and how Christians today try to follow Jesus and be ‘fishers of people’

Share the start of the story of the calling of the first disciples (Matthew 4:18–19). Pupils pick out what Jesus asks Peter and Andrew to do. Explain that by following Jesus, Peter and Andrew would be giving up a lot. Remind pupils of their sketches and lists - how would they feel if asked to give up so much? Pupils imagine giving up so much by symbolically getting rid of their possessions and daily routines (for example, rubbing sketches and lists out/giving them to the teacher/screwing the paper up).

Pupils take on role of Peter or Andrew and decide what they might have thought on hearing Jesus’ words - write thoughts on fish shapes/thought bubbles. The word ‘gospel’ means good news. They must have thought that Jesus was good news. In the work that follows, get pupils to look out for anything that might have seemed like good news to the disciples then and to Christians now about what Jesus said and did.

Finish the story (Matthew 4:20–22). What did James and John leave behind? Although they have given some things up, what special new job have the disciples gained once they follow Jesus? Ask pupils to think what Jesus might have meant by ‘fisher of people’. Together, create images of what a ‘fisher of people’ might do.

Tell pupils that this is part of a ‘Gospel’, which means ‘good news’, and tells the story of the life and teaching of Jesus. It’s a kind of biography, and the writers made choices about what to include — they don’t tell everything he ever said and did. Ask pupils why they think Matthew included this story in his Gospel. Why not just give a list of qualities Jesus was looking for in a disciple

Wednesday 21st February 2018

What is it like to follow God?

LO - Make simple links between promises in the story of Noah and promises that Christians make

Remind pupils that God in the Noah story was trying to do away with evil in the world and make it a better place. In groups, list what they think we could do without from today’s world in order to make it a better place. Ask pupils to split their list into two categories: ‘Things we could stop’ and ‘Things we can’t stop’. Discuss together how pupils in the class think they could help to stop items on the first list, and pick two or three that everyone in the class will work hard to discontinue

Ask pupils to think about the covenant between God and the creatures he created in the Noah story. Both humans and God had conditions they needed to stick to. Pupils should think about one thing that they could do to make their table/group in class a great place to work. Write table contracts: on a large piece of paper each pupil writes down their promise of one thing they will do to help their table/group. The paper should then be signed by all group members. Discuss God’s sign of the rainbow as a reminder of his promise, and other ways people remember things: for example, sticky notes on the fridge. Pupils decide on what they are going to do to help them remember their promises in the contract and then carry out their decisions.

17.2.18

What is it like to follow God?

LO -Make clear links between the story of Noah and the idea of covenant

Present pupils with a situation: their mum/dad/guardian has told them to help build a yacht. The adult has instructions showing how to do this. The pupils must leave school and begin building immediately because their family needs to sail away on the yacht as soon as construction is finished, and will never return to their normal lives. Are pupils happy to go and build the yacht? Would they like to sail away? What would they miss from their normal lives? Do they think this seems a sensible plan? How surprised are they by the adult’s behaviour?

Hot-seat Noah at different points in the story. What is he doing? Why? How is he feeling? In the Bible text, Noah does not actually speak (not until 9:25). Why do pupils think this is the case? Discuss how much trust Noah must have had in God to continue with his actions. You could hot-seat other members of Noah’s family. It must have been hard for them too.

15.12.17

How do festivals and family life show what matters to Jews?

LO – Describe how Jews show their beliefs through worship in festivals, both at home and in the wider communities

The Talmud code tells Jews to say ‘thank you’ 100 times a day. Children were tasked with keeping a ‘Gratitude Diary’ over the Christmas period to see if there are benefits of expressing gratitude regularly.

How do festivals and family life show what matters to Jews?

Passover Meal 22.11.17

After learning about the story of Moses and it's significance to the Jewish people, the class investigated the symbolic meaning of all the foods on the Seder plate used for the Passover meal.

Can you remember the symbolic meaning of the following items:

• Parsley dipped into salt water
• Horseradish
• Charoseth
• lamb shank bone
• Egg
• unleavened bread
• wine

Some of the foods didn't taste the best, which may explain the odd faces pulled in some the pictures.