Religious Education at Crabtree Infants' School : April 2015

In Year 1, during the Spring term, we have been focusing on the theme of ‘New Life’.

As we were starting a new calendar year, we thought about new beginnings, including New Year traditions. We made up our own New Year’s resolutions and explained why they were a good idea. As an example of someone who made a fresh start in his life, we heard the Bible story of Zacchaeus.

Then we looked at what Christians and Jews read in the Bible about the beginning of the world. Whilst making models and paper-craft, we imagined what it might be like to be ‘Creators’ and how we would want people to care for our creations.

We then heard a Buddhist story about a swan, and learned how important Buddhists believe it is to care for animals. We decided all animals are valuable in some way, even those we aren’t keen on!!

We went on to think about caring for the wider world. Having heard the Bible story of Noah, we made rainbows containing our seven ‘hopes for a better world’, and thought about how we could play our part to help them come true.

Thinking about life-cycles in the animal world, and in the days and seasons, led us to consider patterns in a human life. We mimed significant activities from different stages of life, and discussed good and bad aspects of each stage. Then we learned about the Buddhist belief in life as a circle.

We then focused on Christian thoughts about Heaven. In groups, we brainstormed our ideas as to what we thought heaven might be like, whilst recognising that, even for Christians, this remains a mystery for now! We discussed the question, ‘What should someone do to go to Heaven?’ and learned that Christians believe it is a free gift (‘grace’).

New life has been appearing in our own school grounds! We went outside to look for signs of new shoots, blossom and potential fruit. We then found out how some people try to show good sides to their character by what they do and how they behave. We learned that Christians call these ‘the Fruits of the Spirit’. We tried to guess what ‘fruits’ our friends were showing when they acted them out with partners. We heard about Mother Teresa who tried to live her life in this way.

Spring is a great time to learn about religious festivals!

Our whole school spent a day focusing on the Hindu festival of Holi. To prepare for this, Year 1 heard the story of Prahlad and Holika; we then wrote down the bad things we would like to get rid of from our behaviour, and ‘burned’ them on pretend fires, walking around the ‘fires’ just as Hindus might at Holi. We enjoyed greeting each other, saying ‘Namaste!’ We learned that fire is used as a symbol of purifying, in several religions. We shared our learning in a whole-school assembly, held to launch our School ‘Holi Day’. Holi is also known as a Festival of Colours. Have a look at all our year-group blogs for photos of the Colour-Day activities which we enjoyed in Maths, Literacy and Art!

Next, we learned about the Jewish festival of Purim. We acted out the story of Esther, and whenever we heard the name of the evil ‘Haman’ we hissed, booed, stamped our feet and rattled our graggers to drown out his name – just as Jewish children do!

We then moved onto considering how new babies are special, and how they are welcomed into Christian churches. We acted out an Infant Baptismal service, and some children shared their own experiences of baptism, including those of their own siblings.

We decided that the Christian festival of Easter has both sad and happy sides to it. We enjoyed a happy ‘parade into Jerusalem’ waving the palm branches we made. But we also thought about which sad and happy parts there are in the rest of the story. We asked ourselves why some people eat pancakes, hot cross buns and Easter eggs, and why there are so many pictures of chicks, bunnies and flowers at Easter time. We matched symbols to events remembered by Christians during Holy Week leading to Easter.

After Easter, Year 1 will be starting our new RE topic, focusing on Special Books.

In Year 2, during the Spring term, we have been focusing on ‘Special People’.

We began by thinking about famous people who do special things for our country or our town. But we decided that special people aren’t always famous: there are even people in our own families who set us a good example! We worked in groups using ‘diamond ranking’ to show which qualities we thought make a good leader.

We then went on to find out about the role of an Anglican minister. We discovered that s/he has lots to do during the week, as well as on Sundays, leading and caring for people!

An Anglican minister follows the example of Jesus, so next we learned about some of the things which Christians read in the Bible about what Jesus did. We heard the stories of Jairus’ daughter and another lady who was healed by Jesus, and had a lively discussion about what we think about ‘miracles’! There were lots of different views, so it was great that we can all listen respectfully to each other! We used a ‘freeze-frame’ drama activity to help us consider how people might have felt if they had been there. We also played a ‘hot-seat’ game: individual children pretended to be characters from the story, and answered our questions about their thoughts and feelings at different points.

We also learned how Jesus is important for Christians not just as a Healer, but also as a Teacher. We thought about all the people who have taught us or given us advice, and the sorts of things we have learned from them. We looked at some of the teaching of Jesus: the Sermon on the Mount; trying to love enemies; and Jesus’ two Great Commandments. We tried to invent one or two rules which might cover all our Crabtree Golden Rules, just as Jesus gave two to cover the Ten Commandments.

The next special person we learned about was Moses. Having found out about some of his experiences, we imagined what we would want to ask him if he came as a guest to Crabtree Infants’ School! One of our class pretended to be Moses, sitting on the ‘hot seat’, and we asked him lots of questions, including remembering back to our learning in Year 1 about Shabbat and about the Torah. He gave some very good answers, but we still keep thinking of more questions – an important part of RE!

Next, we found out about the Mu’adhin, who calls Muslims to prayer. We started by listening to lots of recorded sounds, and guessed what message each one tells us. We heard the story of Bilal, who became the first Mu’adhin. Then we thought of messages we believe are important enough to shout from the top of a tall tower, and shouted them into our digital recorder!

We learned about two people who are special to Sikhs. Firstly, Guru Nanak, the first Sikh guru, who spent time meditating on the important things of life, and wrote songs to teach people about them. We thought the story of Guru Gobindh Singh was going to be much less peaceful, but it actually had a happy ending! We enjoyed dressing up in the Five Ks. We thought about promises we make in Beavers, Rainbows, etc., and learned about the promises Sikhs make.

We also learned about the Buddha. We looked carefully at a statue and pictures of the Buddha, noticing the different hand positions and learning of their symbolism. We tried communicating important facts about ourselves to a partner, using only hands! We heard the story of how Siddharta Gautama became the Buddha, having changed his life for the better. He asked himself about ‘the meaning of life’, which is a big question! – but we thought of some very wise suggestions of our own!

We then spent some time focusing on seasonal festivals:

We learned what Christians are remembering when they eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday or give something up for Lent. Having heard the Bible account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, we wrote down some temptations to which we would want to say, ‘No!’

The Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) linked well with our subsequent learning about Jesus’ Last Supper. We shared a group activity, studying and drawing the various parts of the seder plate used for Pesach, and learned what each of the foods symbolises for Jewish families. We enjoyed hunting for the hidden half-Matzah – just as Jewish children do!

When we came to learn about Jesus’ Last Supper, we discovered that he was actually celebrating Pesach with his friends! We looked at a chalice and paten and guessed what they were for - Holy Communion – and learned how, for Christians, this commemorates the events of Easter. We used ‘Godly Play’ figures and props to tell the Easter story in a thoughtful way, which led us to share our own comments and questions afterwards.

After Easter, Year 2 will be starting our new RE topic, focusing on Special Places.

The whole school enjoyed an assembly about Noah’s Ark , led by Captain Ralph Walker, from the Salvation Army. We especially loved his ‘magic tricks’!