Religious Education (RE): Blog items
Year 1 Caring For Our Natural World
Date: 4th Feb 2025 @ 5:57pm
Today we looked at images of environmental issues and discussed together why a Muslim might be concerned about these issues and what they might want to do as a result of their concern.
Date: 31st Jan 2025 @ 4:06pm
We have been learning about Hindu Dharma this half term in Year 2, and today Birch Class had the absolute pleasure of welcoming a member of our class who shared her religious traditions as a Hindu. She brought in some beautiful Murtis from her home shrine to help explain who she worships at home. It was so fascinating to hear about her beliefs and the significance of the Murtis in her family’s practices. The children had a fantastic morning filled with cultural exchange!
Date: 31st Jan 2025 @ 12:15pm
This week Acorns have been exploring the celebration of Chinese/Luna New Year. We have had lots of fun exploring a variety of multi-sensory activities to develop our awareness and understanding.
Incorporating the theme through maths, mark making Chinese symbols, making lanterns in art and learning about the Great Race in our sensory story. We had fun racing the animals to see who would win.
We loved watching dragon splat during 'Bucket' time, developing our focus and attention skills. We also had a dancing dragon moving to the drums. We recreated this during PE becoming the dancing drag in and making our own beats to move too.
Date: 16th Jan 2025 @ 9:26am
In R.E, Year Three have been looking at leadership. We looked at what the word charisma meant and what qualities a leader would have. We also discussed what leader we had and knew in and out of school. We then used a diamond nine to rate which characteristics we thought were the least or most important.
Date: 9th Jan 2025 @ 9:40am
In this lesson we were introduced to the main beliefs of Hinduism and, as ever, we used our 5 finger recall facts!
We heard from Vandana, a 22 year-old Hindu who explained about how she works, lives and plays all while following Dharma – the duty or moral responsibility in Hinduism. We discussed how an equivalent to Dharma for us would be The Always Way and following the Boundary Always Promises.
Finally, we discussed Brahman, the formless and eternal entity in Hinduism and how this can be depicted in animal or human form. Finally, we designed our own deity to depict Brahman and how they/it might influence the world around us.
Date: 8th Jan 2025 @ 6:03pm
Today we began to discuss our key question in RE, ‘How might beliefs about creation affect the way people treat the world?’ Our lesson involved learning about how we should treat the environment, why it is important and whose responsibility it is. We did this through looking at images and real life nature examples. We went on a nature walk to collect lots of natural resources and we then used these natural resources to create transient nature pictures. After this, we looked at a number of images and decided which are examples of looking after the environment and which are not. We sorted them together, verbally discussing and justifying each example.
Date: 19th Dec 2024 @ 11:14am
As the culminaton of our short journey looking at Christianity, we sketched, planned and finished a piece of topographical art linked to the Nativty. We used skills we have learnt in art and geography to create a nativity scene using a map of the Jerusalem and Bethlehem as a centre image.
Date: 19th Dec 2024 @ 10:59am
Acorns have enjoyed learning about Christmas celebrations and the Nativity over the last few weeks.
Acorns have explored a variety of multisensory activities and experiences to develop their skills and understanding, including turn taking and social skills.
We have enjoyed a Christmas themed 'Bucket' to support our focus and concentration.
In art we have enjoyed recreating the Nativity scene and making Christmas ornaments to take home for our families.
We loved our singalong with our families during stay and play, and exploring signing during our singing.
A highlight was dancing during the Christmas party and a visit from Santa.
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year.
Acorns team.
Date: 19th Dec 2024 @ 8:17am
Year 6 have produced some wonderful Christmas artwork this week based on the story of the nativity. We used watercolour paint to create stained glass effects.
Date: 18th Dec 2024 @ 9:52am
This week we completed some RE art to show an important event in the story – the birth of baby Jesus. We used pastels and black paper to create our own art work showing the stable, the manger, baby Jesus and other important characters in the story.
Date: 17th Dec 2024 @ 4:12pm
Today, we have created art based around Nativity. The children used watercolours to create a stained glass window effect. After, we reflected on the Nativity story and the true meaning behind Christmas for Christians.
Date: 17th Dec 2024 @ 1:31pm
Linking into our R.E learning we looked at the Nativity story. In RE, We created a silhouette to show the nativity art scene using pastels, thinking about the characters and the setting.
Date: 17th Dec 2024 @ 8:51am
We absolutely loved using watercolours to create our RE Christmas Art this year. Our Art journey has been about telling a story through drawings using watercolours so we used these skills for our Christmas Art too.
Reception Nativity- Why do Christians celebrate Christmas?
Date: 16th Dec 2024 @ 12:02pm
Over the past few weeks the children in Reception have been learning about why Christians celebrate Christmas. The have been using the different figures at the storytelling table to retell the story in their own words. As part of their learning we have also be rehearsing our annual nativity; The Wriggly Nativity. The children have been working hard singing the songs, practricing their lines and perfroming on stage.
Nursery and the Nativity Story
Date: 12th Dec 2024 @ 2:32pm
Nursery really enjoyed learning about the story of the first Christmas and where fascinated to hear all about baby Jesus. They were able to talk about Mary and Joseph and loved learning about the gifts the Three Wise Men brought for the baby. We used some props to tell the story and then watched a short cartoon. The children then used the Nativity set to retell the story with their friends.
Date: 11th Dec 2024 @ 4:11pm
Today Year 6 learned all about specific beliefs of Hindus. We learned that Hindus believe in reincarnation - a belief that when someone dies, heir soul lives on and they are reborn as another living creature. Eventually, they hope to achieve Moksha. This is where the circle of birth, death and rebirth is broken and they finally go to be with Brahma. We also learned about their understanding of Karma - that every action has a reaction or consequence. This helps them to live a good life as if they do good things then they will receive good outcomes.
Date: 9th Dec 2024 @ 7:12pm
This week we visited St Marks Church to talk to followers of the Christian faith about what the important message in the Christmas story is. We met Reverend Matthew and told him everything that we have learnt about Christianity so far. Reverend Matthew then read the nativity story to us and we all joined in with different parts. He taught us about the key messages in the story and the roles of different characters.
Date: 20th Nov 2024 @ 4:49pm
Date: 14th Nov 2024 @ 9:10pm
This week Acorns have been exploring Diwali.
We have enjoyed all the bright colours and light associated with Diwali.
Acorns explored different clothing that people wear, drawing and creating rangoli patterns and creating their very own Diva lamps. We enjoyed moulding our salt dough and making a choice of which colours to decorate them with.
Date: 12th Nov 2024 @ 1:32pm
As part of our Remembrance service, Year 5 made and planted poppies in our remembrance garden. Each of the children wrote names of soldiers and we thought about their sacrifice when we planted them. The children also took part in our whole school act of remembrance.
Date: 5th Nov 2024 @ 9:34pm
This week the children have been learning about the Sikh and Hindu elebration of Divali. The children have been learning about how people prepare for the festival and comparing this to how Christain prepare for Christmas. They have been creating their own rangoli patterns, making Diva lamps out of salt dough, writing Divali cards and exploring different artefacts at the Divali table.
Date: 1st Nov 2024 @ 9:20am
Acorns have been reading Room on the Broom, while exploring Halloween this week. We have enjoyed our sensory story, using props and puppets while listening to the story.
We have participated in lots of spooky activities to support or learning.
We loved using our sensory and messy trays to support and engage with maths activities, develop our fine motor skills and developing our social skills alongside each other.
During Arts and crafts we created pumpkins and ghosts.
Date: 21st Oct 2024 @ 1:59pm
During the final week of the first half term, we had a discussion about who inspires us to show goodness in the world and compared our role models.
Next, we created some rangoli patterns using coloured rice. Rangoli, which means rows of colours, is drawn on the entrance and filled with colours during Diwali. They are used to welcome guests and Lakshmi into homes. We took our time creating the intricate patterns and created some brilliant art work!
Year 6 - Symbolism and words used in Christian ceremonies
Date: 17th Oct 2024 @ 3:40pm
In our latest RE lesson, we explored how words and actions can convey meaning in Christian ceremonies. We looked at the words used in baptism, the symbolism used in holy communion and the symbolism of the rings in mariage ceremonies. We worked in small groups to answer questions about what we had learned.
Date: 17th Oct 2024 @ 9:47am
In RE we have been learning all about Christianity (God) and we focused on the question of how (and why) have some people served God? We began thinking of what makes a good leader and discussed different famous people that have been leaders and role models to people in the past. We shared our opinions with one another and created a booklet for the qualities that makes a good leader. We recapped what is the bible? What is the old testament? We then read and understood all about the two stories, ‘story of the Moses’ and ‘Noah’s Ark.’ In pairs we shared our ideas as to what do we learn from the stories? Why do you think Christians follow God? We then compared the two stories thinking about how people felt when they heard God? As a class we discussed what life of service means and then looked at three Christians who have served a life of service. We thought about their role, the impact they had on other people and how they had a positive effect on others by being helpful. We discussed what the word vocation means and linked it to the role of a church leader. We researched how a church leader serves in church, but also in the community. We then carried our research as a class to find out about The Salvation Army and how it links to how Christians serve others? We shared ideas as to what Christians do for the community and the positive impact the Salvation Army has on the world. We applied everything we have learnt to then our personal life to think, are we good examples to others? Also, who inspires us?
