Religious Education (RE): Blog items
Date: 11th Mar 2025 @ 2:32pm
We went on a Pilgrimage! Today we discussed journeys and why some religions, especially Christianity, consider the act of pilgrimage as a key part of learning more about their faith.
We began by looking at journey’s we have been on and how we prepare for them and we packed a suitcase in preparation! Next, some of us undertook a real pilgrimage to learn more about holy sites in the Christian religion while others looked closely at why these sites are important.
Finally, some groups used Choose It to consolidate their new learning, identifying the correct sites of pilgrimage while others shared what we had learnt in a class collaborative discussion.
Date: 11th Mar 2025 @ 8:05am
Today, we had the pleasure of Noor Fatima bringing in her prayer mat and prayer beads to show the class. It was such a lovely addition to our lessons! We have been learning all about Islam, and Noor was eager to share her faith with her classmates. She explained the significance of each item, and it really opened up an important discussion about different cultural practices.
Not only that, but she also crafted a model of the Kaaba, the cubed structure in Mecca that holds great significance for Muslims. It was impressive to see her creativity and effort! The children were thoroughly engaged and curious, asking questions and sharing their thoughts.
What a wonderful experience for her to share her beliefs and values with everyone! It truly enriched our understanding and appreciation of different cultures and religions. Thank you, Noor Fatima, for such a meaningful contribution!
Date: 4th Mar 2025 @ 5:18pm
Nursery celebrated Pancake day with a stack of delicious pancakes! We read the story "Mr Wolf's Pancakes" and talked about the ingredients you need to make the pancake batter. We talked a little bit about why we celebrate Shrove Tuesday before the children helped to mix the pancake batter. They children watched patiently as Mrs Welch cooked the pancakes and even managed to successfully toss a few! It was all worth the wait as the chidlren thought the pancakes were delicious!
Date: 28th Feb 2025 @ 6:00pm
Today, Eshal was so excited to share her religion with the class! Since we’ve been learning about Islam in R.E., she brought in some special items she uses during her prayer ceremonies. Eshal unveiled her beautiful prayer mat, showed us her prayer beads, explaining their significance and shared the Kida that she reads daily. She even demonstrated how she performs her prayers, inviting us to ask questions throughout. It was lovely to see her enthusiasm as she described the importance of her faith and the way she connects with it daily. The whole class really enjoyed her sharing her religion and can’t wait to learn more about it over the next few weeks!
Year 1 How We Treat The Natural World
Date: 12th Feb 2025 @ 7:02pm
Today we brought all our learning for this half term together to reflect on how we each treat the natural world. We recapped on the key vocabulary associated with Islam and used it accurately to contribute to our whole class learning today. Throughout today lesson we thought about rules that we could implement in our local area to make the environment better in our community. We also painted a picture to show our own beliefs and values about how the natural world should be.
Year 3- Who are The Salvation Army?
Date: 7th Feb 2025 @ 10:22am
In RE, we have been learning about Christianity. We looked at what a disciple is and what it means to follow Jesus. In this lesson we looked at The Salvation Army and the fantastic work that they do. We looked at why their job is so important and who they support.
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.
