Year 4 [Unit 4/e] 13 hours

This unit is about: sacred religious texts and stories.
(part of this unit will be spent looking at the Guru Granth Sahib)

• How do we know that a book is sacred?
• How is the Bible regarded and handled by Christians?
• Why is the Bible special to Christians?

1 Respect for Books
Have a class discussion about books which are special to the children. Explain that the Bible is a very special book for Christians - many read it every day because they believe God can communicate through the words. It is still the world’s best selling book and has been translated into more than 2000 languages.

The word ‘Bible’ comes from the Greek word biblia meaning ‘books’ and it is in fact a collection of 66 books, written by many people over a long time. Each of the 66 books is divided into chapters and each chapter is divided again into verses.

The Bible is divided into two parts - the Old Testament is shared with the Jewish faith and the New Testament tells about the life of Jesus and the first churches.

Watch the episode from the BBC video Pathways of Belief - Torah.
**NEW** There is a Pathways of Belief video on the Bible, in two parts, covering the Old and New Testaments.

2 Why and how do people read the Bible?
Christians see the Bible as a guide to life.

Watch the episode from the BBC video Pathways of Belief - The Bible.

Read the story of Mary Jones (courtesy of the Bible Society in Northern Ireland) and click here for a sample discussion plan to use with the story.

Look at our web page on The Bible (produced for Year 1).

Ask a Christian parent to come in and talk about why the Bible is important to them.

3 Bible Structure
We have a worksheet available which looks at the Bible bookcase.

Have a look at various forms of the Bible. It is also available on the Internet, on CD ROM and audio tape. Visit the website www.request.org.uk and look at their section on the Bible. A list of the 66 books is available here courtesy of Request.

4 Bible Passages

Read Psalms 121 and 139 from a children’s version of the Bible. Design a postcard from God entitled ‘You are Amazing’.

5 The Bible as a Story of Love
Look at the picture ‘Tell Me!’ by Andràs Simon (click here to view). What might the father and child be taking about? Notice that the artist has depicted the two as one continuous line.

John chapter 3 verse 16 says

‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.’

Read some parables ‘The Lost Sheep’, ‘The Lost Coin’ and ‘The Lost (Prodigal) Son’. Look at Rembrandt’s painting of ‘The Return of the Prodigal’ and ask the children who the different characters represent. Look closely at the father’s hands. One is like a gentle woman’s hand, the other a strong man’s hand. Why has the artist depicted them like this? Look also at the elder brother. Why is he so angry? Explain that he represents the religious leaders of Jesus’ day.

Think about how the person felt when they found what they were looking for.

We have half class sets of children’s Bibles available for short-term loan.

We recommend the International Children’s Bible by Word because although it is an accurate Bible translations (rather than a paraphrased version) it has short, easy sentences, colour pictures, maps and a dictionary of unusual words.

Contact us for details of how to obtain free children’s Bibles for your school.

Year 4 [Unit 4/a] 8 hours

This unit is about: what it means to belong to a religion

• Where do I belong? The Five Ks of Sikhism
• How do Christian and Sikh communities welcome new babies?

1. Brainstorm for key words for the Sikh and Christian faith (including church & Gurdwara). Using Christian & Sikh symbols design a cover for the years work.

2. Discuss the groups the children belong to - family, school, class, friends, football team, church family etc. Draw concentric ‘belonging circles’. How does it feel to be outside a group?

3. Look at examples of emblems, badges, family crests, flags that identify different groups. Look at family trees. Use the Jesse tree painting in ‘Assemblies from the Gallery’. Discuss the difference between extended and nuclear families. Design your own family tree.

The family of God - ask the children to find out how many people there are in the world today. (The US Census Bureau estimates the number to be 6,305,440,938 in July 2003.) Create a collage by writing this number in large outlined figures. Fill in the figures with faces of all nationalities, cut from magazines, newspapers or drawn. The children may like to draw themselves and others in their school or family. Add a caption
‘The Bible says not one of them is forgotten by God.’

Explain that both Christians and Sikhs (and many other religions) believe that all people are important and loved by God and that they try to reflect that in their caring attitude toward others (langar meals, charity work etc.). Visit a charity website such as www.tearfund.org to find out what Christians are doing around the world.

4. Identify the 5 K’s and learn about their symbolism

5. Look at the symbolism behind the Sikh Khanda as well as the dove, the cross and the ICTHUS fish for Christians. Design a banner incorporating one of the symbols. Ask pupils to explain the symbolism in their banner.

6. Welcoming a new baby into the family. Discuss the preparations that need to be made for a new baby. Are there are any differences in Sikh or Christian families. In the Sikh tradition a babies name must begin with a letter chosen from the Guru Granth Sahib.
Find out about infant baptism. What are appropriate promises for new parents to make for a new baby?  
Visit www.request.org.uk for an excellent section on infant baptism, including a video clip.

7. Watch the ‘Church’ episode of BBC’s Pathways to Belief video - being welcomed into the Church family. Interview a Christian and Sikh visitor to find out what it means to them to be part of the Church/Gurdwara community. Find out how religious communities show that they care for other people?

8. Investigate ‘adult’ baptism - a new beginning.  Click here for more information on baptism. Read the story of Jesus’ baptism as told in the Storyteller Bible page 68.  The Educhurch website now has video clips of ‘adult’ baptism, both in a church and in the sea. (Please note that ‘adult’ in this context means someone who is old enough to decide for themselves - the clip of a church baptism from Educhurch shows a young girl being baptised.)

Look at the painting of Jesus baptism (view courtesy of the National Gallery) by Piero della Francesca, in ‘Jesus Through Art’ with related photocopiable worksheets at the back of the book (available on loan from us).
The Trust also has copies of the video ‘Matthew’s Gospel’ - the Bible seen as a film - available for loan.

Year 4 [Unit 4/b] 5 hours

• How do Christians use Christmas as a time to start again?

For most Christians, Easter and not Christmas, is seen as the time for new life and new beginnings.  New Year resolutions have their origins in ancient Babylonia, about 600 years before Christ, when the Babylonian people used New Year as the time to return their neighbour’s farming implements!

Acceptance and Rejection
Play hangman with the word REJECTION.  Talk about what it means to feel rejected.  Look at Lippi’s painting of the Annunciation in Jesus Through Art (or view courtesy of the National Gallery).  Does Mary look as if she is accepting or rejecting the Angel’s news?  The story of the Annunciation is in the accompanying material in Jesus Through Art or read it from a children’s version of the Christmas story. JTA has lesson ideas and activities to complement the picture.
Think about the rejection that Mary may have faced from her family, from Joseph.

Look together at some baby pictures. What do we need to get ready for a new baby? What sort of place would we expect a royal baby to be born in? Find some Christmas cards that depict the stable and think what it must have been like.  Make a list of words that describe the stable and then ask the children to write a piece about ‘Where Jesus was born’.

Rejection today

Who might feel rejected in our society today?  Do we accept other people?  What does it feel like to be rejected?  Think about those who do not fit in and look at the work of Watford New Hope Trust, which seeks to show acceptance to the homeless in our town.

Look at the work of the charity Samaritan’s Purse. They have produced an excellent resource CD to accompany their Operation Christmas Child campaign.

The Big Step Down
Christians believe it was a big step down for God’s son to come as a helpless baby.
Show a small bowl - imagine all the sea in the world fitting in the bowl.
Show a small jar - imagine all the sunshine fitting into the cup.
Christians believe it is equally impossible to imagine God’s son becoming a baby, but they believe this is what happened on that first Christmas.

Look at some pictures of famous people - for example, Gordon Brown, the Queen and David Beckham. Ask the children to imagine Gordon Brown working in Tesco’s.  Or to think about the Queen being a dinner lady at their school.  Or David Beckham playing for Watford! It would be a big step down for all of them.

Christians believe that God’s son became part of the world he had created and took the big step down, because he cared so much for people.

To do:

Make a list of the things a baby cannot do and write a sentence about why God’s son came to earth as a baby.

Compare some very large things with some very small ones, eg an elephant in a glass, or a skyscraper in a matchbox.  Illustrate these ideas or use them to build a poem, finishing with a last line about Christmas, such as ‘Creator God became a tiny baby’.