1. RE in EYFS

2. Story Moses and Miriam David and Goliath -entering the story
-questions
-the centrality of God
-expressing

3. Engagement, knowledge and skills
Ways of engaging your inner storyteller
Engaging the senses
Play based learning
Practising the skills

4. What is at the Church? What is at the Mosque?
Would you rather?
Grandma’s house
Your house
school
Place of worship
cinema
playpark
School
bedroom

5. Church or Mosque? Label the hoops- church, mosque, either
Read out the statements
Grace- Christian girl
Ahmed- Muslim boy
Either
Find out about these aspects of the mosque or church
Visit- create a record of your visit with a series of instant photos or tweets

6. Team A: The mosque... Build a cardboard box Mosque.
Provide the children with a huge box, and tell them it is going to be turned into a Mosque.
How will the box be best used?
Can it be done so people can see inside? What will they use to make the dome?
Involve all the children in the decisions and then in the action to make the Mosque-box work.
Team B: The minaret...
Get them to look at some pictures of minarets, and tell them their challenge is to make one to go on the side or the end of the model team A are making. Discuss what a minaret is for? Will anyone go up there? Will they need stairs or perhaps just a place for a speaker? How does it show that the minaret is an important building? How can they make and paint their minaret to show what it is used for?
Team C: Furniture
There might need to be an area for shoes, an area for washing, the minbar- a set of stairs from where the sermon is preached on Friday, the mihrab- the niche in the wall showing which way to pray, a qur’an stand, some clocks showing the prayer times, a microphone for broadcasting the call to prayer, an area for men to pray in and an area for women to pray in.
Team D: Decorating the Mosque
As a group look at some calligraphy of the word Allah in Arabic. Why do Muslims use calligraphy to decorate the mosque?
Recreate it on strips of paper so it can be stuck around the edge of the dome.
Team E: People
‘Small world’ people or it may be better to give them a lot of pipecleaners or cut out card people, and dress them all in different coloured tissue. Remember that Muslims are old and young, have all different skin colours and will where different sorts of clothes but the men will all wear a Topi and women will cover their hair with a scarf when they are at Mosque.
Team F: Labelling the Mosque
Imagine you are tour guides for a group of pupils who are coming to visit the Mosque. They have never seen a Mosque. You will need to plan what you will show them, what order you will show them things in and what you will say about the different parts of the Mosque. Make some label to stick on different parts of the Mosque. Practice being tour guides.

7. Team church: put pupils in 6 teams of 4 or 5 children
Team A: Here’s the church... Build a cardboard box church. Provide the children with a huge box, and tell them it is going to be turned into a church. Talk a lot before this starts!
Team B: Here’s the steeple...
A Tower and a bell This team are also going to do some big scale box modelling. Get them to look at some pictures of a church tower or spire, and tell them their challenge is to make one
Team C: Lego furniture
Talk to this team about the things they find inside church. There might need to be an altar for the sacrament, and a font to welcome new babies, some images and statues of saints or of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Team D: Making Windows from stories of Jesus Give the team members an outline on paper of a blank church window, and tell them that we are making some windows for our class’s team built church. Ask what pictures
Team E: Open the door and here’s all the people Tell this team that their challenge is to create the congregation for the church.
Team F: All around the church
Ask this team to decide how the whole model church can be put into a churchyard or garden.
There is more detail to go with these briefs in the magazine article.

8. Here you can see an acetate stained glass window, a stickle brick crucifix, two candles, an altar, font and organ. What will it look like if you move the camera up a bit?
Children might learn some key words: altar, font, church, crucifix, stained glass, and use these in their work.

9. Imagine what you see when you turn around and look down the church.
The stained glass window was done with sharpie pens. It works better to do the windows on plain paper, then photocopy them onto acetate.
Imagine what you see when you turn around and look down the church.
You might give your pupils a particular story to illustrate in their stained glass pictures: the Lost Sheep, or Jesus Birth?

10. “Open the doors and here’s all the people”
What will it look like if you move the camera back to see the whole church?
These little people were made from lolly sticks dressed in tissue, with individual cardboard faces. The team made nearly twenty of them.

11. The tower building team did a fine job.
Can children write about their work, using, for example, labels, lists and captions?
This class did not have a team to make a church yard – a big piece of green cloth is a good start, but a walk in the school grounds for twigs to be trees and stones to be rocks is good.

12. Some pupils wrote about the drawings as well.
Julie got her pupils to make a plan of the church and draw some of the things they had learned about in their plan.
Some pupils wrote about the drawings as well.
This follow up work linked well to literacy objectives and cemented the learning effectively.

13. It’s good thinking and creative energy that makes this team task into good RE
I put the cross because I saw Jesus or God on the cross
I put a candle because Jesus is the light of the world
This child is beginning to make sense of the symbols of the church.

14. Get each team to share its work with the others.
Tell children that the Bible compares the church to a body, where the hands do one thing and the feet another, the tummy matters and so does the tongue.
Tell the children that their teamwork is like the church itself, in one way. Christians believe God is pleased when we all co-operate, when we all do our bit.
Ask the children to make up some prayers or meditations, and to practice a song for the ‘opening’ of the church, and have a little ceremony.
Can some of your writers make a poster inviting people to come?
Ask children to take and use photos of the teams working to show how the church is built. Link community and activity together as a way to learn what it means to belong to the church.

17. Practical Christian Prayer
Who else should we have?
Peter Praise
Suzie Sorry
Thea Thanks
Christian prayers have 4 main types. Some prayers show all 4 some just one or two. These are praise, saying sorry, saying thank you and asking for something. Introduce the children to 4 jelly baby characters Peter Praise, Suzy Sorry, Andrew Ask and Thea Thanks- each character should be a different colour.
The story of the Lost Son might lead Christians to think it is very important to say ‘Peter Praise’ prayers and ‘Suzy Sorry’ prayers. Ask the children to look through a story e.g. the Lost Son and Jonah and see if they can see which parts of the story suggest that Suzy Sorry , Peter Praise, Andrew Ask or Thea Thanks prayers are something that the characters might say.
Ask the children to focus on two of the types of prayer Suzy Sorry and Peter Praise. Christians believe God is loving and forgiving so what prayers might a 6 year old Christian say in a time of prayer at church. Write these prayers on suitable shaped and coloured paper.
Andy Ask

18. Talking Tubs Three tubs relating to the theological concepts of …….
All home made (well almost…!)
Each table has a tub – unpack the tub and examine the objects
Why do you think the object is in the box?
What do you think the objects represent/mean?
It doesn’t matter if you go ‘off piste’ – but in the first instance try to relate your ideas to the topic