What is the most valuable gift you can give?

We started off with a Christmas dinner in school with presents to start the children thinking about why we give presents and why. A range of presents here present each child with the opportunity to think about how they feel when they receive something that’s different to their peers. From here we moved to look at how often, the act of giving doesn’t need to cost us anything. Using pumpkins, we will show that we often carve pumpkins for one night but do we really think about what we do with the insides.

From here, we started to look at who William Booth was and how he followed his religious beliefs to start to provide assistance to his community. His gift was soup, soap and salvation and so we have explored what this meant to people at the time as well as how it is still a valuable gift in today’s society. This naturally led us to the origins and work of the Salvation Army which provided us with the opportunity to link back to our pumpkins and how ‘waste’ can actually be valuable to others less fortunate than ourselves. This is especially true when we consider the current circumstances surrounding Covid restrictions and how lives have changed for a great number in our society.

This linked well into looking at the Sikh beliefs and what they teach us about wealth and poverty. We focused on how selfless Sikhs are and ways that they support those people who need it. Sikhs give to charities, provide food for communities, raise money, volunteer and much more. All gifts that we can consider. We looked in particular at the ‘Langar’ and how Sikhs have created this to support those that need it (hungry, safe place, warmth, community feel, someone to talk to when lonely etc.). As part of these lessons we are hoping to visit the Gurdwara in Doncaster or alternatively get an expert to come in to talk to the children.

After looking at the Sikh religion, we then compared this to the Christian story of the Three Wise Men and how they each gave a gift to the baby Jesus with what they felt was the most valuable gift they could offer....

After considering how we can help those less fortunate, we encouraged the children to think how they view the world and this was the foundation to creating stained glass to use as artwork for cards and as a design for a christmas decoration for our local church.