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This is lesson is about introducing children to the Parish Family and talking about what the parish family celebrates. Due to covid we have not had the same opportunities as in previous years to visit the Church and meet Father Anthony or to attend mass.
In our lesson we will mostly be using generic pictures to talk to the children about the church family but we will talk to them about St Mary’s being next to the school and that Father Anthony is the parish priest and he will lead weddings and baptisms. During non-covid times he also comes into school to take assemblies. We will also tell them there are people that attend St Mary’s and they are part of the parish family. Our school is also part of the parish family. You may have a church that you go to that you could talk to your child about. If you go onto the school website in November 2019, Robin and Owl class went to St Mary’s Church and Father Anthony performed a baptism for our class doll. These pictures will show your child what it is like inside the church.
Introduce the children to the term ‘Parish Family’. What do we already know about celebrating in church? E.g. weddings, baptisms & Christmas etc. Sometimes the parish family celebrates in church and sometimes outside church.
Use the photos of the Church’s story to help your discussion.
What do these pictures tell you about the people of this parish?
What are they doing?
Scribe the children’s ideas down on paper to post onto Tapestry.
Draw attention to the people, the priest, the crucifix, benches, hymn books, stained glass windows, baptismal font, altar, lectern, noticeboards & newsletters.
Pray the family prayer – the Our Father.
We will look at the photos of inside the church and talk about how each artefact forms part of the celebration. For example, the font has holy water that is used in baptism. The bible sits on the lectern and passages from the bible are read out during celebrations. We use the hymn books to sing songs during a celebration.
In school we will have a picture of the parish priest (Father Anthony) and we will add a caption about what he does to help the parish celebrate. We will scribe the children’s ideas. They will need some guidance with this as it may be quite new for them.