In RE this term, we are focusing on the creation story in Genesis. After reminding ourselves of the order of God’s creation over seven days, we analysed the poetic structure of the story and identified lots of examples of repetition for emphasis.
We talked about what each creation could symbolise (for example, the creation of the sun for the day and the moon at night could symbolise the never ending presence of God and the creation of night and day and the creation of day and night could symbolise the importance of right and wrong/good and evil etc.) We can’t say what each creation symbolises for certain of course but we’ve had some very interesting discussions about Genesis.
In this lesson, our focus was on Genesis’s assertion that mankind was made in the image of God and we asked ourselves what that might mean? If we all look like God, how come we are all so different? Could it be that we’re not expected to look like God, but be like God? If so, what does it mean to be like God? We discussed qualities of ours that would make God happy (kindness, generosity, humility etc.). Could we have been given these qualities intentionally? If so, why?
After much discussion, the children were given half the photograph of their heads and in the other blank half, they had to write down qualities they believed they have been given by God. Once they had done that, the children had to either decide how they would like to use their qualities from God in the future or describe how they are using their qualities now. Below are a selection of wonderful and thoughtful work the children produced.
The final question for discussion was why does God want us to use his qualities? Is it to look after his creation? To look after each other? To make the world a fairer place? To inspire other people?
