In this half term, we have been looking at the creation story in the book of Genesis.
We began the first week of this term by reminding ourselves of the order of creation: e.g. first there was night and day, followed by the sky, land, sun, moon and stars, animals and finally human beings before the day of rest. In the second week, we looked at symbolism that could be attached to each creation: the creation of day and night could symbolise right and wrong, the sky could represent the heavens and everlasting life and the sun and moon could symbolise God watching over us. We then analysed the idea of being ‘made in the image of God’ in the third week and decided that we are not expected to look like God but embody his qualities, such as kindness, humility and forgiveness among others.
This week’s focus was stewardship and we specifically looked at the phrase, “I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds and all the wild animals.” We are all agreed that it means we have to look after the animals because they are precious to God. We talked about what it means for something to be precious and understood that something precious is to be treated carefully, gently and with love. If God’s creation is precious to him then it must be precious to us also.
Pope Francis wrote ‘Laudato Si’ in 2015, an open letter to the world pleading with us to look after God’s creation and to try to reverse damage that has already been done. The following video helped us to understand the point of Pope Francis’s letter:
https://cafod.org.uk/education/primary-teaching-resources/laudato-si-for-children
We worked in pairs to write down as many ways the world is being harmed as we could and then we had a class discussion about what is wrong with the world. Despite Pope Francis no longer being with us, we then decided on questions we would ask him if we could. Once we had shared our questions, we had a go at role playing an interview with Pope Francis – first of all in pairs and then as a class via ‘hot seating’.
This activity helped us to put ourselves into Pope Francis’s shoes, see the state of the world from his perspective and think about what Pope Francis wanted us to do to help. Next week, we’ll be using the outcomes of this activity to write a letter of response to ‘Laudato Si’ where we can express our desire to help God’s creation and why.
