First Opening prayer - The Spiritist Volunteer will bring the book LEARNING HOW TO PRAY - A BOOK OF PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN by Elsa Rossi. The following story will be told:
Prayer for My Ill Cat.
Dear Jesus, my little cat likes to play and it makes us laugh a lot.
Today he is not well, it is sad and refused to eat. Dad had to take him to the vet where I know he will get better.
Mummy said that we can pray for the animals. She also told me that w should leave him alone and give him some time to get better.
I am praying to you Dear Jesus, to ask for your help for my little cat to get better soon.
The Spiritist worker will introduce a box of prayer after the story and will ask for one child to volunteer himself/herself to read the prayer for the class. Please ask the child to say his/her words as well, as to complement the opening prayer.
Second: Welcome the children into the session. Say how happy we are to see them there and how important they are for the class. Play hot potato game with the children. When the music stops the child who is holding the hot potato will need to say what is his/her favourite animal. Ask them to copy the sound this animal makes. Example: ‘My name is John and I love cats. Meow. Meow. Meow.’.
Third: Sing songs together; get the children to remain standing but in a circle.
I am a child of God
I am a child of God (2xs)
I am a Spirit living on Earth.
I am a child of God (2xs)
I reincarnated to learn to do good.
Reincarnation, the path of progress,
Reincarnation, the way to become good.
+++ sing other songs from the songs’ list as per attached here.
Fourth: Get the children to sit down into a circle. Tell them the story called: A Special Present. Please see here below suggested drawings, taken from the internet, to be used to tell the story.
Fifth: Ask the children questions about the story:
* Who created the animals?
* How do the animals react to the way they are treated? Do animals ever become sad or happy? Are they sensitive to the treatment they receive from human beings?
* Everyone who owns a pet is the responsible for them. The owners have to care for their pets by feeding them and being kind to them.
* The animals have an important role in our lives because they are also creatures of God. We are deemed responsible for the way we treat them.
* We should treat all animals respectfully. We cannot abandon them on the streets when they grow old or get sick.
* Ask the children: Who has pets? How do you treat your animals?
* What’s your favourite animal?
Sixth: Decorate the face and the rear parts of the cat as shown on the blank templates. Spread some glue on the non-decorated side of each of the two parts of the cat. Build the paper cat by gluing both extremes of the toilet paper roll on each non-decorated part of the cat. Give a name to it.
Material: Toilet paper rolls, white Bristol boards, coloured pencil or markers.
Seventh: Sing a song about cats and dance with the cats created. Suggestion: Hey Diddle Diddle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xumvDQ0jgSU.
Hey diddle diddle rhyme
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon!
Eighth: Show the following video, which can be found on YouTube from APPU SERIES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzFhXOJxPw.
Ask the children to repeat after the video, to learn new names of different birds.
Ninth: Ask the children to draw their favourite animal. Ask them what sound does this animal do. Get them to listen to the video called The Animal Sounds from KidsTV123. Get them to mimic the sounds of the animals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM.
Tenth: Give each child A4 sheet of paper and spread pictures of different animals on the floor. Talk to them that we should respect all animals, as they are our brothers and deserve our love as well as respect. They were created by God to help and support us mankind; we are here to protect them. Ask the children: what can we do to protect the animals? Get them to glue some of the animals’ pictures into their A4 sheets and use crayons to decorate their work.
Eleventh: Puppets’ healing therapy theatre: The puppet Marisa will bring her friend John to join the Kindergarten. He’s a little boy who used to love eating candies but had to be taken to the doctor to be treated. John’s mom also decided to bring him to the Spiritist centre for healing, which also helped him to recover. Marisa will ask the kids some questions about the healing; like the benefits of taking it, as well as examples of how we should behave during this moment.
Twelfth: Get the children to help cleaning the room; one of the children will do a closing prayer; encourage the children to volunteer for this task. If they don’t want to collaborate we could say we will follow the letters of the alphabet. The child’s name that starts with the letter A will do the opening prayer this time. Everybody will have the chance to collaborate.
Thirteenth: Please see here below suggested activity to be handed over to the children as homework.
Closing prayer
Class suggested being suitable for: Nursery (3 to 4 years old) and Kindergarten (5 to 6 years old).
Spiritist teacher: Carolina von Scharten, London, linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
