Opening Prayer
First: please ask the children to leave the room for a few moments. Once they leave the room, please make it really untidy: place paper on the floor, change the seats around the room; make it look really messy. Please ask the children to come in and say the classroom is now looking very different. In order to start the lesson, they will need to put everything back to the original place. Whoever has the CD Cancioneiro Espírita vol. 3, site www.cancioneiro.com.br, could play a song that talks about Collaboration (nbr. 11) whilst they get it organized. After everything is back on their original place, please ask the children to guess what the topic of this lesson is.
Second: please tell the children the story The lazy little ant. Please use the drawings, which are available through a power point presentation. You can print them to get the children to colour it later.
Third: please start a dialog with the children.
Who was Fly?
What was Fly’s difficulty?
What happened to Fly?
What did the dream represent to Fly?
Fourth: please talk to the children about professions.
What is the most important profession? Every profession/job is equally important.
Please ask them what they had for lunch. They ate rice, for example. Many people had to work in their professions, developing innumerous tasks, so they would have rice available for lunch. Someone had to cultivate it, harvest it, store it and sell it. In other places, it involved other people and other sectors since the rice needed to be packed, a driver had to carry it to the shop, the owner of the shop bought it, the lady at the market had to charge the person who bought the rice, someone cooked it (a cook, a mother, a maid or the children themselves). This process also happens with bean, potato, tomatoes, meat...
How did we arrive at the spiritist centre? Did you come by foot? Did you come by car? Are you wearing trainers? Or Flip-flops? How many professions were involved which enabled you to arrive at the spiritist centre today? If you came by foot, someone had to manufacture the trainers or flip-flops you are wearing. If you came by car or by bus, someone had to fill it up with petrol. The spiritist teacher can now talk about petrol and how it’s made from oil: Through various geochemical processes this material was converted to mineral oil, or petroleum, and its components, such as kerosene, paraffin waxes, gasoline, diesel and such. These are classified as mineral oils because they do not have an organic origin on human timescales, and are instead derived from underground geologic locations, ranging from rocks, to underground traps, to sands. The teacher can also mention there is a complex process for it to be transformed into petrol, which is sold at petrol stations. There are people working there to fill up the tanks with oil as well…
How should we behave at work? We should behave with responsibility, honesty, valuing the work we and others do, respecting our colleagues.
What are the children’s professions? To study.
Is study a type of work? Based on what exactly? Please show them Question 675 from The Spirits' Book:
Ought we to understand by “labour” only occupations of a material nature?
"No; the spirit labours like the body. Every sort of useful occupation is a labour."
Please talk to the children about what they understand as being a useful occupation. You could mention some example, such as: read a good book, watch a positive movie, healthy children play, prayer, take part at the spiritist education classes, help with house duties, visit someone who is sick or elderly, look after pets, look after younger brothers and sisters, collaborate with our society by putting the bin at the bin…. Everything that is done for a good reason and can add something positive is considered a useful occupation.
Fifth: please explain the difference between paid and unpaid/volunteer work.
Paid work: this activity required an income from it; which means a salary will be paid for this work. The spiritist teacher could mention, as an example, his/her professional work.
Volunteer work: this is the one we do spontaneously; without getting money from it. This work needs to be done with love and for love only. Whoever practices peace to his/her hearts gets closer to God. He/she feels happiness and well being.
Please remember that in the spiritist centre every volunteer work is just as important as every other task. Everyone can be a volunteer at the spiritist centre, no matter how old you are. If the teacher thinks it is necessary, please recall what they could do at the spiritist centre.
Sixth: click here to find a suggested activity for this moment. After the children finish this task, you can then correct it and talk about the answers given.
Closing Prayer
Class suggested being suitable for: 2nd cycle (9 to 10 years old).
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
