Opening Prayer
First: please talk to the children about the concept of Prayer, in accordance with the Spiritist Doctrine.
What is a prayer?
How can we pray?
Who can we pray for?
Obs.: please note this class was planned so that the spiritist teacher spends around 10 minutes in each activity, maximum. If the spiritist teacher feels he needs to spend more time in one or another, please adapt it according to your feeling and the need of the group.
Second: We are going to use the ‘Musical box’ technique for this activity. The spiritist teacher should play a spiritist song which is known by the children. The children should be sitting in a circle and a box should be given to them. As soon as the music starts, the children will start handing the box over to the person sitting next to them. When the music stops, whoever is holding the box will have to open it and get one of the questions that were placed inside the box before the activity started. This technique is also known as Hot Potato (game). If the child gives the correct answer, he/she will get the opportunity to draw something or someone they would pray for in the panel/board which should be placed in the wall. Please affix the panel/board before starting this activity. Here are some suggested questions to be placed inside the box:
1. What is a prayer?
2. Do we need to be somewhere special to pray?
3. Please say the name of someone special you would like to pray for
4. When do we pray?
5. Who can we pray for?
6. Does a prayer make us feel good?
7. Can we pray everyday?
8. Can we pray before going to bed?
9. Can we pray when we wake up in the morning?
10. Can we pray before our meals?
11. Can we pray for someone who already disincarnated?
12. Can we pray for our guardian angel?
As soon as que questions finish, you can then create a picture and frame it. This could be placed in the classroom so that all the students can see it in the future. This activity encourages the children to cooperate and work in groups.
Third: show the children a telephone and ask them who talks on the telephone. Please tell them we will start to talk on the phone here in our class, through our own telephone!
Instructions: How to Make a Tin Can and String Telephone
You'll need two regular sized cans such as canned vegetables come in.
Step 1: Wash out each can, then take an ice pick and poke a small hole in the centre of each can.
Step 2: Attach approximately ten feet of string such as nylon or heavy cotton string. Longer lengths will work so you can experiment if you want. If using cotton string you'll need to wax it with paraffin wax such as from a candle. Step 3: Run the ends of the string into the hole you made in the cans. (From the backside of the can) and on the inside of the can pull the string out and attach to a small to medium sized washer with a couple of good knots. This keeps the string from pulling out.
Step 4: Your tin can and string telephone is almost ready. To keep kids ears safe from the sharp edges on the inside of the can take several strips of duct tape and line the inside of the can where the lid came off. To operate have each child pull their end until the string is tight. When you talk into one can, with the other can up to the other persons ear you will hear sound.
Please choose one of the students and ask him to ‘answer’ the phone. Please ask him/her: name, parent’s name, age, if he/she has got a dad/mom, brother, etc… The spiritist teacher will be able to engage the children in the game.
When the game finishes, please tell the children a prayer is is just like this telephone: whenever we connect with someone on the phone, there is someone at the other side of the line listening to us. The same happens with the prayer: whenever we pray with our heart, there will be someone in the spiritual world hearing us, helping us to face our difficulties, giving us strength; someone we can count with.
Please tell the children we, incarnate, are on one side of the phone and on the other side our guardian angel, Jesus and God. The string is the prayer itself. You can add that the prayer can be done at any time and at any please. All we need to do is to have good thoughts, and pray with love!
Fourth: please give each child a A4 paper and get them to draw something they would like to thank God for having here in Earth (parents, a home, pets, food, being able to come to the spiritist school, etc). Please ask each child to show their drawings to one another and then later to the parents, in order to engage them into the subject.
Resources for the Spiritist Teacher: The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chapter 27, THE ACT OF PRAYER. TRANSMISSION OF THOUGHT, items 9 and 15; and The Spirits' Book, CHAPTER II, PRAYER.
Closing Prayer
Class suggested being suitable for: Kindergarten (5 to 6 years old) and 1st cycle (7 to 8 years old); depending on the classes’ maturity and/or conditions.
Spiritist Teacher: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
