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 Week 14 Rules of Judaism

Intro:

Ask the children to think and share some of the things that they learnt in the previous lesson. 

Discuss with the children what rules are, and where we might see rules and why they are needed e.g. no running at a swimming pool because it is dangerous.

Explain that religions usually have rules that the people who follow them are expected to follow.

Ask the children if they follow any rules as part of their religions or if they know of any rules from any religions e.g. Muslims not eating pork.

Explain that Judaism also has rules, with some of these being about food.

Explain that if a food is allowed in Judaism it is ‘kosher’.

Watch the videos below about the rules of Judaism.

Main:

Children to sort items as being allowed or not allowed in Judaism:

Not allowed: work on the Sabbath, eat pork, eat rabbit, eat shellfish, eat birds of prey, to touch a Torah scroll,

Allowed: drink alcohol, eat beef, eat lamb, eat scaly fish with fins, eat any type of vegetable, eat any type of fruit

(Note: two items – ‘allowed to drink alcohol’ and ‘not working on the Sabbath’ – require knowledge from previous lessons, as not covered in the videos)

Year 1 Extension: Research in books and / or online to find out more about the rules of Judaism and write some sentences about what they find out.

Plenary:

Revise the key rules of Judaism

Week 13 - Passover

Ask your child to share what they can remember about the Sabbath from the previous lesson

Explain that we will be learning about the Jewish festival of Passover (or Pesach in Hebrew – pronounced pay-sach) today, which is the most important annual Jewish festival

Discuss what a festival is and ask the children to think, pair, share any other examples of religious festivals that they know of, and what happens during them

Explain the main points of the Passover story – that Jews believe that:

♦ God told Moses (their leader) that he would cause all of the Egyptians’ first-born sons to die, as a punishment for the Pharaoh not releasing the Israelites from slavery

♦ God told Moses that the Israelites should paint lambs’ blood on their front doors so that the Angel of Death would ‘pass over’ their homes without doing any harm to their children

♦ The Egyptians’ first-born sons died and the Pharaoh released the Israelites as a result of God’s actions
 

Watch the videos below about Passover:

Main:
After completing the paper-based or ICT activities below, children to match the item of food / drink and what it helps to remind Jews of e.g. Horseradish (a bitter vegetables) – the bitterness of the Jews being slaves in Egypt

The double-sided set is set out to the side (this will be used for checking if pairs match in the game)

The two single-sided sets are set out separately and used to play ‘Go Fish’:

The sets are placed face down (or to begin with, the cards can be set out facing up to make it easier)

Each child takes a turn to ‘Go Fish’ and try to find a matching pair – if they find a matching pair, they keep it; if they do not find a matching pair, they put the cards back in the same position, face down again (the double-sided set can be used to check if the pair are in fact matching or not)

Continue playing until all of the matching pairs have been found and see who has the most.

ICT-based:

Use online activities to practise matching the item of food or drink and what it helps to remind Jews of

Extension: Watch the videos again and / or research some additional information about Passover in books and / or online, and write some sentences with additional information about the festival.

Plenary:

Go through what each item of food / drink is supposed to remind the Jews of.

Week 12

Intro: Ask your child to think about and share what they can remember about the Torah from the previous lesson. Ask if they know of days of the week that they themselves or other religious people do special things on e.g. go to church to pray. Ask your child to explain where this activity takes place and what it involves e.g. going to church and saying prayers and receiving communion. Explain that the most holy day of the week for Jews is Shabbat (in Hebrew) or the Sabbath (in English) Explain that Jewish people behave differently on the Sabbath than they do on other days. Ask your child to guess what they think that Jewish people might do on the Sabbath because they believe that it is a holy day.

Watch the  videos below about Shabbat.

Main: Children to complete a crossword about Shabbat, using the information from the videos to help. Reception children to be given some of the letters in the crossword; Year 1 children to be given the crossword without any letters in it.

Extension: Children to do their own research to find out additional facts about Shabbat, either in books or online (with adult supervision) 

Week 11

Intro:

Ask your child to think and share the Ten Commandments, which we covered in the previous session.

Revise how religions usually have a holy book

Ask if your child knows any holy books from Judaism or any other religion and to share some of what they know about them.

Explain that there are 3 main holy books in Judaism:

• ​​​​​​​the Torah (the Books of Teaching)

• the Nevi’im (the Books of the Prophets)

• the Ketuvim (the Books of Writings)

• together these 3 books make up the Tenakh

Explain that the Torah contains the Ten Commandments: the rules that Jews believe God told them to live by

Explain that Jews also use some other Holy books, which are made up of the writings of Jewish leaders, to help them know how to live as God wants them to.

Watch the videos about the Torah using the links below. 

Explain the independent work, including reading through the cards and the worksheet (below) 

Main:

Children to complete a ‘fill in the blanks’ worksheet based on the videos.

Choose which worksheet works best for your child. 

(Can watch the videos again after the children have had a first go at the worksheets if needed)

Extension 1: children to answer some additional questions requiring higher order thinking skills.

Extension 2: children to independently research more information about The Torah.

Plenary:

Go through any answers that the children found tricky or any points that they did not seem to understand as well.

Give children a card with either a term (e.g. scroll), a definition (e.g. roll of paper that can be written on) or an image (e.g. a picture of a scroll) and ask them to match the corresponding card.

Week 10

The Jewish New Year is in the Autumn. They mark the start of it with a two day celebration called Rosh Hashanah. They eat sweet foods like apple and honey  - symbolising a sweet and happy new year.

Watch the first video on this page:

These are the types of food they like to eat as they celebrate Rosh Hashanah:

Round Challah Bread: Representing the circle of life and cycle of the year

They put pomegranate on table as the 613 seeds representing the 613 commandments/rules Jewish people try to live by

Apple slices dipped in honey

These represent the sweetness of the new year ahead.

They think about the things they want to achieve in the new year, like we did last week when we wrote on out paper the things we want to achieve in Year 2.

Can you draw a picture of something sweet you would like to eat to celebrate a new year?

Week 9 The Ten Commandments

Ask your child to think and share some the Story of Moses from the previous lesson.

Ask them if the they can remember the name given to the rules in the Torah that Jews believe that God gave them to live by.

Ask your child to think of where they see rules that they have to follow and some examples of rules that they have to follow e.g. no running at the swimming pool

Ask them to think about why they are asked to follow each rule

Explain that Jews believe that after Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and they were wandering the desert, God called Moses to the top of a mountain

Jews believe that when Moses was on top of the mountain, God wrote the Ten Commandments on to two stone tablets

Watch the video below (if the link does not work, Google ‘YouTube Moses and the ten commandments - The Beginners Bible’) – watch from 22 mins 26 secs (part before this not about the Ten Commandments)

Explain ‘Diamond Nine’ activity:

• child given the Ten Commandments as cards to cut out. If you don't have a printer, you could write the Ten Commandments on card or paper for your child to sort. 
• they then rank the Ten Commandments in terms of what they think that their relative importance is in the shape of a diamond, leaving one out

Main:

Complete the diamond nine activity ( cards and answer sheet below) 

Extension: Try to learn the Ten Commandments off by heart by practising with someone at home. Maybe you could ask someone to test you. 

Plenary:

Ask your child to discuss and justify how they arranged the commandments.

Watch the following videos and songs about the Ten Commandments. 

 Week 8 The Story of Moses 

Ask your child to think and share some of the things that they learnt about the early History of Judaism in the previous lesson. 

Explain that we will be learning more about Moses today.

Watch some of the story of Moses video below, pausing to discuss as you go. 

Main:

Reception - Print the images from the sequencing pictures below, cut and mix them up so they are not in the correct order. Children to sequence the story correctly and write a short phrase under each part. If you cannot print, ask your child to draw the main events of the story. 

Year 1 - Create your own storyboard using the template below. Write a short sentence to explain each section. 

Extension: Ask your child to answer some of the following questions about the story:

1. What was your favourite part of the story? Why? (use ‘because’ in your answer)
2. What was your least favourite part of the story? Why? (use ‘because’ in your answer)
3. Do you think it was right that God drowned the Egyptians? Why / why not? (use ‘because’ in your answer).

Week 7 -  Judaism

Ask you child to think and share some of the things that they learnt about Judaism in the previous lesson.

Explain that some events that happened a long time ago are very important to Jewish people, and that we will be learning what these events are. Please go through the PowerPoint below.

Main Activity

Give your child a number of images with text, in a jumbled up order. Ask them to sort the images into the correct chronological order for the early historical events of Judaism.

By the end of this session your child

             MUST: know some of the events from early Jewish history.

        SHOULD:  know all of the events from early Jewish history.

   COULD: consider the motivations and emotions of some of the people from early Jewish history and empathise with them.

Week 6

This term we will be learning about Judaism. Ask your child what they already know, and what it might mean to be Jew. Go through the PowerPoint together and ask some of the following questions:

- What is Judaism?

- When did Judaism begin?

- What do Jews believe?

                                                - Do Jews have a holy book?

                                                - What festivalsdo Jews celebrate?

                                                - Which places are special to Jews

                                                - What special symbols/objects do Jews use?

Main Activity:

Children to sort various artefacts, places, and leaders etc into Jewish or non-Jewish.

Extension: Children to do their own research into Judaism and write some sentences to explain what interesting facts they have found.