The fourth pillar of Islam is Sawm. Today we considered the idea of fasting and that it is not just about feeling hungry but connecting with God and achieving “God-consciousness” (taqwa).
Your homework was to find out a little more about Sawm. Particularly think about who does the fasting, when they do it, what happens if people slip up. Look at some of these links and try to find something really interesting!
Tom drew this superb cartoon strip about the life of Muhammad:
Today we looked at the Second Pillar of Islam, “Salah”. This is the requirement for Muslims to pray 5 times a day. We were introduced to 5 key words:
Homework:
Your homework was to think of something you could do 5 times a day and then do it before school, at morning break, lunchtime, after school, and in the evening. Once you’ve done it, write a paragraph explaining what you did and how easy or hard you found it.
Today we started looking at the Five Pillars of Islam, starting with Shahadah. We learned that this is the first thing spoken to new babies, used 5 times a day in the Muslim call to prayer, and Muslims try to make it the last thing they say before they die.
The words are: “ašhadu al lā ilāha illa l-Lāh, wa ašhadu anna muammadar rasūlu l-Lāh” which means
“There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God”.
We also heard the story of Muhammed (PBUH).
Homework (due next week) was to write a brief summary of his life and the starting of Islam. Try to find out some interesting information about his life!
For information try:
To finish our look at wedding ceremonies we thought about Jewish weddings today. The notebook presentation with all the details is here: Jewish Weddings.
There is more information here:
For homework:
In the lesson we started thinking about what we would do at our own weddings.
If you were getting married what would you do? Many couples have an “order of service” to explain to their guests what is happening. Your job is to create an “order of service” booklet for your wedding.
It must include something from at least two religions we have looked at and you must explain why. However, you do not have to do things for the same reason as the religious people. For example, you might like to break a glass at your wedding to symbolise the sadness you feel about all the people who could not attend to celebrate with you.
You had until the end of the lesson today to plan what you would do on paper, then you need to write it up properly, with pictures if you wish, for homework. Bring it in next week.
This morning we looked at the different ways Hindus might get married. Hinduism is a way of life, not just a religion and so every wedding is slightly different. You looked at various different things a Hindu couple might do at their wedding: Hindu wedding rituals.
You can find more information on Wikipedia, BBC Religion or EduWeb.
Today we had a Christian wedding ceremony between Jack/Zak and Sophie.
We started by thinking about reasons why someone might get married (love, commitment, financial reasons, sex etc) and then looked at the Christian wedding ceremony.
You can find all the Notebook slides here.
Homework:
Was to pick one of Islam, Judaism and Hinduism and then find out and write down five things that the religion does to celebrate marriages/weddings. Here are some links to get you started:
Islam:
Judaism:
Hinduism:
Today we had a celebration. You guys came in with ideas about how to celebrate a new birth and shared your ideas. We were particularly looking at how symbols were used in the celebration.
It was announced today that there’ll be a new baby arriving in the class and we need to celebrate!
We started by thinking about the way in which religious people celebrate new birth and the symbolism used. For example, Christians give a candle to the child to symbolise or represent moving from darkness into light. Muslims shave the head of their child and give the hair’s weight in silver or gold to charity - they recognise that the child is a gift from God and they give this money as a symbol of their gratitude to God.
In small groups we were coming up with out own ceremonies to celebrate our new baby. We thought about values that the group held (liking horses, valuing friends, appreciating certain kinds of music etc.) and then came up with a ceremony to symbolise those values. You filled in a form like this to organise your thoughts.
Be sure to bring everything you need to the next lesson (Wednesday after half term) so that you can show the ceremony to the rest of the class. If you have any questions then leave a comment and I’ll respond to you.
Good luck! I look forward to finding out what you’ve done…
Today we looked at what Christians, Muslims and Jews do to celebrate the birth of a new baby so we looked at Baptism, circumcision and Aqiqah.
This was done in teams and at the end we had a quiz.
For homework you were asked to think about what you might do to celebrate the birth of a new baby…
Put together a few ideas on paper and bring them to the next lesson.
Would you:
Be creative!
Here are the posters you made during the lesson:
Christianity -
Islam -
Judaism -
