Lesson four - pages 8/9
Pleading hands

Aim for the book

To give children the opportunity to explore what Christians believe about the nature of both God and humans, by studying hands.

Learning objectives

• To know that bread is a very important symbol for Christians.
• To be able to express feelings of desperation, pleading and giving.
• To understand interpret some of the emotions expressed in different pictures of hands.

Bible reference

Psalm 145.15-16

Background

Powerful images are shown in the picture — hands stretched out in hunger, desperation and anxiety. The 'staff of life' (bread) is being distributed. Those hands that can be so creative and so loving and so violent are now reaching out for life. The Gospel of John uses the symbol of bread as a means of representing Jesus; 'I am the bread of life' is one of the sayings John uses to express the importance of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. All four Gospels record the story of Jesus' 'Feeding of the Five Thousand' with loaves and fishes. This is the only miracle or sign that appears in all four gospel accounts, showing the significance of the Christian belief that Jesus 'feeds' and gives life.

Key words

• Giver (of life)
• Giving
• Receiving
• Desperate
• Pleading
• Bread
• Symbol
• Sustain

Activity one - help me

• You will need
  

  The book.
  Extracts of music (optional).
  Percussion instruments (optional).
  Space for group to perform mini-drama.

• Start

  Look at a range of pictures in the book.
  How many images of hands can the children identify from these pictures? For example: loving, caring, gentle, old, young. List the answers. Look closely at pages 8 and 9 of the book.
  How is this picture different? (Pleading, desperate, gnarled, hard-working, uncared for?)
  Why might the people in the picture have hands like this? (Maybe poverty, war, conflict, natural disasters.)
  Where are the young people?
  Are all the hands reaching out? (Identify the giver.)

• Develop

  Drama - to be done in groups or as a whole class.
  Choose a theme.
  Create a short piece of drama which includes the use of hands to convey all the emotions shown in the pictures (receivers and givers). Use music if appropriate, recorded or performed.
  Perform the piece to the class or to the school in an assembly.

• End

  Explore children's responses to the drama.
  What feelings did they experience when in role?
  Compare the feelings of givers and receivers. How were they different?
  The bible says that Jesus used bread as a symbol of what God can give the world - life.
  Can any children suggest why? (Link to activity two if required.)
  Alternatively, how might hands receive 'bread' from God?
  Children show their responses individually with their hands (no right answer).

• Assessment opportunities

  Can the children respond to the feelings of others?
  Can the children identify aspects of their own feelings?
  Can the children compare aspects of their own life with others?

Activity two - bread for life

• You will need
  

  The book.
  A loaf of bread.
  Ingredients for making bread or packets of bread dough mix.
  Cooking facilities.
  The story of the feeding of the five thousand.
  Writing materials or ICT access.

• Start

  Sit in a circle.
  Put the bread in the centre on a table.
  Show the picture in the book.
  What do the children notice?
  Why are the hands stretched out like that? (They are desperate, starving.)
  We put a loaf of bread on our table and nobody grabbed it.
  What is different?
  Why is the loaf of bread in the picture so important? (Possibly the difference between life and death.)

• Develop

  Groups of children make bread.
  The key point is that yeast makes bread rise. It is an active, living ingredient.
  The bible has a famous story that shows the importance of bread, first as food, and second as a symbol.
  Read or retell the story of the feeding of the five thousand from the Bible.
  Imagine how that story might be told today: television, newspapers, Internet?
  In groups, the children design a newspaper headline and report or a TV report. Include sections about: 'What does this mean for us?', 'Who is Jesus?', 'How did he do it?', 'What about the effect on local bakers?' and so on.

• End

  (This section could be effective at the end of the day.)
  Look at the children's reporting work. Discuss their ideas.
  Explain that this story is still very important for Christians. It appears in all four gospels in the bible. Christian belief is that God feeds and gives life (like the yeast) to the world, that all good things come from him.
  Bread is an important Christian symbol to remind people of this belief.
  Sharing bread is a very important part of Christian practice.
  We are not starving, and probably never will be, but bread can still help us remember what we have seen and learned today. It can be a symbol.
  Share some of the bread - the children's if possible.
  Take some home to share.

• Assessment opportunities

  Can the children recall the elements of the story?
  Can the children explain simply the meaning of the story?
  Can the children respond to the feelings of others?

Activity three - what can hands do?

• You will need

  Paper in a variety of colours, pens, art materials, scissors and glue.
  Display board or paper to make a big class book.
  Sentence written on board or overhead projector 'We can use our hands to...'
  Page in book.

• Start

  Brainstorm ways to complete the sentence, and discuss them. Try to encourage negative and positive uses.
  Discuss a range of situations to illustrate the answers.

• Develop

  Make a display or big class book to illustrate the answers.
  For example, cut out large numbers of handprints in different sizes and colours.
  The children draw, paint, and write about their responses to the question.
  Mount work and surround with handprints, flat and curled.
  One page for a theme, for example 'hands can... hurt', 'hands can... care', 'hands can... feed', 'hands can... work'.
  Alternatively, display work around a fountain of hands.
  The display might be developed for the whole school with school or golden rules or similar around the outside. Or it could be used as an assessment if a unit of work has been completed using In the Making. In other words, what can the children remember - without prompts - from work undertaken?

• End

  We understand what our hands are capable of, and can do.
  Look at the picture in the book.
  When we look at people's hands they can tell us a great deal about that person, and their life experiences.
  What do you know about these people? Look at their skin, nails, position of fingers, thumbs, shape, size, dirty/clean and so on.
  How people use their hands says a great deal about the sort people they are.
  What sort of person are you?
  Sit quietly and look at your own hands.
  Think about how your use your hands.

• Assessment opportunities

  Can the children express aspects of their own experiences?
  Can the children realise that some actions are right and some are wrong?

Activity checklist

Activity one - help me

The book.
Extracts of music (optional).
Percussion instruments (optional).
Space for group to perform-mini drama.

Activity two - bread for life

The book.
A loaf of bread.
Ingredients for making bread or packets of bread dough mix.
Cooking facilities.
The story of the feeding of the five thousand.
Writing materials or ICT access.

Activity three - what can hands do?

Paper in a variety of colours, pens, art materials, scissors and glue.
Display board or paper to make a big class book.
Sentence written on board or overhead projector: 'We can use our hands to...'
Page in book

Web site links

For further information, look at the links section of this site.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/bread/

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/

© Janet Parkinson