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Let’s get talking!
—It’s such a privilege to be invited into a school to teach a class. My favourite bit is always listening to the children talk, their insights and questions reveal a depth of thinking that teachers don’t always expect.
Let’s get talking!
“The discussions were exciting. I liked hearing what other people were thinking.” P5 Pupil
“It got them thinking very deeply about issues they had previously probably never discussed. The level of engagement and variety of responses were wonderful.” P7 Teacher, Middleton Park Primary school
It’s such a privilege to be invited into a school to teach a class. My favourite bit is always listening to the children talk, their insights and questions reveal a depth of thinking that teachers don’t always expect.
My role is to create space where they can use their voice and share their ideas. One of my favourite ways of doing that is included in the David and Goliath resource pack. We have great fun acting out the story (there’s always a loud cheer as David’s stone ‘hits’ Goliath and he falls dramatically to the floor!) and then split into small groups to look at pictures of the story. I ask the groups to work together to put the pictures in the right order to retell the story.
Already they’re starting to chat as together they figure out the characters and the scenes and discuss what came when. Then, with slips of paper ready, I ask them to think of, and write down, a question about each picture and the part of the story represented by it. The questions they come up with are amazing,
‘Why is Goliath a giant?’
‘What food was in the packed lunch?’
‘Is God’s power super strong in us?’
‘Why did God make David a killer by killing Goliath?’
‘If God is real, why isn’t he stopping terror attacks?’
The next challenge is to try to answer those questions together, what do they already know? What can they find out from the Bible text? What questions will we never know the answer to and have to give a best guess answer? What do they think the answer is? I can never predict where the discussion will go but it’s wonderful to listen to the children sharing their thoughts and respecting the views of others as they chat together.
Other than printing out the pictures (which is easy as we include PowerPoints of images in the resource packs for each story) there is no prep needed for this activity, it’s simple but so effective.
Blog by Sue Thomson, SBS Educational Resources Coordinator
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The Must Know Bible Stories resources are packed full of ideas that encourage children to talk! The lesson plans will help you involve the children as active participants, as you explore a Bible story and discover Christian belief together. They’ll ask questions, share their views and together consider how faith and belief affect the world they live in.
