Family

To celebrate National Family Week, a time to promote and celebrate family life (31 May-6 June 2010).

by Janice Ross

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To celebrate National Family Week, a time to promote and celebrate family life (31 May–6 June 2010).

Preparation and materials

• You will need to download the following and show the video (see point 3.) www.nationalfamilyweek.co.uk/2009_showcase_video/.

Assembly

1. Introduce the subject of families. A family can be described as a group of people, living together, usually related to each other, who love one another. Ask some children to share how many live in their family. (Be very aware of the different cultures represented, of broken homes, of single-parent homes.)
2. What do families like doing together? Allow some children to share their favourite activities.
   
   Explain that family life can often be very busy. Both parents may go out to work. Sometimes they have work to do in the evenings. Children belong to different clubs and parents have to get them there and collect them. And then there is homework! Sometimes we don’t have the time to do things together that we enjoy.
3. Explain that the reason we are talking about family today is that this is National Family Week. This is a time when we are being encouraged to stop our busy lifestyles and to celebrate how good it is to belong to a family. National Family Week encourages us, at some point during this week, to make time to do something as a family.
   
   The first National Family Week was in 2009 and we are going to watch a video clip of what families got up to all over the country. Watch and listen carefully and see how many activities you can spot.
   
   Show the video from the website above.
4. Can the children list the activities mentioned? Which ones would need a bright sunny day? A whole day? A lot of organizing? Money? An hour? Half an hour? Identify the importance of quality time.
5. Ask the children to pass on the idea of National Family Week to their families. Perhaps they could even take responsibility for organizing something for their family to enjoy together: a game, a family meal, a walk, a story, a film.

Time for reflection

Take a few minutes to think about your family. Think about something you have done together recently which you enjoyed.

Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for our families.
Thank you that they are special to us.
Thank you that in our families we have people who love us
and people whom we love.
Thank you for belonging.
Thank you for the happy times we have together.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Thank you, Lord’ (Come and Praise, 32)