Summer activities

To appreciate all the enjoyable activities that summer brings and help others who work to benefit, too.

by Janice Ross

Suitable for Key Stage 1

Aims

To appreciate all the enjoyable activities that summer brings and help others who work to benefit, too.

Preparation and materials

• Choose some children to prepare mimes of summer activities (see the list of suggestions below for some ideas and for the not so fun activities below the list).
• Ask for four staff volunteers – one to kick a ball around, one to do some skipping, one to lather on imaginary sun cream and lie down on a towel and one to curl up and read a book.

Assembly

1. Start by noting that it’s nearly holiday time. Explain that you have been thinking about all the lovely things we will enjoy doing in our holidays. Then say that some children have prepared mimes of some of these activities and you would like them to guess what they are. Here are some suggestions for mimes you could ask the children to do:
   
   – play football
   – build sandcastles
   – BBQ
   – swim
   – play cricket
   – play on the swings
   – lick an ice-cream
   – skip
   – play tennis
   – have a picnic.
   
   Lastly, add sweep the floor, wash the dishes, hang out clothes and so on (hopefully the children will respond by looking confused). Ask the children, ‘Are these summer holiday activities?’
2. Identify that the latter activities may not be ones we enjoy, like the others, but they are necessary activities, even in summer. Ask the children, ‘Who will be doing these?’
   
   Identify that it will probably be their mums, dads or other adults who look after them. Ask, ‘Is this fair?’
   
   Discuss whether or not parents and carers need a break from their usual activities, too. This doesn’t always mean that the family has to go away on holiday. Everyone can have a break if we all share the workload.
3. At this point, have the first two staff volunteers come to the front, playing football and skipping, followed by another lathering on sun cream and then lying down on a towel, then the other curling up with a book. Talk about how not all parents and other adults may want to play the activities that children enjoy, but they would all love a summer break doing the things they like to do, too!  

Time for reflection

Think about all your favourite summer activities.
Now think about how the adults in your family like to relax.
Picture each person enjoying the summer sunshine.

Prayer
Dear God,
We thank you for summer days.
We thank you for school holidays and all the fun we are looking forward to.
Please help us to think of others, too, and do what we can to make sure that everyone in our family can have a break and be refreshed.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Thank you, Lord, for this new day’ (Come and Praise, 32)