It’s a beautiful world: the story of creation

An assembly from the 'Hello, Scruff' series

by The Revd Sylvia Burgoyne

Suitable for Reception / Key Stage 1 - Church Schools

Aims

To create a sense of wonder at the beauty of our world.

Preparation and materials

• You will need a glove puppet or sock puppet of a donkey, called Scruff.
• As the assembly begins, ensure that you already have Scruff the puppet on your hand.
• You may also like to show the children some different varieties of bulbs or pots of spring flowers that have grown from bulbs.

Assembly

1. Scruff waves to the children. Encourage them to say, ‘Hello, Scruff!’

If this is the first time the children have met Scruff, you will need to use the following introduction.

Scruff lives on a farm with Lucy Jane, her mum, Mrs B, her dad, Farmer Brown, and her baby brother, Tom. Lucy Jane loves Scruff. She looks after him. She plays with him and she talks to him – when she’s happy and when she’s sad. Scruff is her best friend!

2. The sun shone through the stable door as Lucy Jane flung it open and came running in, saying, ‘Come quickly, Scruff. I’ve something to show you.’

Scruff followed her across the farmyard and into the orchard. ‘Be careful where you put your hooves, Scruff! Look at all the green shoots peeping out of the ground.’

Scruff remembered coming to the orchard with Lucy Jane and her mum in the autumn. The apple trees had lost their leaves and the ground was dull and bare. Everything looked dead. He’d watched as Lucy Jane had dug lots of holes in the earth and buried different sizes of dead-looking objects.

Ask the children, ‘Do you know what they were?’ Show them the bulbs or flowering bulbs, if using.

Ask the children, ‘What spring flowers grow from bulbs?’

Then Lucy Jane said, ‘We’ll have to come every day, Scruff, and watch the flowers grow’ and they did. First came the snowdrops, then the yellow and purple crocuses. Scruff liked the golden daffodils that grew, too, with their orange trumpets.

Ask the children, ‘Which is your favourite spring flower?’

Up above the flowers, the apple trees were now covered in blossom and fresh green leaves. Lucy Jane stood and wondered at what she saw. ‘Isn’t it lovely, Scruff?’ she said. ‘What a beautiful world!’

Scruff nodded, ‘Hee-haw, hee-haw!’

Take off Scruff.

3. Shut your eyes tight, so that you can see nothing. Now imagine that there is no Moon, stars or Sun; no sea, sky or dry land; no trees or flowers; no animals, birds or fishes; and no people, no you, even! Nothing at all. Would you like that?

4. Christians believe that God didn’t like it like that, so he began to create a beautiful world. First, he created light and darkness.

What did he call the light? What did he call the darkness?

Next, God made the sky. He gathered the waters together and called it ‘sea’.

What did he call the dry places? 

Then God really began to enjoy himself. He made plants and trees. He hung lights in the sky.

Can you tell me what lit up the sky during the night?

What shone during the day?

It was a very quiet world, though, until God made all kinds of living creatures. They made lots of different sounds.

Can you roar like a lion  . . .  bray like a donkey  . . .  grunt like a pig  . . .  moo like a cow? What other sounds can you make?

Now God needed someone to care for his world, so he created people.

Then God had a well-deserved rest. He’d had a lot of fun making the world. He looked at all that he had made and smiled. It was good – very good!

Time for reflection

Think of something beautiful that you see outside or maybe in your home.

Prayer

Dear Lord,
Thank you for our beautiful world.
Help us to care for it.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Who put the colours in the rainbow?’ (Come and Praise, 12)

‘Think of a world without any flowers’ (Come and Praise, 17)