Harvest: Our Daily Bread
An assembly from the Culham St Gabriel archive
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To consider the process of bread-making as a focus for Harvest thanksgiving.
Preparation and materials
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You will need several different loaves; the ingredients for bread making, such as yeast, flour, salt, water and a mixing bowl; and some stalks of wheat.
If the loaves of bread and stalks of wheat are not available, you will need the following images and the means to display them during the assembly:
- loaves of bread, available at: http://tinyurl.com/hnq599q and http://tinyurl.com/hj6lpsv and http://tinyurl.com/hyucpzc and http://tinyurl.com/q9ur7we
- stalks of wheat, available at: http://tinyurl.com/zosdarr -
You will also need seven cards that have one letter on each to form the word ‘HARVEST’.
Assembly
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Show the children the variety of loaves and ask them which they prefer to eat. Ask the children if they can think of any other varieties of bread. These could include types of bread, bread rolls and so on.
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Ask if anyone knows how to make a loaf of bread. Ask which ingredients are required and, as the children suggest the correct ingredients, bring out those ingredients. When all of the ingredients have been named (give clues if necessary!), show the children the flour and ask if anyone knows how it is made.
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Show the wheat (or the image of wheat) and establish that, to make flour, we need wheat to be grown by the farmer.
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Invite seven children to come to the front and give each of them one of the cards with a letter on it. Ask the children to get themselves into an order that spells a word. Hopefully, they will eventually spell out the word ‘HARVEST’. Invite the children to make connections between the bread and the word ‘harvest’, and establish that, at harvest-time, we give thanks for our food.
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Remind the children that Jesus taught his followers to say a special prayer. It is called the Lord’s Prayer. If the children are familiar with this prayer, ask them to say it out loud. If they are not familiar with it, ask one of the children to read out the prayer or ask an adult to recite it. Ask the children to listen carefully to see if they can hear the part of the prayer that reminds us to be thankful for our food. The prayer can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/qh5yqcf
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After listening to the prayer, draw attention to the line, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ and explain that, in the prayer, bread is used to remind us of all the food we need to live and eat.
Time for reflection
Ask the children to sit quietly and focus on the loaves of bread. Invite those who know the Lord’s Prayer to join in as it is said again. Those who do not know it, or for whom it might not be appropriate to join in, should be invited to sit quietly and think about all the food they enjoy each day. Following the ‘Amen’ in the Lord’s Prayer, invite the children to hold up the cards spelling ‘HARVEST’ and ask them to join in with a thank-you song.
Song/music
Select from the following songs.
- ‘Autumn days’ (Come and Praise, 4)
- ‘Thank you, Lord’ (Come and Praise, 32)
- ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ (Mission Praise, 732, 1999 edition)
Follow-up ideas
Art and design. Model some dough.
English. Write some instructions for how to make a loaf of bread, or write a harvest acrostic, using the letters of HARVEST to begin each line.
Design and technology. Make some bread.
Religious education. Design thank-you prayers that could be made into a prayer book for use at school meal times.