Celebrating Differences
We should celebrate the fact that we’re all different
by Janice Ross (revised, originally published in 2008)
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To consider that being different from one another is something to be celebrated.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Celebrating Differences) and the means to display them.
- You will also need six children of various ages to take part in the assembly.
Assembly
- Show Slides 1-6.
As each slide appears, read the list to the children and ask them what the list has in common – why have these items been grouped together?
The answers are as follows.
- Oranges, apples, pears, grapes, bananas and raspberries are all fruits.
- Citroën, Ford, Peugeot, Volkswagen, Vauxhall and Renault are all car manufacturers.
- A pencil, whiteboard, desk, dictionary, paintbrush and calculator are all items you would find in a school.
- London, Paris, Nairobi, Stockholm, Beijing and Washington are all capital cities.
- Meconopsis, nigella, allium, leucojum, adonis and echinopsis are all flowers. - The children are unlikely to be familiar with the flower names on the last slide. They are quite unusual flowers, but they all grow in the UK and Ireland. They are all beautiful and they are all different.
- Show Slides 7-13.
As each slide is shown, read the following information about the flowers.
- The meconopsis is a blue poppy-like flower, one of the few blue flowers around. It has a long stem, with several flowers on each stem.
- Nigella: what’s the same about this flower? Some of them may be the same colour, but that’s about it. Nigella has bushy growth and is good for cutting, with feathery foliage and striking seed pods.
- The allium is from the onion family and grows from a bulb. It has beautiful flower heads on the end of very long stems. Have you seen any onions in the supermarket that are as attractive as this?
- Like the allium, the leucojum is a bulb. It’s called a snowflake and is a bit like a snowdrop, but with a rounder flower. All six petals are the same size, unlike the snowdrop, whose inner three petals are smaller than the outer three.
- The adonis has lovely bowl-shaped flowers. You might see this flower early in the year flowering in rock gardens.
- The echinopsis is a cactus, a greenhouse plant. It likes heat and has to be kept completely dry in winter. The flowers can be white, golden-yellow or pink and are sweetly scented. In some species, these open during the evening and last for about two days. Blink and you can end up missing them! - Now ask the children what the following group has in common.
Give the names of six children in the school who are different in size, age, sex, ethnicity, ability and so on. Ask these children to come to the front of the assembly.
Explain that what makes them a group is that they are all children who belong to the school. This is our school family and we are all part of it. Each child is different and it is the differences that make our school a better place.
Time for reflection
Christians believe that God is a creator who loves variety. He made thousands of flower species and within each flower species, thousands of variations. He took even more care when he made us - we are all different. Even twins are not exactly the same. How wonderful! How boring it would be if we had 100 children in the school all exactly the same as each other! Imagine if all the teachers were exactly the same, too!
It would be a bit like a large garden packed with only one kind of flower. Our differences - in appearance, ability, background, talents and gifts, and potential for the future - are what make our school such a wonderful place to come to every day. Let’s enjoy one another today.
Imagine a flower bed in a garden. In it grow all the lovely flowers we have been learning about today. How pretty it would look!
Now think about your class and each member of it. It is the combination of children with all their differences that makes it such a rich place.
Prayer
Dear God,
We thank you for the beauty of your creation,
For all the new flowers out there yet to discover.
Thank you for our school,
For all the different people who make up our school family.
Thank you that we have so much to discover about one another.
Thank you that each one of us is different,
And that is what makes the school such a special place.
Amen.
Song/music
‘God knows me’ (Come and Praise, 15)
