April Showers
Growing through the rain
by Becky May
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To explore the importance of perseverance.
Preparation and materials
- You will need some wellington boots and an umbrella.
Assembly
- Have your wellington boots on before the assembly begins.
Greet the children by saying, ‘Good morning! It’s lovely to see you,’ and hold up your umbrella. Make a comment like, ‘I’ll definitely need this today!’ or ‘I wonder if I might need this later?’
Ask the children whether they have noticed how much rain has fallen recently. Ask them how they feel about it.
Invite the children to share their thoughts and briefly discuss how much they enjoy jumping in puddles, or how they want the rain to stop. - Ask the children if they have ever heard the expression ‘April showers’.
Ask why we might have a special name for rain that falls at this time of year.
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain that this time of year can be rather wet, and many of us will experience short, unexpected showers of rain. This is why it’s important to keep an umbrella nearby!
After the long winter, spring brings both sunshine and showers; the temperature warms up from the cold of the winter and, as it does, the plants around us begin to grow once again. - Ask the children what plants need to grow.
Listen to a range of responses.
Ask the children whether they have seen any flowers growing yet.
Listen to a range of responses.
Emphasize that plants don’t just need sunshine to grow; they also need rain, which is where April showers come in. Although we might prefer the rain to stop, it is actually doing a very important job. - Explain that watching the plants grow in both sunshine and rain can be a helpful reminder to us. The sunshiny days make us feel good; they warm us up and the sun often puts a smile on our faces. When we have sunshiny days, we feel good about ourselves; perhaps we feel like we can take on anything or we feel good about who we are. Perhaps we feel excited about days out with our family, playing outside or doing something special at school. We feel warm and happy on the inside as well as on the outside.
- However, some days are not sunshiny. There are rainy days, too; days when things are more challenging. Perhaps we find our work hard or something else makes us feel low. These are our ‘April shower days’.
Ask the children what sort of things might make us feel like this.
Listen to a range of responses.
It could be that we have fallen out with a friend, we are late for school, something happens to make us feel sad, we struggle with our week or we just feel down in the dumps. - Like the flowers, we need both sunshine and rain to help us grow. We need days when life is more challenging as well as days when things feel good and easy. Instead of feeling down about the rainy days in our lives, it can be helpful to picture those spring flowers and remember what they had to experience in order to grow. They needed sunshine and rain together: both are important.
- Ask the children whether they know what the word ‘perseverance’ means.
Explain that perseverance means sticking at something and not giving up. We show perseverance when we continue to do something that we find tricky, or when we keep running in a race even when our muscles ache. Like the flowers that grow through rainy days, we can achieve many things if we don’t give up and persevere.
Time for reflection
The Bible has something to say about perseverance, too. The Book of Romans is a letter that Paul wrote to encourage the followers of Jesus in Rome. In the letter, he writes, ‘We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.’
Explain that experiencing difficult times can help us to learn perseverance. Then, like a flower blooming, we grow and become even more amazing! Springtime flowers can remind us of the hope that this Bible passage mentions.
Let’s be really quiet for a moment and think about some of the difficult things that we may be facing at the moment.
Let’s remember that we never need to suffer or feel sad on our own.
Let’s remember that we can always talk to a teacher about anything that we might be facing.
Let’s also remember that perseverance is important; if we can press on, we can all grow.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for springtime and sunshiny days of fun.
Thank you for the April showers that help the plants to grow.
Thank you for the way in which we are growing, too.
Please help us to continue to grow through both easy sunshiny days and tougher rainy days.
Amen.
Song/music
‘Little April showers’ from the Disney film Bambi. A version is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FUcrQhTBY (3.44 minutes long)
‘Goodbye winter, hello spring,’ (Spring Assembly Songs by Mark and Helen Johnson, Out of the Ark Music). It is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH-XNJ1mQZQ (0.39 minutes long)
