Pause for Thought: It’s Freezing!
Winter is amazing
by Rebecca Parkinson
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To encourage us to look closely at nature and recognize its wonder.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Pause for Thought: It's Freezing!) and the means to display them.
Assembly
- Ask the children to describe the weather during different seasons of the year.
Listen to a range of responses. - Ask the children what the weather has been like during the past week.
Listen to a range of responses. - Discuss the fact that the weather gets colder in winter. Perhaps some of the children have seen people having to defrost their cars before they set off to work on a wintry morning.
Show Slide 1.
Ask the children to describe a cold, frosty day. Encourage them to think about their senses: the sound of crunching underfoot, the feeling of cold, the sight of warm breath in the air. - Ask the children whether they have ever stopped to look closely at plants and leaves on a frosty day.
Show Slides 2 and 3.
Encourage them to take a closer look on the next frosty morning. - Show Slides 4 and 5.
Ask the children what they enjoy about snow.
Listen to a range of responses. - Ask the children if they have ever looked closely at snow.
Show Slide 6.
Explain that when we look at snow close-up, it looks like white powder. However, if we look at it through a powerful microscope, we can see that snow is made up of individual snowflakes. All of the snowflakes are different and beautifully made!
Show Slides 7-10.
Time for reflection
The world is amazing! Christians believe that God made the world. Isn’t it wonderful that he didn’t make only one kind of tree or one type of flower or one kind of animal? Instead, the world is bursting with variety! Even the things that we can’t see with our eyes alone, such as the intricacy of a snowflake, are all individual and beautiful.
Sometimes, we can look at each other and wish that we were like someone else. We might wish that we looked a bit different or had different skills or talents. However, Christians believe that God made each of us special and amazing. A verse in the Bible describes us as ‘wonderfully made’. (Psalm 139.14)
Remind the children to look closely at the world around them. Encourage them to remember that they are wonderfully made!
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for our amazing world.
Thank you for the snowflakes,
That each one is different and special.
Thank you that we are all different.
Thank you that each of us is beautifully and wonderfully made.
Amen.
Song/music
‘Winter wonderland’, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIKt5p3UmXg (2.30 minutes long)
‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ by Jim Bailey, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adiwFcG0dH0 (3.28 minutes long)
Extension activities
- Research snowflakes and make a collage of images.
- Design a snowflake. Perhaps you could construct one by using paper straws.
- Make a paper snowflake. An example of how to do this is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ua_tS8Zmv8 (5.24 minutes long)
