Holiday Time

Here come the holidays!

by Melanie Glover (revised, originally published in 2011)

Suitable for Key Stage 1

Aims

To consider the joy of holidays.

Preparation and materials

• You will need seven large pieces of card or paper showing the letters of the word HOLIDAY. Make sure that you have muddled the order of the letters before you hand them out.
• You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Holiday Time) and the means to display them.
• Optional: you may wish to have the following items available: sunglasses and sunhat; woolly hat and gloves; a rucksack and a sleeping bag; a bucket and spade for the beach.

Assembly

1. Invite seven children to the front and give them the muddled-up letters written on card to hold, facing the rest of the children.
   
   Ask the children if they can rearrange the letters to make a word.
   
   
2. Show Slide 1.
   
   Ask the children to tell you about what they’ve done during the summer holiday.
   
   Listen to a range of responses.
   
   
3. Point out that holidays are a time when people relax. People share their holidays with friends and family. Holidays are good fun, and they can be long or short. Sometimes, people have a weekend break. At other times, people go on holiday for one or two weeks, or even longer.
   
   
4. Show Slide 2.
   
   Many people go to warm, sunny places for their holidays.
   
   Show Slide 3.
   
   Some people go to cold places so that they can do things like skiing.
   
   Show Slide 4.
   
   Some people stay in a caravan, where they make their own meals and travel in the car that pulls the caravan.
   
   Show Slide 5.
   
   Others stay in a hotel, where they sleep in big, comfortable beds and have their meals provided for them.
   
   Show Slide 6.
   
   Some people go camping and stay in a tent. They sleep in sleeping bags and cook their food on a fire or stove outside.
   
   Show Slide 7.
   
   Others go on holiday near a beach and spend the days swimming or playing in the sand.
   
   
5. Whatever we’ve been doing this summer, we will all have memories that we can recall and enjoy.

Time for reflection

Let’s pause to think of something good that happened in the holidays. Maybe we stayed at home this summer. Maybe our happy memories are of playing in the park, eating our favourite food, seeing a friend or spending time with family. Let’s remember that we can find a lot of joy and happiness in the little things in life.

Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for the fun that we have when we go on holiday somewhere.
Thank you for all the good times we have when we see friends or have time to relax.
Thank you for the opportunities we get to share our time with the people we love and enjoy being with.
Please help us to be grateful for little things.
Please help us to be grateful for people who help us.
Thank you for the lovely memories that we enjoy.
Amen.

Song/music

‘What time is it?’ from the film High School Musical 2, available at: https://youtu.be/x42aPmtnVDg (3.39 minutes long)