Rain

To look at April showers and celebrate the diversity and harmony of nature.

by Gordon and Ronni Lamont

Suitable for Key Stage 1

Aims

To look at April showers and celebrate the diversity and harmony of nature.

Note: This assembly complements the April Showers material featured this month as a KS2 assembly.

Preparation and materials

• Look through the meditation below in advance.

Assembly

1. Ask the children if they know what month we are in. And do they know the season we're now in? Introduce the phrase 'April showers', and ask if they know what it means. Go through ideas such as washing in a shower, or calling people 'a shower', then read the rhyme below to emphasize the point.
   
   April showers have come again.
   Do they mean spray-washing, water down the drain?
   Or a hopeless football team, 'what a shower', after a game?
   No, it's April's weather - sudden bursts of rain.
   
   
2. Ask the children if they like the rain, and value all responses, including the fun of puddles as well as the misery of wet clothes and being stuck indoors.
   
   
3. Introduce the idea that rain is one of many types of weather and that it's good for the world. It helps to clean the air, it helps plants to grow and it gives us all the water that we need to stay alive.
   
   
4. Introduce the response in the meditation below and rehearse it with the children, explaining that whenever you say,
   April showers, feed the flowers,
   they say,
   Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

Time for reflection

April in Springtime -
the weather keeps changing,
look in the sky - the clouds rearranging.

April showers, feed the flowers:
Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

Rain can be fun -
as we splash in our wellies,
better to be out, than in with our tellies.

April showers, feed the flowers:
Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

We don't like to be soaked,
and our clothes all wet -
rain can be miserable and cold, and yet...

April showers, feed the flowers:
Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

Water from the sky -
our world needs it badly.
Water gives life, and so we say gladly,

April showers, feed the flowers:
Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

April showers, feed the flowers:
Rain, rain, rain, the world's new again.

Song/music

'I love the sun' (Come and Praise Beginning , 30).