Fork, knife or spoon

To celebrate our individuality and working together.

by Oliver Harrison

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To celebrate our individuality and working together.

Preparation and materials

• You will need some cutlery: knife, fork, spoon, teaspoon.
• Some different sorts of food, e.g. cheese, water or soup, peas; for a messy but hilarious demonstration you could include some jelly!

Assembly

1. Talk about how we are all different, with different strengths and weaknesses. Ask the children what kind of things you could be talking about and elicit examples such as being good at art, music, maths, PE, etc. Also mention character differences such as being quiet or louder; enthusiastic or cautious.
2. Make the point that if we were all the same then there would be too many of us good at the same things and not enough of us good at other things. You could give examples such as a whole football team of brilliant goalkeepers that would probably never win a match (though they might not ever lose one either!). Or what it would be like if every member of a (the school) band played the triangle!
3. Say that when we eat we might use a knife, a fork and a spoon. Show the cutlery. They are all different and they all do different jobs. Three knives would be no good for eating peas, nor three forks for soup.
   
   Hilarity with food may now follow. Ask one volunteer to take the fork and try to eat some water or soup from a glass or bowl, then let them try with the spoon. Ask another to try eating peas with knife, and then with a spoon. Try eating jelly with a knife …
4. Talk about how differences can be a good thing within a team. We can play to our strengths and others can cover our weaknesses.

Time for reflection

Reflection

Knife, fork, spoon for food

Each does a job

And each is good.

Me, you and the rest of the school

Each is different

And each is cool.

Him, her, you and me

When you look at me

Who do you see?

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank you that we are all different.

Thank you that we can all bring our own special gifts

and that we can work together,

valuing what each person brings.

Amen.

Song/music

‘'Tis the gift’ (Come and Praise, 97)