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Branch 2 – Prophecy and Promise

Autumn 2 begins in November, the month when we remember those who have died, and then progress on to Advent; this begins on the Sunday after the feast of Christ the King and lasts until the Christmas holidays.

In this branch, children will explore the beautiful story of the prophecy and promise of Jesus' birth. The angel Gabriel told Mary she would have a son named Jesus (Luke 1:26-31, 38). Jesus was born in Bethlehem, laid in a humble manger (Luke 2:4-7), and visited by shepherds who were guided by angels to come and see him (Luke 2:8-20). This includes key moments like the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the visit of the shepherds.

Children will also learn about Advent traditions, including the Advent wreath and the nativity crib, as well as how different cultures around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus. Through these traditions, we reflect on the meaning of Advent: preparing our hearts, helping others, and showing our love to God.

As we move towards Advent and Christmas, we will begin to develop an awareness of our Church family.

You can help at home by:

Attending our All Saints’ Sunday Family Mass at 9.30am
Making a point of greeting friends at Church.
Talking about what the child sees and hears at Church.
Having a little advent wreath and lighting another candle each week with a prayer.
Enjoying the rich symbolism of the seasons – point out the advent wreath, the Christmas tree and the crib.
Displaying a crib in your home.
Talking about the real meaning of Christmas
Praying together as a family before bedtime and remembering to say thank you.

I know that Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem.

After reading Scripture of Luke 2:4-7 we used Godly play to share and explore the reading. We also enjoyed dressing up and retold the story through drama.

We looked closely at the map and discussed their journey.

We wondered …

how Mary felt on her way to Bethlehem?

what Mary and Joseph may have prayed for?

how I would feel on a long and tiring journey?

what I could do to be brave on a long journey?

We know Mary said Yes to God and He wants us to say ‘Yes’ too.

Through the chime bar, we invited the children to sit in a circle observed some images of Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph travelling. We reflected upon all the challenges and difficulties that Mary and Joseph may have encountered on the journey. We talked about how important prayer and trust in God’s help must have been to them both. We listened to some suggestions of what they may have prayed for on the journey.

We asked the children to think about things that they find difficult sometimes. We invited the children to ‘bring to God’ something that they find difficult – ‘Lord please help me with…….’ e.g being kind, my green words, riding by bike…

We then wondered…

if you have any questions about the journey to Bethlehem?

How can you be brave today?

Bethlehem was not a very large or important town but God chose it to be the birthplace of His Son because He wanted His Son to be for everyone – especially the poor and unimportant people. When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, there was nowhere for them to stay because lots of people had come to Bethlehem to register too.

We begin by celebrating Mary’s Yes, to Angel Gabriel. The children will learn that Mary was chosen by God...

Good News…

We enjoy sharing good news in Reception.

Our Tapestry Online Journal is full of good news from our families – Thank you everyone for sharing your Good News!

We received a special letter from God… Asking us to read a special story from the Bible.

We read the scripture passage from Luke 1:19 and used drama to retell the passage.

We sang an Angel came from heaven and listened to the story, ‘The Angel Gabriel comes to see Mary’.

Why do we wear a Poppy?

During our Prayer time we talked about the special ‘poppy’ flower …

After World War I, bright red poppy flowers started growing on the battlefields in France and Belgium where many soldiers had fought. People were amazed to see these beautiful flowers growing in places that had been destroyed by war.

A soldier named John McCrae wrote a poem called “In Flanders Fields” about the poppies, it helped everyone remember the soldiers who had died.

That’s why today, people wear red poppies on Remembrance Day (November 11th) to honour and remember all the brave soldiers who fought for peace.

We listened to the Word of God from the Holy Bible… John 13:34

³⁴And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

What did we Hear?...

We talked about how we must love and care for each other- God calls people to do this as part of their job.

Doctors and nurses love and care for people in the hospital. - Eleanor

My mummy is a nurse, she helps tiny babies – she loves them all . Aniaya

Teachers look after children, like us . You look after us. Freddie D

We talked about all the special people who look after us and protect us

We also wear a poppy to say thank you to the people that protect and look after us – Soldiers, police officers, doctors and nurses.

Branch 1 Creation & Covenant, Good to be me.

In this first branch of our religious teaching, we hear how God made our beautiful world and everything in it, including us. We learn that the Bible is a special book and hear that when God created the world He said: "Indeed, it is very good", Genesis 1:31. God tells us that we must take good care of all creation. We are to be stewards of creation – it is an extremely important job. We hear and practise the words and actions of the sign of the cross throughout the day: In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The children come to believe that God is love; that He made each one of us and loves each one of us as a unique person. God loves us, and we are part of His family. We celebrate God's family and recall how we entered it through Baptism.

We give thanks to God by reflecting on creation and responding to its glory through art, drama, dance, music, meditation and prayer. We learn to live out our faith by loving ourselves, our family, God's world and others. We learn through Catholic Social Teaching about Stewardship – Looking after God’s World and the Dignity of the Human Person; that God made each one of us and each one of us is special; we must treat others in a caring way because God made them too.

At home, you could help your children by:

• Saying prayers together and making the sign of the cross.

• Looking at pictures of animals and plants and talking about how special creation is.

• Encourage them to notice different parts of God’s wonderful creations and think of ways to care for the world

Stewardship

We believe in caring for God's gifts

‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work on it and take care of it.’ Genesis 2:15

Stewardship is all about caring for the many gifts that God has given to us. These include our environment, our own talents and other resources. All living things are connected, so we must use God’s gifts responsibly to meet the needs of everyone, now and in the future.

Our Reception Stewardship Mission is to look after our outdoor area – especially, our Allotment Area

The EYFS allotment is an area for children to spend time exploring God's World – learning how things grow and understanding the important elements of looking after a space that they are responsible for. Throughout all the hard work, the children thoroughly enjoy sharing and tasting what they have harvested.

We enjoyed exploring, observing and harvesting our allotment area after the Summer holiday...

Pray and Stay

Thank you for being part of our prayer session! We loved celebrating God’s goodness and reflecting on all the amazing things we’ve accomplished this half term...

We have enjoyed celebrating Divali this week with two of our friends who shared their celebration stories. We created our own Diva Lamps - have a look at our fabulous creations below.

I know we are all invited to be part of God’s family.

The Sacrament of Baptism is a

time when we come together

as the family of God.

We welcome the person who is going

to be baptised into God’s family.

🕵🏼‍♀️We are Church Detectives 🕵🏼‍♀️

We enjoyed exploring All Saints' Church , looking for important features.

We role-played a Baptism in Church

There are no items in this Multi Image Block

We enjoyed sharing our Baptism photos

We used our Golden Box to explore how we celebrate becoming part of God’s family through Baptism.

We role played a Baptism

After sharing the story Pumpkin Soup...

We enjoyed collecting our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch to make our own pumpkin soup.

We peeled, chopped, mixed and cooked... to create our own yummy soup.

I wonder if you can name some ways that we can care for God’s creation?

We can care for God's world by planting seeds and plants Niamh

We can pick up litter - Jude

We can look after our sea creatures by not throwing rubbish in the sea-Freddie O

We can water plants - Ruby

Can you create a picture of God’s wonderful world?

We enjoyed printing a picture of God's wonderful world with our green tomatoes ...

Can you give thanks for God’s wonderful world?

We can give thanks by...

Saying prayers to God. Thank him for the land and the sky- Ihechi

Sing songs...I like If I were a butterfly- Gerry

Say thank you for the sea creatures and the wild animals- Freddie D

Say thank you for the Man and the woman- Niamh

The children have been learning about and celebrating the Feast of the Holy Rosary with great joy and reverence.

We talked about how the Rosary helps us to pray and draw closer to Mary and Jesus. As we gathered together, we each held a set of Rosary beads, carefully counting each bead . We talked about the special prayers we say — the Hail Mary, Our Father, and the Glory Be.

We gathered together in prayer, holding our Rosary beads and joining in a decade, showing wonderful focus and respect.

Through this celebration, we know that praying the Rosary is a way to show love for Mary and to thank God for all His blessings.

We are learning about stewardship.

God asks us to take good care of our beautiful world. This is an important job called stewardship.

Stewardship is an important job that God has given us. This means we must take care of the world.

We have heard how God made a beautiful world and everything in it.

We enjoyed sharing the creation story again with the children and focused on the part that shows Adam and Eve ‘in charge’ of the plants and animals, helping God to care for the beautiful world. We talked about the word stewardship – that it is an important job to care for the world around us. We believe that God made everything in our beautiful world and God asks us to take good care of it.

We are looking after our allotment area – Freddie O

We can plant more seeds ready for next year- Malaya

We must water the plants – Caden

We could plant some bulbs and flowers will grow-Niamh

We are trying hard to care for our classroom and especially at tidy-up time.

We have enjoyed exploring the idea of recycling. We discussed ways we can recycle at school and home after sharing these books ...

We explored sorting materials for recycling – We talked about the different items…

We asked…

Do you know what material this object is made from?
How can we sort objects and materials for recycling?
Does this object go in this recycling box? How do you know?

I wonder if you can sort the recyclable materials?

We used stem sentences …

This object is made from ___.
This goes in the ___ recycling box.
I am finding the ___ material.

In our outdoor area, we explored woodland habitats.

I wonder how we can look after our natural world?

We enjoyed working in our Minibeast Mansion

We can collect leaves to keep the bugs warm- Chili

We used plant pots to make a bed for the bugs -Freddie

Let’s put the wood here to shelter the bugs from the rain-Alyssia

I found a Ladybird and put her in the hotel- she’s happy now- Ruby

Allotment Update...

We have been busy helping with the allotment and learning how to care for God’s world. We have enjoyed harvesting the last of the crops, such as carrots, tomatoes, pumpkins and potatoes.

We have been tidying the allotment by sweeping paths, gathering fallen leaves, and adding old plants to the compost. As we explored, we loved spotting minibeasts, noticing the changing colours of the leaves, and collecting natural treasures for our prayer table.

Through these activities, we are learning to be good stewards of God’s creation, showing care and thankfulness for the world around us.

I know that God made our World.

We are enjoying sharing and exploring the scripture of Genesis.

We believe God made our beautiful world

and everything in it.

God created the world and

said ‘indeed it is very good.’

Today, we went on a creation walk. We looked at all the good things God has given us. We then created our own 'good' creatures of the sea and land.

Wow, look at our fabulous artwork describing the scripture of Genesis

I know that we should look after ourselves and each other. I know that we should look after ourselves and each other.

Today we showed kindness to our friends by making them a friendship bracelet.

Bible Buddies

These dedicated children share Bible stories, helping to foster a love for God, reading and encouraging a sense of community. Through their kindness and enthusiasm, Bible Buddies inspire our children with positive values and teachings. It's a special time when older and younger children come together to learn, grow, and connect.

God is happy with us and loves us. We are special to God so we must try and look after ourselves for God.

We are learning that some things are better for our bodies…healthy food choices, getting enough sleep, exercise, drinking water, washing hands. God wants us to be happy and healthy so we can enjoy the world He gave us.

We have enjoyed working outside with the children, encouraging them to set up their own fitness trails. We are trying hard to improve our gross motor skills.

Drink water- Jude . Eat fruit and yogurt – Niamh. Go running or swimming – Florence. Eat bananas and strawberries – Gerry Eat vegetables like carrots – Freddie O . Lots of exercise – Malaya

We can look after our bodies by eating fruit and vegetables… After reading the story Oliver’s Fruit Salad. We enjoyed talking about different fruits and vegetables .

We made delicious kebabs…

Prayer Time

As we Gather together for Prayer time, we sound the Chime Bar as the children sit in a circle.

During our Prayer sessions we try hard to remember what we need for the Prayer Table.

This week as we listen to the word of God we are thinking about how Special We Are...

I am Special…

We listened to the word of God ... God says: You are precious to me. I love you. I know you. I know your name. You are my child. Isaiah 43: 1-2

Together we said, 'I am precious. God loves me!'

As we reflect on the Word of God we ask... I wonder how it makes you feel to know that God, somebody who is so important, who is watching over us, knows and loves every single one of us. During this time, we took our photos from the Golden Box and placed them in the centre.

We responded to the word of God by singing The butterfly song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imO2NiKo_AQ

We prayed together to thank God for loving us. Mrs Murphy explained how we can pray anywhere at any time – We introduced Prayer Bear and explained how we can bring prayer into our homes and families.

We finished our special prayer time together by making the sign of the cross.

I know God loves me and I am part of a family.

Families are made up of people who love and care for each other.

Family is a gift from God.

We have enjoyed sharing different stories about family life and special times with our families- The children have enjoyed sharing their family photos.

My Rock Family...

To have a birthday party- Jude

When daddy takes me to the park and leaves the light on at night- Chile

Daddy gives me kisses- Louie

Mummy makes me a special meal- Niamh

Getting hugs and Kisses- Anaya

Mummy and Daddy read me stories

When my mummy and daddy tuck me in at night and they play special music-Malaya

When I come home mummy wraps me in a blanket if I am cold- Harlie

Mummy gives me kisses- Anaiya

When I get tickles and loves-Ruby

Playing games with my brother- Ihechi

Singing songs in the bath- Freddie O

Playing cars with my brother-Freddie D

Smiles and hugs from my sister-Alyssia

Playing with my mummy- Aadhya

God made me. God loves me. God loves everyone. God is love. God made each one of us.

God made us, and we are all different and special and good. We shared the story ‘God Made You’ and discussed how we are all different.

We explored ways we are different, such as our looks, what we like to play with, things we eat, like and don’t like. We are different, but we are all special and loved by God. We must treat each other with care because we are all important and loved by God.

We used a mirror to explore what we look like. We shared the colour of our eyes and hair.