The word of the week this week is “almsgiving”. We talked about what this means and how we usually think about charitable giving.
However, it can also mean sharing something you have enough of, such as food, toys, books or time, with others.
We heard from Matthew’s Gospel:
We therefore know that if we help others in this way, it is as if we are doing it for God himself.
We thought about what we could share with others:
- Food with the foodbank
- Our time with our parents, grandparents or siblings
- Some of our unused toys with a charity
- Some money with CAFOD
We looked at this quote from Mother Theresa and realised that we only have to do little things to make a big difference.
Let us know how you achieve this week’s mission in the comments below.
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Year 5 said that many of them had toys that they do not play with and do not use anymore. They want to take these unused toys to a charity shop so that other children can play with them and get more use out of them. This week, year 5 also enjoyed giving up some of their time to raise money for CAFOD. We did this by taking part in a sponsored walk around the school field. I asked year 5 how it make them feel to give and most of them responded that it made them feel good to be a valuable part of making the world a better place.
Year 4 talked about donating food to the food banks and for those in The Ukraine who are struggling to get what they need. We also talked about donating unwanted clothes and toys to charity shops so that those who don’t have much money can buy things they need. As a class we are going to run 15 laps of the playground to raise money for CAFOD.
In Year 1, we talked about what almsgiving means and how it relates to giving. We discussed how sharing with others shows love and caring especially during lent. We talked about how we could share some of our toys to people or donate some food to the food bank. A child mentioned how he donated his toys to send to the children of Ukraine. During our liturgy, we asked God to make us become more like him and to share what we have with people who are less privileged than us.
This mission married up really nicely with our science focus on recycling. We discussed passing our belongings on to others rather than throwing them away. We appreciated how lucky we are in comparison to others who have very little and made suggestions on what we could do to do more, such as give to charity, hand our old toys and clothes to a charity shop or put them in a recycling station. We listened to a passage from the Bible which spoke of the great sacrifice that God and Jesus made for us.
In year six we thought about what almsgiving means and how we can add it to our lives not just during lent but all the time. During our class liturgy this week the liturgy team asked people to think about Saints that gave to others like Saint Oscar Romero and Saint Clare and we discussed how we could follow their examples in our lives. We spoke about the obvious forms of almsgiving, such as donating food and money to those in need, and we also spoke about ways we could give up our time to help younger siblings with school work, helping parents around the house or giving up time to litter pick to help our environment.
In Year 3 the children have been talking about how they could help others who are struggling, once they have finished their learning. They wanted to share any toys that they haven’t played with in a while and clothes no longer needed with charities that are supporting refugees from the Ukraine and supporting local charities by donating food or giving pocket money to charity to help others who need it.