Low Furness School

The theme for this morning was Our Family so to start the assembly we sang So Many Ways to Praise the Lord.  Then I showed the children some pictures of my family like my grandparents, mum and dad, my family and the extended family of cousins of Grace and Martha.  Then I used the idea from Ian Jones' book on using Dog in a Bag.  So out came Scruff and as usual he had something in his bag which was a photo of his family and so we talked about families and what they are like and how we know that people belong to your family.  Scruff said that they share fleas!  I then asked the children what family they belong to, a number of children responded with God's family or Jesus' family and someone said Low Furness family as well.  This was one of the answers I was looking for.  I then explained that we are part of a number of families like the people we live with and our extended family as well as also being part of the school family and also part of God's wider family and then I brought in the bible verse and explained it to the children.  I also asked the question 'Do we always get on with our family?' and a small number of hands went up so I said that there are times when we don't always get on but when we make up and sort out our differences we are very often stronger because of it and that should make us be happy - which was a clue to the next song which was Be Happy.  Following the song I said a short prayer focusing on our families, the school family and being part of God's family.