1. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY - KS1
CREATION
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY - KS1
This presentation aims to introduce KS1 children to the story of Creation which is shared by both Judaism and Christianity.
In this introduction, children will be taught to:
recall key features of the story of creation in Genesis;
say something about how and why Christians and Jews try to help others (by looking after the world); and
provide a good reason for the view they have and the connections they make.

2. What can we learn about the World from the story of creation in the Bible?
Explain to the children that we are thinking about our world: Planet Earth.
Explain that there are many creation stories told by people in different countries and in different religions and that one of these can be found in the book of Genesis - the first book in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
You may wish to explain that the Jewish Bible begins with the five books of Moses, known as the Torah, or books of law. The Old Testament of the Christian Bible is practically the same as the Jewish Bible. Christians also have a New Testament in their Bible, which contains stories and teachings of Jesus and his first followers.

3. What do you think the artist is trying to portray in this picture?.
Show children this picture and ask for their responses to the question.
Ask some further questions about the picture and get responses after each one:
- What can you actually see in the picture? Describe what you see in detail to a partner.
- What do you think is happening in the picture?
- Whose hands might they be? What are they doing?
- What do you wonder about the picture? For example, I wonder why that one star is brighter than the others?
Make a record of children’s questions about the creation of the world.
What do you think the artist is trying to portray in this picture?

4. How did the world begin?
Show this slide and ask the children to talk to one another about their ideas.
Explain that many people believe that the world and everything in it was created by God. But who or what is God? And what might God’s plan be for us human beings if we have been created by God?
Remind children of their questions from the last slide. Do they have any more to add? These could be added to this, or a new slide.

5. Christian and Jewish believers both share the same creation story
Christian and Jewish believers both share the same creation story. It can be found in Genesis Chapter 1.
Explain that many people have wondered about the sort of questions that the children have asked so far. And that in order to provide some answers, stories have been told. Sometimes these stories are in the form of poems.
Show a version of the Biblical Creation story in Genesis 1 from the link in this slide or similar.
Encourage the children to look carefully at what happened on each day and point out that it is a kind of poem, celebrating each part of creation with repeating phrases: (and there was evening and there was morning… and God saw that it was good…).
Split the class into seven and number them. Ask each group to watch out of for their number day and remember what happened on it.
You could then read the account from Genesis and ask each group to say what happened on their day as they get to it.
Make groups of seven children where possible – so that each group has a child from the different day represented.
Explain that many Christian and Jewish believers see the creation story as a kind of poem that celebrates the good things in the world. Ask the children to make a list of the things that are said to be ‘good’ in the story.
Let’s look at the story….

6. Show children word clouds or ‘Wordles’ on the internet that relate to Genesis 1 and 2.
Ask the children to make their own to show the most important words biggest and boldest and the lesser ones smaller and lighter.
Set some limits to the number of words according to children’s ability and encourage them to make the word cloud in the shape of something that was created in the story [You could supply cut out shapes if needed], e.g., a leaf as in this slide or a fish as on the next slide.
Some children might prefer to make a pictorial or storyboard representation of the creation story they have heard and compare it to their original ideas of how they thought the world began.

7. Show this fish-shaped Wordle and point out that according to the Genesis story the Earth and everything in it are important to God.
Ask the children to say whether they think some things are more important than others and to say why.
Do some of them think that everything that is created in the story is equally important? Why might that be?
Point out how everything in the natural world is ‘inter-related’ or ‘all linked up’. What might happen if one part of the creation was taken away?

8. And God told Adam and Eve to rule over every living thing.
God made the Earth and all the plants and animals and said that it was good.
And God told Adam and Eve to rule over every living thing.
Point out that in Genesis 1: 27 God tells Adam and Eve to “Fill the earth and take control of it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. Rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
What Next:
To explore this further in successive lessons children could:
- make new animals or plants out of modelling clay to empathise how it would feel to be a creator. Ask: How would you feel if somebody squashed, damaged or hurt your creation?
- look at scenes across the world (age appropriate) where there is evidence of people caringly “ruling over every living thing” and other examples of pollution or waste which is spoiling creation. Which do the children feel is an example that a Jewish or Christian child would want to follow and explain why, referring back to the gift of creation which we have learnt about and the fact it started out as “good”.

9. So what have we learnt about the world from the shared Jewish and Christian story? How do you think that affects how Jewish and Christian believers look after the world?
Show this slide and ask the children what they think were the most important parts of the story and what they have learnt from it. What reasons do they have for their views?
Remind them of the role Adam and Eve were given and ask, Do you think that Jews and Christians today would think that was their role too? Why?