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KS1 Assemblies and Collective Worship. Something to Think About: Valentine's Day

Themes:

Love - linked to Valentine’s Day / expressing love in different situations.

Before the programme

  • What does the word ‘love’ mean to you and who do you love? Who loves you?
  • If you had to choose one idea to finish the sentence ‘Love is
’, what would you say?
  • What happens on St Valentine’s Day?

Programme content:

  1. Welcome and introduction Ben has received a Valentine’s card and is wondering who it’s from


  2. Vox pops Children tell us what love means to them


  3. Song The life of Saint Andrew‘Chain of love’ (All about our school, no 14). Encourage the children to join in with as much as they can.

  4. Story 1. Good girl Sal. An original story by Tracey Hammett. Lauren is mad about dogs and her biggest wish is for a puppy. Then one day, Dad comes home from his work with a bedraggled little puppy who’s been abandoned - and the family’s life changes forever


  5. Reflection On the power of love to create a special bond between people. Thinking about the people and things we care about. Ensure everyone is listening carefully.

  7. Prayer Children can turn their thoughts into their own prayer of thanks.

After the programme:

Talk about the story

  • There were lots of different dogs that Lauren had in her bedroom. Can you list as many as you can?
  • What do you think Lauren looked forward to most about having Claire’s dog Johnson to stay?
  • Would you like to have a dog / other pet? If you’ve got one already, what do you love most about owning it? Are there things that you don’t like?
  • What do you think Mum meant when she said that a dog was ‘too much responsibility’?
  • Why did they need the vet’s help to look after such a tiny puppy? How was it different from looking after any pets you have?
  • How did Sal help the family as she grew up with them?
  • What did Mum mean when she said ‘it was Sal who saved us’?

Follow-up activities:

  • Write your own responses to the starter ‘Love is
’, maybe as poems during Literacy.
  • Make a ‘Chain of love’ using red paper cut into strips. Give each child a piece to write or draw on and ask them to think of one small act of love they could do for another person to write or draw onto the strip. Then make a large class paper chain with them to display in the classroom as a reminder.
  • What do you think the vet’s instructions were about how to look after such a tiny puppy? Write them down from what you learn in the programme or write instructions for how to look after a dog - use the children who have dogs / pets as your ‘experts’ to check what others suggest.
  • Collect data as a class about who has what type of pet - display in different ways to show different ways of presenting the same information - eg pictogram / bar chart / pie chart, etc.
  • Make Valentine’s Day cards to send.

Click to display the image full size

Focus image: Love’ in big red letters, with the ‘o’ replaced with a love heart.
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