 |
| Collective Worship: Together |
6. The holy cakes
Audio on demand of programme 6 is available 02/11/2006 - 08/11/2006
THEMES: sharing, motives, not being discouraged, teachings of Sikhism
Preparation for the programme:
FOCUS OBJECT: cakes, some home-made, some shop-bought
FOCUS IMAGE: a Sikh, dressed in the Five Ks. Perform a web search (e.g. on Google images) and select the image most appropriate for your needs.
Programme content:
STORY: Holy cakes, by Deborah Nash
VOX POPS: Children talk about good advice they could give to others
TALK-ABOUT OPPORTUNITY : Pause to talk about whether the end result of doing something is more important than the effort that's gone into it.
SONG: Come and Praise 1 no. 47 - 'One more step'
REFLECTION: on travelling through life and sharing with others as we go
Pre-programme questions:
- Do you like cakes? What's your favourite? There's a story about cakes in the programme - not this sort of cake, but special fried puri.
- Which do you think taste best - the shop-bought or home-made cakes?
- What do you know about the Sikh faith? Look at the image of a Sikh dressed in the Five Ks (kesh - turban; kaccha - white undershorts; kanga - hair comb; kara - bracelet; kirpan - warrior's sword) -and consider why each is important.
- Look at real artefacts if you have access to them.
- Why do you think sharing food together is an important aspect not just of Sikhism but of other major world faiths too?
- How does it feel when people tease you? Why do you think people do it?
- Today's song compares life to a journey. Why do you think life is like a journey?
Story synopsis: Holy cakes by Deborah Nash
Harpreet and Rajinder are at the Gurdwara making puri for the langar meal. Harpreet's puri never quite comes out as she'd like it to, but the children's father reassures her by telling them a now very familiar story...
Mama Amrit Kaur spins wool for her living and her greatest ambition is to have just enough to be able to make special cakes for Guru Har Rai - the seventh guru of Sikhism. One day she hears that Guru Har Rai is coming to hunt in the forests near her home, so she spins three extra skeins of wool and goes off to buy the extra ingredients.
She is teased mercilessly by some other villagers and by Gunraj, one of the Guru's followers, who also mocks her for thinking that the Guru would be interested in her misshapen cakes, made from poor quality ingredients. But instead of being discouraged, Mama Amrit Kaur sits down to pray...
It so happens that Guru Har Rai rides past her house and sees the cakes, cooling outside. He is touched by her efforts and thoughtfulness and eats both the cakes gratefully. Gunraj hears about this and decides to make his own cakes, but with very different motives - and very different results...
After the programme:
STORY QUESTIONS:
- Why do you think Rajinder likes to tease Harpreet?
- Why do you think Har Rai refused to eat Gunraj's cakes?
- It says in the story that Gunraj wanted only to show his superiority to the old woman. Do you think the things that Guru Har Rai said to him changed him at all? If so, how?
- What things do we learn about the Sikh faith from this story?
- Do you think Rajinder's puri tasted any better than Harpreet's? Why?
- If you could put the 'moral' of this story into one sentence, what would it be?
- Is the effort put in to doing something worth more than the end result?
ACTIVITIES:
- Use the weblinks below to find out more about the langar meal.
- Find a recipe for puri and make some to share. Don't forget to add the best ingredient! (Love!)
- Print out the image of a Sikh from the link in these notes and label the different pieces of clothing and religious artefacts, adding annotations to explain what each is.
- Find out about other shared meals that are important to other world faiths.
- Plan a menu for a special shared meal for people who are important to you. What would you include? Why?
- Talk together about things that you find hard to do - or times when people have teased you for having big dreams like Mama Amrit Kaur had.
- Look at the words of the song and talk about what you think they mean. Who is the 'you' the song talks about?
Other weblinks:
Information about the Sikh religion from BBC Schools Online and elsewhere:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/religion/sikhism/
http://www.sikhs.org/topics.htm
http://www.info-sikh.com/
Some useful images:
http://www.sln.org.uk/re/Sikh%20images%201.htm
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.
|
|
|
|
|
Listen to an extract from the series
Come and Praise 1