Religion has been linked with the arts for thousands of years. This series of six lessons for Year 6 gives your class the chance to find out how, why and when music, drama and art are used in religions around the world. These arty lessons provide plenty of opportunity for your class to learn how other people express themselves as well as learning how to use their own artistic talents to portray ideas about God.

With lesson plans, slides, activity ideas, worksheets, picture cards and much more, these KS2 RE lessons give you everything you need to find out the answer to the question: 'How do people express their faith through the arts?

A Knowledge Organiser is included with the complete series download, or can be purchased separately.

Expressing Emotions

This first lesson encourages children to think of faith as involving feelings and emotions. They will think about ways in which emotions can be portrayed using facial expressions, tone of voice and body language, as well as identifying why people like to express their emotions in a variety of different ways. Using a range of practical activities, your class will have the chance to explore some of these emotions and how they are expressed.

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Musical Moods

This musical lesson looks at how music and songs are used to evoke emotions as well as convey religious messages. Children will listen to two pieces of classical music, considering how the music makes them feel, before considering how religions, specifically Christianity, use scripture to convey beliefs. Children can then have a go at putting some verses to scripture to music for themselves or creating their own song to express their ideas about their own religious beliefs.

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Colour Code

This lesson takes a look at why members of the clergy wear different coloured vestments at different times during the Christian calendar. Your class will also think about other symbols associated with Christian festivals and consider how symbols and colours can often be linked.

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Painted Symbols

This lesson delves into the art world as your class discover why religious artists paint pictures and what emotions and messages their works of art are portraying. Children will look at paintings from different world religions before focusing on Christian artwork and the symbols included. Children will also have the chance to express their own religious ideas through art.

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Islamic Art

Children will find out about Islamic beliefs in portraying Muhammad and Allah, and consider the idea of idolatry. They will then go on to look at examples of Islamic art, finding out about the use of flowers, leaves, pattern and colour as your class study the differences between the way Christians and Muslims view religious art.

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Religious Drama

The final lesson in this series looks at how and why religious groups use drama to re-tell religious stories and contains plenty of opportunities for your class to embrace their own dramatic skills. They can choose their own religious stories to re-enact from any religion, or undertake a variety of other activities that involve preparing an aspect of a dramatic portrayal of a religious story, such as designing a set or writing a playscript.

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This Year 6 RE Knowledge Organiser has been created to complement the study of the Worldviews Beliefs and Values strand within our RE and worldviews resource offer. It is designed to support your children's understanding of key vocabulary and big ideas covered in this scheme of work, while signposting prior learning. Children are also encouraged to reflect on 'Ways of Knowing' about religion and worldviews, and to think deeply about the topic through the 'Thinking Questions' provided.

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