ONCE UPON A TIME...

In our interconnected world of the 21st century it is hugely important for children to grow up knowing and respecting people, who are different from themselves.
As the year goes by, all religions have celebrations within their individual faith and culture.
These are excellent opportunities for your child to learn more, both about their own religion and also about other belief systems.
All religions were founded by people, who had faith and vision to respond to the situation they were living in; not two scenarios were the same.

To integrate knowledge and wisdom into your HOME SCHOOL, I suggest to look at four saints and prophets, who founded four quite distinct religions.
I have added The Vedas/Hinduism because it is the oldest known belief system on the planet. It was not founded by a prophet or saint, but grew out from The Vedas more than 7000 years ago...
If you feel more should be added please do so. These are just my suggestions:

THE VEDAS approx. 50th century BCE (Hinduism)
MOSES approx. 16th-13th century BCE (Judaism)
THE BUDDHA approx. 6th-5th century BCE (Buddhism)
JESUS CHRIST Anno Domini (Christianity)
PROPHET MUHAMMAD 570-632 (Islam)

The years are marked after the Gregorian calendar, which in and of itself is interesting, and leads to the first topic to be considered:

1) Why are there different calendars for different religions?
2) What was the historic context of the prophet?
3) Who was the founding prophet?
4) What was his message?
5) What are the most important scenarios of that particular prophet?
6) What handicrafts can you use to exemplify the prophet's message?
7) What visual arts projects would highlight the important aspects of the religion?
8) Are there particular songs and dances connected to this religion?
9) What food and drink would belong to that particular time and place?

The aim is for your child to have multi-sensory experiences, without much intellectual analysis; just listen to the stories, eat the food, create a painting, maybe dress up; and even perform small plays taking inspiration from the time and life of the prophet.

I will post my suggestions as the year goes by, and hopefully this will lead you to be creative and come up with further ideas of how to engage a certain religion and its cultural aspects with your child. If you happen to know someone from a particular religion, maybe invite them or go visit...

Enjoy!!!