Noah's ark story for older children

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

For reasons too complicated to explain, I will be teaching the story of Noah's ark to Y5/6 next term. Obviously, I will have to approach it is a far more complex manner than the normal KS1 activities. Has anyone any ideas for an interesting take on the story at y6 level? I am particularly interested in RE ideas; I know that there are lots of great cross-curricular things to do with the story.

I think the teachers that 'had fun' with the lesson were the best ones at school.

Who wants to sit and study the bible? Not me. Much better to look at it in different ways, from different angles.

Of course you can have fun with it! There are lots of genuinely interesting, engaging aspects which I would enjoy teaching. If I were a school teacher I'd see the nuanced handling of religious texts as quite an important part of my work, enabling children to move beyond the absolute truth / pack of lies dichotomy which seems to bedevil some approaches to the Bible. And dammit, we'd have fun along the way! :)

Mind you, I was the one who, when the health visitor asked our ante-natal group what aspect of parenting we were looking forward to most, replied 'having fun.' she wasn't impressed and gave me a mini lecture about the funlessness of parenting.

I fully intend to have great fun with it. And I really hope that many, if not all, of the children will too. There is nothing quite as exciting as actually using your brain and thinking and discovering your own views/a new way of seeing the world.

And now I am going back to my planning to add more ideas and details. I even have a bilingual Hebrew speaking child in that class!

Excellent! Bear in mind though that modern Hebrew is v. different to biblical Hebrew - one group of modern Hebrew-speaking teenagers I was with once couldn't understand much of the Hebrew Bible at all.