The First Temple

Introduction

Talk about your own house. Location? How many rooms? Does it have a garden? Show pictures, if possible. Invite pupils to talk about their houses. (They may have drawn pictures already which they could show.)

Click on the following links to view a range of different houses. Can the pupils recognize these houses and the people who live(d) there?

www.londonbyclick.com/imgallery/buckingham_palace/Buckingham-Palace.jpg

www.atpm.com/7.01/washington-dc/images/white-house.jpg

www.number10.gov.uk/tour/

www.galen-frysinger.com/european_train/stpeters01.jpg

http://wanderingblonde.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/anne-frank-house1.jpg

Main Activity

Go to http://worldreligion.nielsonpi.com/media/solomons_temple.jpg

Ask pupils to consider whose house this might be?

It is an artist’s impression of a house for G-d built in the city of Jerusalem almost three thousand years ago by a Jewish king called Solomon. Use Google Earth to travel from the location of your school to Israel and then onto Jerusalem.

Share with pupils the story of Solomon and the Temple.

Note: The Temple did not confine G-d. It was the place where the Jewish High Priest met with him.

Following discussion, children could:

• write about the importance to them of their own houses
• explain why the concept of a house for G-d might be considered absurd by many religious believers
• write about their own experiences of visiting holy places

Extension

Find out what type of services took place in the Temple

Plenary

Begin a Temple time-line.