Year 4’s exploration of Islam was focused around the Islamic place of worship, the Mosque. We began our day with a brief recap of our previous learning of Islam before learning traditional, cultural greetings in Arabic which we shared later in the afternoon with visitors who came to school.

We investigated key features of a mosque and then investigated Islamic places of worship from around the world. We consolidated our learning by labelling key features of a mosque, discussed times of worship as well as actions and symbols of respect within worship. This helped us to compare and contrast Islamic places of worship with catholic places of worship which we presented in a Venn diagram. With this new understanding, we each planned our own mosque design ensuring to include each of the key features, being respectful of design elements such as not representing faces within decoration.

Throughout the afternoon, we continued to explore decoration within the mosque. We explored Islamic art, specifically geometric patterns within tiles. We identified mathematical concepts such as shape, symmetry, co-ordinates, rotation, and translation, creating repeating patterns. We then applied our computing skills using an app to explore creating geometric tiles.

Throughout the afternoon, we also had an opportunity to observe and handle religious objects. We discussed how these were similar and different to objects within Catholicism, taking each opportunity to learn and grow our respect for other's beliefs.