This morning Ronnie made a very sad discovery.  Our little amphibian friend Joey was lying beside the pond, quite still.

Ronnie carefully picked him up – he thought he might be asleep – but after a little while we realised he wasn’t sleeping – he was dead.  He took him to Angela, who helpfully found a wee box to put Joey in while they thought about what to do.

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Ronnie thought we maybe should put him back in the pond – a sort of burial at sea – however the majority of the children in the group thought that they should bury him.  They looked for a nice place in the garden and found one right up in the back corner.  They set about digging a wee froggy grave and when it was deep enough, they laid him to rest and covered him up.  They made a wee wooden cross out of twigs and packing tape, and Emma drew a lovely picture of Joey on a bit of cardboard, which Leo coloured in green.  When they had put these on the grave to mark the spot, they collected some flowers for him.  They thought of a nice song to sing to lay him to rest and decided on “One Little Speckled Frog” which they all sang to him.  Ronnie was a bit sad.  He said he had wanted to kiss Joey before he was buried, but Angela told him that frogs might not be very hygienic and it was best to leave kissing them to princesses.  All the children involved in this were interested in what had happened to the frog.  They were respectful to him and knew that we should do something special with his body.  An experience like this, sensitively handled – as it was, by Angela – helps children to understand the concept of death.  It was not traumatic or sensationalist – it was just handled in a matter-of-fact way.  The things that humans do when someone dies were talked about, and the children were happy to have a funeral for the frog.  To me, this is a far better way to teach about religious and moral education than stories in a book or an abstract discussion-  a sad, but very valuable lesson.