In the Beginning....

This week we’ve been discussing the story of Creation. Our teaching team decided that rather than making a large classroom display, each child would make their own book about the story of Creation. To start our discussion we read many books and looked at pictures of lightness, darkness, the ocean (water), the sky, sun moon and stars, birds and fish, other animals and people from around the world and people resting. The majority of our discussion focused on the 7 days of Creation and what God made each day.

Here is one of the books our children enjoyed the most:

The first page in our book was for the first day of Creation: lightness and darkness. To make the lightness page we gave the children white oil pastels, white paint, and black paper. We encouraged the children to color the whole page and paint the whole page to represent the lightness. The children were given white paper, black crayons, and black paint and encouraged to cover the whole page to represent the darkness.

The second page in our book was for the second day of Creation: sky. We gave the children white paper, blue and white paint mixed together and white pom poms to represent clouds. We encouraged the children to paint the whole paper and place the pom poms on the paper in the shape of a cloud.

The third page in our book was for the third day of creation: separated land from water and flowers, trees, and grass. We created this page by having the children rip green construction paper (grass) and blue construction paper (water) and placing it on the paper with the green near the bottom and the blue near the top. Next we had them create a tree by cutting a trunk out of brown construction paper and adding leaves that corresponded with our current season, fall. Finally, we had the children look through magazines and cut out pictures of flowers and had them add these to this page of the book.

The fourth page in our book was for the fourth day of Creation: sun, moon, and stars. We had the children create the stars by tracing a star stencil, covering it with glue, and adding silver glitter and pieces of aluminum foil. They created a moon by coloring with white and black oil pastels to produce a gray moon. Finally, they created a sun by painting a pre-drawn sun with yellow paint and covering the paint with yellow and orange glitter.

The fifth page in our book was for the fifth day of creation: birds and fish. We created this page by doing some research about birds commonly found in our area (Illinois) and the families printed pictures of these birds at home with their children and then cut them out and glued them onto a piece of white paper. For the fish page we used the fish rubbing plates with crayons that did not have wrappers on them.

The sixth page in our book was for the sixth day of Creation: animals and people. To create the people page we all drew self portraits by looking into a standing mirror, using crayons, and white paper. To create the animal’s page we used animal print paper and animal stencils.

Our seventh page in our book was for the seventh day of Creation: rest. We took pictures of our children sleeping. We also colored pictures of items that we commonly use during Shabbat (Kiddush cup, challah, and candlestick holders) because we rest during Shabbat.

We finished the book by using a binding machine and putting all the pages together. We covered the ends of each page with contact paper so they were reinforced and wouldn’t come apart as easily.

Suggested Products from Discount School Supply®:
Colorations® Outstanding Oil Pastels Classpack (COPACK)
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera - white (WSTWH)
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera - black (WSTBK)
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera - blue (WSTBL)
Colorations® Simply Washable Tempera - yellow (WSTYE)
Colorations® 9x12" Heavyweight Construction Paper (9ALL)
Bag of Pom Poms (POUNDPOM)
Familiar Shapes Stencils (ESTEN)
Colorations® Extra Safe Plastic Glitter (GLSET)
Colorations® Washable School Glue (SCWG)
Junior Rubbing Plates (JUNIOR)
Colorations® Chubby Crayons (CRCHB)
Amazing Animal Paper (AAPR)

DAY SIX OF THE SEVEN DAYS OF CREATION

Day 6

On the Sixth Day of Creation God made people and animals. We learned that the name of the first man that God created was Adam and the name of the first woman was Eve. We also talked about how even though different people have different colored skin, inside we are all the same.

We were working on our Day 6 board at the time of Martin Luther King’s Birthday and we incorporated a discussion of his dreams and accomplishments into this discussion of multi-cultural tolerance. The children decorated multi-toned people cut-outs with fabric, hair, eyes and “global village” paper to represent clothing.

The children created 2 “animal representations” for our Day 6 Board. First they cut up paper that looks like different kinds of animal skin. They then glued the paper, collage style, on to large animal-like shapes.

Finally, they created the background for our Day 6 board by spreading different colored foam paint all over the poster boards – it was messy but we loved how mushy and soft it felt!

Join Us Next Time for the Seventh Day of Creation