Our First Week - The Creation of the World

We made it through our first home school week.   It was so much fun!   My Father's World suggests spending the first 10 days on a creation unit before jumping in with all of the language arts, math and science stuff.  It's a good idea just to get used to "doing school" and where better to start than with creation.  We shortened the unit to 7 days and crammed a bunch of activities in.  I actually had more planned that we just didn't get to.  Nora woke up every morning so excited to see what the activities would be for the day.  We got messy and had fun and I think they learned something.

I have to confess, I had only a vague notion of what was created on which days.  I'm not sure about the kids, but at least now I know them cold.

Every day we followed a similar format:

1. Godly Play - we followed the same script as this and this video except we stopped after each day was done, adding on so by day 7 the entire story was told. The kids were free to play with the materials whenever they liked.  I heart Godly Play.

2. We read the day's account directly from the Bible. 

3. We used this drawing lesson to fill in what was created on each day.   (This is really the reason I remember everything easily.  I can visualize it much better.)  It was good to have a baseline for Nora's drawing abilities. She still has some fine motor challenges which make it difficult to use writing materials and scissors with control.

Nora's rendition of creation

4. We did an activity related to each day's theme ...

For Day 1 we went into the bunk bed tent, turned off the lights and played with glow sticks and flashlights.

For Day 3 we planted basil seeds in our window planter.  They started to germinate and we can see all the growth through the clear plastic.

For Day 6 we went to pick up more chickens since you really can never have enough.  (We have 10 now!)  These four that we got at almost ready to start laying.  Nora and Claire named them: Mira Dira, Lilliana, Ho-tee and Chief Squincy.

5. We made a creation number

Nora working on her number, Claire working on her hand....typical

Claire lost interest by this point on most days, as you can see by her spotty row below...

Johnny Jump-Up acrobatics are way more fun

6. We made a diorama and added to it each day

7. We did a themed sensory activity...vanilla and chocolate pudding fingerpainting for day one, blue water, ice and shaving cream for day two, dirt for day three...  Grand messes were made and I survived, yay!

Here's a totally tame picture of Lucy with the pudding finger painting.   

 8.  We had a food based on the day's theme...

On Day 4 we made sun, moon and star cookies for dessert

9. We sewed creation bean bags together.  Nora worked on learning to sew with yarn and burlap and she really did a great job with her stitching.



10. We learned the creation song

So, we thought week one was a great success.  Nora had a blast.  I have more of a feel for the flow of things and I'm looking forward to jumping into the "real" meat of the curriculum tomorrow.  "S s Sun", here we come...