Sept. 23, 2012: God Created You and Me

     Today we finished our unit on creation, by learning that God created everyone and he loves us all. We started by learning that God created a man from the clay and called him Adam, who was the first man. We also learned that God created Eve from one of Adam's ribs.

     When looking around the room, one can notice that everyone is different. Our next activity shows just how many different personalities are in our class. "A Bear of a Different Color" is one of our favorite activities of the year because it allows us to get to know each child in the class. Each child is given a coloring page of a teddy bear. We ask them to look at everyone's bear and notice that they are all the same, because we were all created the same.

A Bear of a Different Color 2012

     Next we ask a series of questions, that have between 2 to 4 answer choices. Each question requires them to color a different part of their bear according to the answer they chose. For example, "If you have a brother color the bear's HEAD blue, if you have a sister color the bear's HEAD pink, if you have both color the bear's HEAD red and if you do not have a brother or sister color the bear's HEAD orange." So if the child said they have 2 brothers, they colored the head blue. The rest of the questions range from "Do you like grape or apple juice more?" to "Do you go to church?" (The church question was the heart and they colored it yellow if they do. As you can see our whole class said they go to church!)

     Finally, when all the bears were colored, we asked everyone to look at the bears around them and asked what they noticed. Everyone was able to say that they were all different. Then we asked if God would love one of these bears more than another and one child said that God loves them all the same. This is a great activity to show how God makes everyone special. As you can see from our wall of "Bears of a Different Color" that no 2 students are a like, not even the set of twins (one prefers to have both chocolate and vanilla ice cream).

     The We Believe textbook has great little booklets inside it and today we used one that shows that people all are different either by the way they dress, the things they like to do, the things they like to eat or the way they look, but on  each page it asks, "Who made these people?" The last page concludes with "God loves all these people."

Ashlyn's Person

     Going back to the second story of creation, where God made Adam out of the clay, we used Model Magic to make ourselves out of clay. We talked about how God blew the "Breath of Life" into Adam and only God could do that, so our clay people won't actually be able to come to life. Each child was able to create themselves our of the Model Magic and decorate themselves with with googly eyes, pipe cleaners and construction paper. 



     Everyone will be able to take these home next week after they dry. Everyone should also have brought home the Earth they made on the first day of class today as well.

     Today was the last day dedicated to working on The Sign of the Cross in class, please continue to work with it with your child as it is fundamental for all of the other prayers. Next week we will begin working on the Glory Be, feel free to practice at if you would like to get a head start. All the prayers they will be learning this year, with the exception of Angel of God, can be found the last pages of the book in a booklet called My Prayer Book.
     
     A few reminders, class starts at 8:30 am and we ask that all kindergartners are dropped off directly at the church. Next week we will begin talking about The Church, we ask that if possible, please send your child with a picture of their baptism that can be glued into their book. Please remember to sign the homework sheet and have your child return it and their completed homework each week.

     Have a great week everyone!

Yours in Christ,

     Jason & Laura Madrigal