We want to welcome Elaine from her blog Planting Peas, to our Exploring Creation with Hands-on Learning for Kids series here on CMN. She is going to be sharing some really fun Creation sky and water hands-on learning activities with you today.
I’m so honored to team up once again with Christian Montessori Network to bring you some Montessori-inspired kids Bible activities!
Scripture
Genesis 1:6-8 — “Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.”
Telling The Story
I like to use props to help my children understand the story better. If you leave the props out in a basket on the shelf, it also gives them a chance to replay the story later on their own. I leave a little story card out together with the props, and my toddler loves to have me retell the stories over and over again. Click here for some ideas on how to set up a simple Christian area for your child at home.
This is an awesome Creation props basket — simple yet effective. Mix it all up in the basket, and take out only what you’ll be learning on that day, and you can see the finished layout after seven days. After that, leave it in the basket together with a control card so your children can continue to re-create and have the lesson reinforced at their own pace.
Creation 7 days props (Every star is different)
Montessori-Inspired Kids Bible Activities
Practical Life
Pouring activity — This is one of the most classic Montessori activities. It is a great activity to start with children as young as 2 years old. For this lesson, we will focus on pouring with water. If your child is just starting out, adding a drop of blue food colouring may help him to visualize the water. Use a clear pitcher so that your child can see the water flow.
Practical Life Skills (Pouring) – Mama’s Happy Hive
Clothes and/or doll washing activity — I can’t imagine any other activity that would demonstrate the customs during Biblical times. They had to wash clothes with their hands, and they washed their bodies in the river. Put a baby doll and some doll clothes (or just your child’s old baby clothes) into a little basket for him to wash. Wringing clothes is an awesome activity to strengthen those little hand muscles as well as practice wrist turning! Using a clothesline will be a great extension to finish off the whole activity. I love this activity because it shows the child the entire process of washing oneself and one’s clothes — from removing the clothes, to washing, to hanging on the clothesline, and finally back to getting dressed. Here’s a round-up of Montessori-inspired doll washing activities.
Field trip — Montessori encourages lots of concrete and real-life experiences, so take your little ones on a field trip to look at real lakes, rivers, or the ocean. In the winter, you might try to see if there’s a local nursery that has an indoor pond.
Language
Types of clouds — Teach your child different types of clouds using cards or books. You can purchase three-part cards or a nomenclature book inexpensively. The Pinay Homeschooler has free cloud cards and she also shows how she created a cloud-painting activity using cotton balls. In the spring, take your child for plenty of walks to see if you can identify the type of clouds that are in the sky. To go deeper, here is a round-up of Montessori-inspired cloud unit activities.
Cloud Activity – Pinay Homeschooler
Simon says — Do a weather version of Simon Says with your children. It’s a great and easy way to help them build weather vocabulary really quickly, it helps you to assess if they can understand and have retained the knowledge, plus it can be a great workout!
Sensorial
Water table — Water tables are always fun no matter what the age! Throw in some Safari Ltd Ocean Animals Toob, some rocks if you’d like, and let your kids go to town (or the ocean in this case). If you use the Safari Ltd Coral Reef Toob, you can actually print and laminate a free control chart from here for matching.
Water Table – Planting Peas
Art
Cotton ball painting — Set up an easy art tray for your child! We used blue liquid watercolor to paint the whole page, and then used a cotton ball to dab white washable paint for clouds.
Cloud Painting with Cotton Ball – Planting Peas
Cloud puffy paint — My toddler loves this activity! I think he likes the sensorial aspect of squeezing a ziplock bag of puffy paint and seeing it ooze out. Pop it in the microwave when it’s done to see the paint puff up into what looks like a cloud! Get the instructions here.
Puffy Paint – Planting Peas
Coloring pages — Coloring pages are always an easy hit with the kids, and this website has a beautiful free printable that helps to visualize a body of water being forced apart. To promote the strengthening of your child’s pincer grip, I highly recommend using broken crayons.
Day 2 Creation Coloring – Planting Peas
Science
Saltwater vs. freshwater experiment — Since our oceans are mostly made up of saltwater, this is an inexpensive and simple experiment to do with your kids.
Saltwater versus Freshwater Experiment – To The Lesson
Water cycle experiment — Create an experiment that shows how rain is created. This one requires only water, ice, a clear bowl and some cling wrap! You can purchase a printable water cycle chart here.
Water Cycle – Pinay Homeschooler
Geography
Land, water and air activity — This is one of my son’s favorite activities at the moment. He loves to match the animals to where they live.
Sorting Animals – Planting Peas
Montessori oceans activity — There is just so much you can do that revolve around this activity. You can create a DIY oceans globe. You can print free three-part cards and control cards. Have your child color and label oceans. If your child shows an interest in oceans, go deeper — here is a round-up of various ocean-related activities.
DIY Oceans Globe – Pumpkins and Me
Oceans Cards – Imagine Our Life
About Elaine
Elaine is a blogger at Planting Peas who writes primarily about Montessori homeschooling and fun kids activities.
She is blessed with a loving husband and two wonderful children. They live in Canada where the extreme cold weather might be to blame for her decision to homeschool her younger son. (She makes her older son walk to and from public school with a group of friends while she sips hot coffee at home in her pajamas).
Change is the only thing constant for this former corporate marketing professional and tiger mom from tropical Malaysia, having been baptized to the Lord and introduced to the Montessori method only a few years ago.
She believes that God is leading her on a path of ministry to children, and that Montessori homeschooling, teaching Sunday school and blogging are the very first steps to doing greater service for Him. She hopes to inspire and help others through her journey and experience
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