Our theme for January was "God Made the World." I picked this theme because it was the beginning of a new year for us, and the beginning of kindergarten for Sophie. I knew that I wanted to make booklets with the girls, with one page for each of the first seven days. This was not fancy: construction paper, markers and yarn for assembling the book. I printed out text for the girls to glue onto each page, and they decorated each page with foam stickers that we already had in a stockpile (thanks to clearance shelves at Michael's).
In addition to making the booklets, we read lots of stories and listened to music that related to the theme. We read the actual story in Genesis many times and in several different books. One was The Children's Illustrated Jewish Bible, by Lauren Brown and Lenny Hort.
We also read from My First Bible, published by Parragon and illustrated by Andrew Geeson and Sophie Keen. Both of these children's bibles are great because they have simple text and colorful illustrations.
I was pleased find a variety of books at the library that worked with our theme. Some were Christian based while others were from a Jewish perspective. We are still navigating the religious waters as a family, so I chose to teach this theme using resources from both my religion and my husband's religion. Here is a list of other books we read throughout the month:Creation, by Gerald McDermott
The Story of Creation - A Little Bible Playbook, but Reader's Digest Children's Books
All Things Bright and Beautiful, by Cecil Francis Alexander, illustrated by Anna Vojtec
The Seventh Day, by Deborah Bodin Cohen
Fishy Tales, by DK Readers
Made by God - Spiders, Snakes, Bees and Bats, by Zonder Kids
"Uri Uri"CD, by Elana Jagoda - song #2 Seven Days
We also read from The Torah, which really didn't hold their interest, but I thought it was important for the girls to hear the "original" version of the creation of our world!
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