Lesson 8: I am thankful for the day and night

I am grateful for the lesson I am thankful for the night and day. My class is SUPER young so I have REALLY been looking forward to starting the creation lessons. I feel like the kids can understand these lessons so much easier. The concepts are much less abstract so it is easier to keep their attention.

I've realized that since my stake had stake conference I'm probably a week behind most of you. I'd love to hear what you did last week and hopefully I'll be even with you again sometime in the year.

Here's the plan for tomorrow:


During snack time I've started bringing a book or two from the library to read them while they eat. I do my best to make it relate to the lesson or be the scripture story in the lesson. This week I'm bringing Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes to introduce the idea of the night and The Sun's Day by Mordicai Gerstein to talk about the day. A few other good books about the subject are
Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger
Where Does the Sun Go at Night? by Mirra Ginsburg
When the Sun Rose by Barbara Berger
Goodnight, Goodnight by Ever Rice
Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

I'm going to have them around for the kids to read if they want.

Here's my lesson plan:


Show Picture of Earth
Ask What is this? The Earth. Who Made the Earth?
Show Picture of Heavenly Father and Jesus.
Why did they make the Earth? Because they love you! and they wanted you to have a place you could come live with your family.

(I'm going to try to do that same opening for every creation lesson until the kids have it down.)

Do you know what the first thing that Jesus created on the earth was?
Show picture of night and day picture from the gospel library.
Ask them what is in the picture. If they can't get it I'll tell them Night and Day!

Day:
I'm going to talk about day first. Is the sun or the moon out during the day? Yes, Jesus made the sun so we would have day. What does the sun do?
It gives us light, it makes us warm, it helps plants to grow. (Try to find pictures for each thing)

What do you like to do in the day?
Let kids answer.

NIght:
But Day doesn't last forever does it? What comes after the day, when the sun goes down? Night. Is the Sun or the Moon in the sky at night? Jesus put the moon in the sky at night. There's also something else we can see at night. Do you know what it is? If they can't guess, I'll pull out one of the foil stars. You can also see the stars at night. Jesus put the stars in the sky to help people find their way in the dark.



Tell story of three wise man, emphasizing that the wise men used the stars in the night to find baby Jesus. Show picture. Let the kids point out the star they wise men followed. That's why Jesus wants us to be like stars to show others the way to do what's right. Can you show your brothers and sisters how to do what's right? What can you do? (Answers like be nice, help mom, etc)
Sing I Am Like A Star Shining Brightly with foil stars.

If the kids are still paying attention I'm going to show them several pictures and ask if it is day or night until they have it down.

Then to get the wiggles that have been building up out, we'll do the God Creation finger play:

God’s Creation

God made the moon (make a circle with hands)
And winking stars (open and close hands)
And put them in the sky (reach up).
He made the sun (make a circle with arms overhead)
And trees (hold arms straight up)
And flowers (cup hands)
And little birds that fly (wave arms).
(From Fascinating Finger Fun by Eleanor Doan. © 1951. Used by permission.)

After that we'll play a Night and Day game:

When the lights are on it's day and I'll give the kids a command to run or march or hop or yell or clap.
But when I flip off the light switch, I'll yell Night! and the kids have to stop and pretend they're asleep.
When I flip the lights back on they can start again.

Craft:
Kt gave a great suggestion for the craft this week and I am going to use. Get black construction paper and the shiny star stickers and let each kid decorate their night sky. White and pink crayons should work on the black construction paper too.

That's my plan. I didn't use the story in the lesson manual about the night in the Americas when it didn't get dark because I think it would REALLY confuse my young kids. I think the three wise men story should be a good substitution. Any suggestions?