Creation Week!

The theme for Han's Learning Time this week is the Biblical theme "Creation".

I did a couple of learning activities with her, in line with the passage in Genesis 1 which tells us about how God created the world. Firstly, there was no memory verse for her this week, but rather a memory statement, "God made everything.". Throughout the week, when I talked to her about the creations of God, I would teach her this statement. It's a simple 3 word statement, so I guess it rested pretty well on her. I would then proceed to ask, "Who made everything?" The answer is supposed to be "God." For the first few times, she said "Mummy!" or "Hannah!" It was really funny. Eventually she learned that the answer is "God." :)

We learned that God created the sky, moon, stars, clouds etc. So one of the art and craft activity that we did was a drawing-sticker craft. I drew the moon, stars, clouds and the 3 stick figures (representing our family). Han placed the star stickers by herself. This trained her fine motor skills a lot as the star stickers were pretty thin and small. A few months back, she could not have placed them so well, so I was very proud of her that she improved a lot in placing the stickers on. I topped off the activity by giving her Barney stickers to decorate her art piece. Needless to say, she was very happy!

When I went on to teach her how God created the flowers and plants too, we did 2 other activities. One was a simple flower arrangement activity. I got some bunches of fake flowers and a ash-tray with many holes from Daiso. You could also do this using a big salt shaker with many holes. This allows Han to practice her motor skills as she places the stalk of flowers into the holes and at the same time allows her to be creative in arranging her flowers.

 She asked me to take a picture of the finished product.

I wanted to show Han how plants grew. The fastest and fuss-free way was to germinate some beans. By the second day, they grew visibly. By the end of the week, they were so tall that they protruded out of the container. Han greets her precious bean plants good morning every day and she lovingly holds the container of plants sometimes to just look at them. I like the gentle way she handles the plants!

We also read some books on animals when I came to the part of how God created animals. Two of her all-time favourite books are Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Eric Carle) and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle). We also did a few animal puzzles. I am very happy to see Han enjoying puzzles more and more! I hope she can enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles next. For now, I really must flame up her interest in puzzles first.

When we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I also incorporated these 2 puzzles for Han. Both items only cost me $6 in total. Han loved the magnetic puzzle very much and she did it repeatedly. She was also able to put in all the pieces well too for both puzzles! I thought the 2nd puzzle (below in picture) captured the life cycle of a butterfly very well. I got this for less than $2 at a clearance sale.

We also started on reading a Chinese book every day, using Novum chinese readers. I really like them as the books have bright and attractive pictures and the chinese words are large. I got them for $2 each at Giant sale.

 By the 3rd or 4th day, Han was conversing to us in Chinese sometimes. So I was very encouraged by that! I must persevere in teaching her Chinese!

We also managed to make a trip down to a fish farm with my parents on Friday and that topped off our week of learning about God's creation. Next week, our learning theme will still be on Creation, focusing more on the creation of man. Looking forward to more fun learning to come!