day 19 :: creation

This is Day 19 in a 31 day series on Teaching Toddlers Theology. To catch up on where we've been, or view our menu of posts, go to this intro post. 

This Fall, I started teaching the 2s and 3s Sunday School class at church, and it's been FUN! I usually have 4 boys (including mine) who have a lot of energy and a lot of appetite for the stories that I share. I jumped at the opportunity when I was first asked! Since I've been spending the day after day of this past year purposefully investing spiritually in Titus' life (and having a ball doing it!), I felt like I better understood how to explain things to his age group than I would've before having kids. I'm loving it so far! Of course I'm learning that it's an interesting (and somewhat frustrating) thing to be your own child's teacher! :)

I started by teaching about creation, and with visuals and hands-on activities, its so fun for young kids to learn. It's a pretty basic story to teach too! You start with God- that before there was anything else, there was just God! We begin here to implant the idea of God's eternality on our kids minds! This is where a high view of God begins- at the beginning!

Things we learn about God: 
He is eternal
He is powerful
He has made everything we see
He loves us- his creation!

What we do in response:
We thank him for all he has made!
We take care of what he has made!

Toddlers can understand a lot of the concepts in the Creation story, like each of the elements that were created each day: Darkness and Light, Sky and Water, Dry land and vegetation, Sun moon and stars, and then comes the fun ones- birds and fish, animals, and then people!
And there's so many ways to teach these! When I taught my SS class, they loved the visuals of water and sky and animals and stars, and trees... and animals! :) You can bring in objects for them to see- a stuffed animal or a flower or leaf. You can find pictures for them to color, you can go on a nature walk.

To teach anything to toddlers, you need two things to help it stick: interaction and repetition. As I teach Bible stories or spiritual lessons, ask lots of questions to get Titus to interact and make more of a connection in his brain, to help him remember. And I tell the same stories and repeat the same lessons and truths about God time and time again! Then we get to the point that he is telling me the story and filling in the details! That's when I know I've been successful... then I trust God to work in his heart and make the lessons real in his life!

This is where the ONE story of Scripture begins, and how we begin to connect to all the individual stories!

What are some creative ways you've taught your little ones the Creation story?

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