GOD made the WORLD & ME

God made the World & Me
By David & Helen Haidle and Susan Laurita
Published at Master Books

About the book
Creation-based lessons children will enthusiastically enjoy!
God made the world and me is a great way to combine fun and learning! Thirteen comprehensive curriculum lessons combine science, art, physical activities, as well as activities for younger and older students, and circle time songs!
It's never too early to start building an appreciation and understanding of ourCreator, the Bible, and basic learning skills. Developed by a professional with 30 years experience in early childhood education, God Made the World and Me is a wonderful opportunity to start building a solid faith foundation while preschoolers learn about the world around them.

My Thoughts
This curriculum is primarily set for preschool kids. I would say that children ages 3-5 years old will enjoy going through the thirteen lessons exploring light, darkness, water, land, sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, birds, animals, and people. Based on the Creation section of the Bible, these lessons will combine science, art, physical activities and more.

I had brought this book at camping and one day we explore the first lesson as a family. My older kids where helping me with the two younger ones. For the first lesson we looked into God creating light. We read the scripture and looked into playing the flashlight tag but decided to drop this activity as we didn’t have lots of time to do it. This particular tag version is quite fun to play from the looks of it. Personally, I think I would adapt it so that you can play it in the darkness (at night in a field for example). Sounds a wonderful activity to do while camping!

The science center demands the use of a prism. Since I didn’t have ours at camping I had to wait until we were back home to do this experiment.    And then once at home, I realized that we didn’t have a flashlight…   So off I go one day to the dollar store close to home to get a flashlight.   Then I decided to do the experiment in the darkest place in our house which is…. my laundry room!   So one morning, we all sat down, the four kids and I, on the floor of the laundry room, closed the light and did the lesson.   The younger kids were excited to see the colors coming our of the prism after I shine the light from the flashlight through it.    The older two had fun as well even though the activity was a bit easy for them.  

Another science activity linked to this lesson needed cornstarch. After our light experiment, we headed to the kitchen to find the cornstarch (which I didn’t have at camping either…) and did the formless lesson using cornstarch.   The kids decided to taste the cornstarch and shall I say it didn’t find any takers.   Once the cornstarch was in the water, they had to put their finger in there…   LOL.    We also had an interesting discussion about what the world would look like if we were like the cornstarch in the water meaning formless.    The boys had fun listing all the things that would be squished and without form…. from the fridge to the house and us.    I think they got the picture and understand what formless mean.

Each lesson also has specific lessons for either older or younger children. For my family this is wonderful as I have a boy who will be turning 5 later this year and a little girl who will be turning 3 at the end of the year. Each of them can have their specific activity to do. Wonderful!

At the end of the lesson, you have a circle time where you discuss what you have learned as well as learn a small part of a song. The song is fun to learn. We sang it all while at camping. Based on the tune of Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping, Brother John?), the song will bring you through the seven days of creation and help you to remember what God has done on each day. All my kids enjoyed learning the song and singing it. Then the kids will learn a scripture to memorize. Done each day, you can be sure that the children will know the scripture and the part of the song by the end of the week. The scriptures are based on the King James Version. Personally, I will adapt the scriptures to learn to the New Living Translation which is the Bible version the kids use while at AWANA.

At the end the kids can color a beautiful image on what they have learned during the week as well as doing other fun activities.

This book can be used in a homeschool environment easily by doing one lesson over 13 weeks. Some activities might have to be adapted when it requires a group of kids but generally speaking they are easy to do with your family. It can also be used by preschool/child care by wither doing one lesson each week for thirteen weeks of spend one month on creation as well as vacation bible school where each day of the week will go through a selection of lessons. As you can see this curriculum is versatile as it can be used and adapted for a variety of situation.

This book can also be used with The Creation Story for Children written by the same authors.

This review was possible because I received a copy of God made the World & Me from Master Books.

God made the World & Me is available everywhere even at amazon.ca.