I thought I’d explain how we tell the creation story and tell you what we’re using for objects of reference. We’ll be adding more objects as we do more play – for instance we’ll be doing some craft and making a tree soon, so we’ll use what we make at story time.

Excuse the bad pictures – evenings are best for blogging but not best for good light for pics!

We sign all the way through the story – the main signs in this story are “God”, and “made”. They’re quite easy! “God” is pointing up and looking up at where you’re pointing. “Made” is a mime of making something with your hands.

So, here’s what we do!

First I get things out of a sparkly gift bag. This helps keep everything together (which in our house of mess and clutter is quite a challenge!) and it’s also another little cue to the boys that something special is happening.

I have a script in front of me, but it’s not long before you know it by heart. Notice from the photo the corrections and changes – most of our stories tend to get altered a few times once we’ve actually done them out loud to the boys!

When it was dark (cover the boys’ eyes), God made light (take hands away from their eyes with a flourish)!

God made the sky (reach up with both hands).

God made dry land (sign “dry” and get the boys to touch a rock)

and wet water (sign “wet water” and gently spray the boys with water – this is less messy than allowing them to splash in a container full of water, but I had considered doing that).

God made flowers (sign “flower”) and trees (sign “tree”) and they grew, and grew, and GREW (with hand still signing “tree” make the tree grow each time)!

God made the bright sun (shine a torch), the glowing moon and the twinkling stars (shine torch on a glittery star).

God made the fish (sign “fish”)!

God made the birds (sign “bird” and tickle the boys with a feather and let them touch it)!

God made all the animals (sign “animal” and look at some of the pictures of animals on their tablecloth, make animal noises)!

Then, best of all, God made people like you and me (generally here, instead of “you and me”, I will sign and say each of our names).

“Finished!” (sign “finished”), God said. “It’s great!” (thumbs up, big smiles).

Wow! God made everything (sign “God made everything” and do plenty of clapping, whooping and saying “wow, amazing”!!)!

Then we pray and Dan asks to do it again! We used to do every story twice but Dan gets a bit too excited and forgets to eat.

Obviously this is the formal bit, but this afternoon we were chatting about flowers (can’t remember why!) and so I did the sentence from the story about flowers and trees. I was happy to leave it at that, knowing that it reinforced what we are doing at Bible time and that it helps it apply to real life. But both boys really engaged and so we ended up doing the whole story while sat playing in the garden.

Oh, and does anyone else have weetabix cement on their table? It’s become a constant in our lives.