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Family Sign & Play Series

Creation

The Creation Story

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.”
Psalm 19: 1-3 NKJV

How to use this guide

The intent of this guide is to help introduce the fundamental concept that everything we see in the natural world, was made by God! There are MANY facets to the creation story and implications for us as followers of Christ. The focus for this study is not to get into the details and nuances, but rather to attempt to lay the foundation for the connections to make the unseen God become visible through what He created. All throughout scripture, God explains that things we see in creation, BOLDLY display God Himself, and Psalm 19:1-3 tells us that there is no language that cannot access it! This means that this tangible display of Holyl God is something incredibly valuable to us as we seek to introduce our children to their creator ! We can show our children that God is not only the maker of the whole universe, but alos the personal inventor of their fingerprints. He is the one who makes the sun rise every morning and is the one who gives inherent value and worth. He is the one who both gave the tiger its incredible strength and at the same time the one who uniquely prepared your children for His work. As we take a broad look at the creation story, the aim is to allow ourselves and our children to experience God in His great magnitude and goodness from things we can see, smell and taste.

Vocabulary

  • Bible
  • Truth
  • God
  • Make
  • All
  • Light
  • Sky
  • Land
  • Ocean
  • Sun
  • Moon
  • Stars
  • Fish
  • Bird
  • Animal
  • People
  • Dirt
  • Good
  • How
  • Know

Set your space

You will need…

  • Your Bible
  • Access to the website and App:
    • ASLV Bible
    • Deaf Kids Connect
  • Access to the Deaf Harbor Website or Youtube
  • A well-lit room
  • Play-doh
  • Flowers (any kind that have a strong smell!)
  • Fruit (one of your families favorites)
  • Cotton balls
  • Some small twigs from outside

The story

The truth from God’s Word

PRAY: Ask for God to bring understanding and clarity, and for Him to Bless your time- using it for His purposes.

SOURCE FOR TRUTH: Begin the story by opening your Bible. If your children have Bibles, encourage them to go get them and open their Bibles to the story of creation. Identify something for them in their Bible that they can notice. Ex: Can you find the letter “B”? Can you find the number “1” . Do you see the color blue? (in ASL, “B” WHERE?, “1” WHERE? “Blue, where?” By drawing attention to something that they can identify and notice, you are laying the foundation that the Bible, even the English
written word, is for them too! It is not something only for adults and certainly not only for hearing people! You are sending a message that there is useful information in the Bible and it is expected that you can access it!

Say/Sign: This is a Bible. It is true! This Bible tells us how the world was made!

WATCH: Genesis 1- 2:3

Deaf Harbor video “God Creates the World

COMPREHENSION:
Say/Sign:
How was the world made? The video explains a long time ago, there was no world! There was nothing- only God!

God wanted to make the world and everything in it! So He did!

God made light! God made the sky. God made the land. God made the ocean. God made the sun, moon and stars. God made the birds and fish. God made animals. And God made people! He made all! He is the maker of all!

DEMONSTRATE:
Say/Sign:
How did He make all? Did He go to the store? No! The Bible tells us how!

God made things by commanding them to happen. He commanded light, and light happened! He commanded “sky”, and the “sky” happened! He is so powerful, he commanded it and it happened! Lets see what this would be like.

Direct everyone stand up in a circle or semi-circle

Say/Sign:
I am going to point to you and tell you what you are, and you, as fast as you can become that thing! Are you ready!

  • (point to someone) say/sign: TREE! (they should stand up and take the shape of a tree)
  • (point to someone) say/sign: elephant!
  • (point to someone) say/sign: water!
  • (point to someone) say/sign: bird
  • (point to someone) say/sign: light (this will probably stump them, let creativity fly!)
  • (point to someone) say/sign: stars!

**you can make this more visual and less dependent on language by drawing the items you are going to
command (tree, water, bird, star) on a piece of paper and hold up each drawn picture to show the child
what they should act like**

-Feel free to take turns, and have someone else “command the same things again”

Say/sign:
This is kind of how it looked when God commanded things to be made! Everyone can sit down.

Say/Sign:
The Bible tells us that God made people too, but he made them a different way. He used dirt and formed the shape of a man with it. Then he breathed life into him! The Bible says, God made people more special than anything else in the world! Lets see what this would look like!

PLAY-DOH: pass out play-doh to everyone.
Say/Sign:
Okay, now lets show How God made people! He made people by first taking dirt and shaping it into a man. Lets imagine our playdoh is dirt.

Lead the group through the process of making a shape of a man, and breathing (blowing) on them.

Say/Sign:
Now you can make anything you want for 5 minutes

As Children are creating, ask them about their creations. Point to something someone made and ask, “who made that?” When they say they did, tell them, “you are a maker!, You are doing the same that God did!”

For older kids: Take turns allowing the kids to explain what they made. Ask questions where possible related to their item. Examples: (oh, what does that dog you made eat for food?, Do you need to refrigerate that pizza you made? What does that racecar need to make it go?)

After you’ve finished asking each child questions about their creation, ask them “how do they know those things about what they made.” This may stump them! Explain that they know these answers because they are the maker! The Maker knows best what its creation needs and how it works best!

Say/sign:
Who made people? God! That means He knows everything about us and what is best for us!

Say/Sign:
God is so amazing! The Bible tells us when God made everything it was all perfect! There was NOTHING bad that God made! There was no one feeling hungry, or sad, or lonely or sick. The Bible tells us that every single thing was good! It was perfect! God is so amazing!

Say/Sign:
Thank you for helping me act out how God made the world and people.

Taste and see!

Experiencing the goodness of God!

SENSES: The point of this activity is to bring a difficult concept of “nature” or “the world” into a concrete and personal understanding. By investigating elements of creation that bring us great enjoyment and recognizing they are directly from God’s hand, we can see God’s greatness and goodness in a new way! If you’d like to pass out a zippered bag for your kids to keep the items from the lesson, that is a great way to help them remember the experience.

Say/Sign:
We just learned God made everything in our world and us! He is so good. I want to show you some special things God made, are you ready?

Pass out a small zip lock bag for children to keep items (not the fruit!)

  1. Flower: Sign Flower, Let each child hold the flower and smell it.
    Say/Sign: Who made flowers? (GOD!) Who made them smell like that!? (GOD!). Wow God made flower smell so good so we can enjoy them!
  2. Fruit: (pick a fruit that your family really loves!) Sign the food. Let each person take a piece of the
    fruit and eat!
    Say/Sign: Who made this fruit? (GOD!) Who made it taste so good!? (God!). Wow God made fruit taste so good so we can enjoy them!
  3. Cotton ball: Sign “soft” ( you can fingerspell cotton). Let each person take a cotton ball. Explain this cotton ball, is soft. It is used to make our clothes, or pillows, our blankets! And its comes from a plant! You can show a picture of a cotton plant on your phone.
    Say/Sign: Who made the cotton plant? (GOD!) Who made the cotton plant be sooo soft? (GOD!). Wow God made the cotton plant so we could sleep so comfortably!
  4. Stick: Sign “wood”. Let each person take a small twig.
    Say/Sign: Where did this come from? (TREE). Where did the Tree come from (God!). Is wood strong or weak? (strong!). Yes! We use wood to build houses and it is strong! Wood comes from trees! Wow God made trees so we can use them to build!

Say/Sign:
All of these things God made so that we can enjoy them! Do you think God loves us? (Yes!!). He loves us SO MUCH! When we see these things and eat foods, and put on warm blankets – we can remember God made those things and He wanted us to enjoy them!

PRAYER: Lets thank God for these wonderful things and many more things that He created!

Questions for review:

Who made the moon?, Who made dogs? Who made people?

  • Answer: God!

When God made everything? Did he make it good or bad?

  • Answer: God, good!

How did God make everything?

  • Answer: God! He commanded it. He made people special and by forming them from dirt and breathing life into them.

Who is your maker?

  • Answer: God!

Does God love you?

  • Answer: Yes!

Where can we learn Truth about God?

  • Answer: The Bible

Going deeper:

Why does a maker know best what its creation can do or needs? (Hint; remember when you made things out of play-doh, how did you know what they needed or did?)

  • Answer: A Maker knows because He decides! He chooses!

When God made the world, everything was perfect! What do you think it would be like to live in a world where only good things happened ? Ex: Never tired, never grumpy, no arguments, all the snacks and fun things to do you want, getting to be with God all the time…?

  • Answers: Will vary

Seeing all that God made in nature that people can enjoy, and knowing that He made people special. What do you think God feels about you?

  • Answers: Will vary

A note to parents

It is amazing how God’s creation really does declare His glory! When my older boys were very young, my son who is Deaf had a fascination with the moon. It’s funny how in those early days, you need a pretty random group of vocabulary in order to help label the things our kids pick out in the world. I’m sure most ASL 1 classes would never even consider the need for the sign “moon” in one’s early ASL instruction, but we parents know it’s a good one to have early!

Anyway, a tradition that popped up naturally as we got ready for bed, was making a “moon tent”. Myself and my two sons would hurry to turn the lights off and take our positions next to the large window we had in our home. Donned in footed pajamas and baby shampoo scented hair, my boys would climb on my criss-crossed lap and I’d pull the dangling curtains up over my head and under my body so we could focus all of our visual attention to the dark night and the moon. As soon as the “tent” was pitched, my son who is Deaf would point and squeal with delight at finding the moon, as if it was an amazing and complete surprise that it would be there. We’d sign over and over again.. moon…. moon… my son who is Deaf would turn back to look at me and smile, pointing again with delight at the bright light in the night sky. His love for the bright shape in the sky could not be contained!

As my sign vocabulary bank continued to grow, I was burdened to communicate an essential truth with my boys. Arguably my son’s most favorite thing in nature — had a Maker, and He need to know Him! I would ask my boys, Who made the moon? And provide the answer, God! As this practice became routine throughout the dark nights, he eventually understood the pattern, and when I signed the question, “Who made the moon” we would answer it together, with my hearing son chiming in voice and sign “God!” This nighttime tradition continued for many months although the day times began to feel even more weighty. As my son continued to grow, the reality of his Deafness started compounding, and many important decisions needed to be made that were so overwhelming to me. I was so fearful for my son… For him to be left out,, for him to be in danger, for him to be hurt. And on a day when these fears and worries were extremely heavy. … I read Isaiah 40:26.

“Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out
their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his
might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.”

I say this a lot, but I need the reminder to myself and I want to make sure you do not miss it either. God has not forgotten your Deaf or Hard of hearing child. Isaiah 40:26 is amazing to me. That God, thousands of years ago, when He created the stars and the moon, knowing they would come out every night, knew that a long time later, a fearful and upset mom would faithfully sit near a window to show her two young sons, one who would hear it and one who would see it on her hands, that those bright lights out there, were made to show us God. And then, as I read those verses, for God to use that creation to show me, that those bright lights out there were not just a show of God as a distant creator, far off and uninvolved in my life or struggles… But He himself, nightly calls them out by name…and because of his amazing strength, He does not miss NOT ONE.

If that is true for the stars, that are pieces of gas and rock, it is even more true for us, God’s image bearers and most beloved creation. Because of His strength, He will not “miss us”. This verse tells me… that my children are safe. My children are seen by their Maker… and so am I.

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