Temple Day Primary Activity- 7 days of Creation

Yesterday we attended the Louisville Kentucky Temple. To learn more about temples, check this out, talks from apostles and prophets about Temples and their purpose.

In the morning, the Young Women were in charge of watching the Primary children, whose parents were attending the Temple. We used a "7 days of Creation" activity idea; the Primary in our ward did it last year- I can't take credit for all of the following ideas. They are either from their activity last year, or sharing time ideas from The Friend, our church's children's magazine.

First, divide the kids up into 6 groups. It's good to have a youth of older Primary child in each group, to keep some continuity between the kids and help the littler ones. We also had some large manila envelopes for each child to carry their papers around from station to station. We spent about 15 minutes at each station.

Day 1- Light and Darkness, Genesis 1: 1-5

Read the scripture with the kids. Have two blankets, one for day and one for night. Divide up objects or pictures that pertain to day and night. This station had extra time, so they decorated their manila envelopes with crayons.

Day 2- Sky and Water, Genesis 1:6-8

(I forgot the pages for this, so we did not do this station)- Make sky and water scenes with crayons and water color paints. We used a ward member's large scale architecture printer to print humungous pictures of rain, clouds, rainbows and land and water. You could also just draw large drawings on butcher paper and let them go at it.

Also, you could have a blue blanket and have the kids shake it and sing "Give Said the Little Stream."

Day 2- Dry Land and Plants- Genesis 1:9-13

Have the children draw stems or tree trunks, then tear tissue paper to scrunch and glue flowers on paper plates or construction paper. Also could glue popcorn on tree pictures, sing popcorn popping and eat some popcorn.

Day 4- Sun and Moon -Genesis 1:14-19

Take a walk outside, oberserve light. Go into a darkened room with flashlights or glow sticks. Or decorate a room with glow in the dark stars. Sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Glow stick!

Day 5- Birds and Fishes- Genesis 1:20-23

What would a primary activity be without the fishing game???!!

Ahead of time I put whale crackers in snack sized ziplocs, and the kids fished for those and dollar store birthday favors.

Day 6- Land Animals and Man - Genesis 1:20-23

We had a huge box of Mr. Potato head parts. The kids would reach in without seeing and pick a part for their potato. Then we talked about what each part did and why we have it. They also played Duck Duck Goose and Simon Says. You could also do a book of "All about me" that has kids draw about themselves (hair color, favorites, clothes, etc). And sing "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes."

Day 7 - Day of Rest- Genesis 2:2-3

We discussed what we do on the day of Rest- serve others, go to church, play with your family, visit the sick, etc.

Then they colored their creation bingo: I made a bingo from 20 pieces of clip art. I used Picasa collage tool, to make a bingo, then shuffle it and create a new one. I made about 12 different bingo sets. If you use the same board for every kid, it's a very short game of bingo. Then imported each board into a large publisher file, then sized it to print at about 4 by 7 inches, or 2 per page. Make sure to have beans or small squares of paper for bingo markers, and one set of bingo images cut up to call out the object. For clip art, check out mormonshare.com. They have great free, high quality clip art for Primary purposes.

All in all, it was a great activity, the kids have fun and didn't notice two hours went by. Natalie (my 3 year old) prayed last night "Thank you for all your wonderful creations and for the plants and animals and fish on the earth."- Sucessful I'd say!