Presents a simplified version of the biblical story of creation, illustrated in words, pictures, and American Sign Language.

It's never too early to start building an appreciation and understanding of our Creator, the Bible, and basic learning skills. Developed by a professional with 30 years' experience in early childhood education, this creation preschool curriculum is a wonderful opportunity to start building a solid faith foundation while children learn about the world around them with lessons children will enthusiastically enjoy. Thirteen comprehensive curriculum lessons combine science, art, physical activities, Bible memorization, and songs, as well as activity suggestions for younger and older students!

There are seven distinct ways of teaching and learning: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, body/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. In 7 Ways of Teaching the Bible to Children, Barbara Bruce uses these seven learning styles to show you how to meet the various learning needs of each child in your classroom. The 25 Old and New Testament lessons which are included feature warm-up exercises, scripture readings, activities, and options for tailoring the lesson to all your students' individual learning needs. Practical advice for discovering each child's learning preferences, reproducible patterns and handouts, and a teacher training session are also included. The Bible story lessons can be used independently or with existing class curriculum.

This book is a toolbox of children's sermons that present special ways to include children in our Sunday worship and to build their faith. The sermons are organized in two sections. Part One includes sermons focused on "The Center of Our Faith." This opening section includes sermons that center on God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible as the church's Book. Part Two is titled "Pathways to Our Faith." Sermons in this section engage children in exploring the nature of the community of faith; two primary sacraments of the Christian faith, Holy Communion (The Lord's Supper) and baptism; and symbols of the faith. The sermons include ideas for dialogue, prompts, and experiences designed for children to be part of both the action and the message. --from the Introduction.

Flynn contributes to the emerging field of childhood studies in the Hebrew Bible by isolating stages of a child's life, and through a comparative perspective, studies the place of children in the domestic cult and their relationship to the deity in that cult. The study gathers data relevant to different stages of a child's life from a plethora of Mesopotamian materials (prayers, myths, medical texts, rituals), and uses that data as an interpretive lens for Israelite texts about children at similar stages such as: pre-born children, the birth stage, breast feeding, adoption, slavery, children's death and burial rituals, childhood delinquency. This analysis presses the questions of value and violence, the importance of the domestic cult for expressing the child's value beyond economic value, and how children were valued in cultures with high infant mortality rates. From the earliest stages to the moments when children die, and to the children's responsibilities in the domestic cult later in life, this study demonstrates that a child is uniquely wrapped up in the domestic cult, and in particular, is connected with the deity. The domestic-cultic value of children forms the much broader understanding of children in the ancient world, through which other more problematic representations can be tested. Throughout the study, it becomes apparent that children's value in the domestic cult is an intentional catalyst for the social promotion of YHWHism.

Do traditions contribute to children’s spirituality? Why and how so? From theoretical and practical considerations, this book explores children’s weaving of and distancing from family, cultural, educational, and religious traditions. It examines the transformational relationship between traditions and young people’s lives and spirituality and pursues answers to the following questions: What kind of traditions influences young people’s spirituality and how are those influences exerted? How and under the influence of whom do children develop their own worldviews and their own sets of values? How does that contribute to their identity building? How is children’s spirituality connected to traditions? The chapters in this book seek answers to these questions by delving into the varied influences that contribute to children’s spiritual development such as: construction of identities, the role of rituals, fables and symbols, subcultures and new religious movements, neoliberal educational practices and the importance of play and languages in spirituality experienced by both the children and the young. Insightful and thought-provoking, this book will be a key resource for practitioners, researchers and scholars in theology and religious studies, early childhood and education, education, developmental psychology, and children’s studies, and will also appeal to anyone interested in understanding the relationship between traditions and young people’s lives. The chapters included in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Children's Spirituality.

Sabbath is intentional time taken by individuals and faith communities to integrate the Divine with humanity and creation. Practicing Sabbath leads us to a fuller understanding of who we are as children of God. Young children (ages 3-7) lead us into new experiences of faith. These children are often most ready to practice the faith with us, and engage us in loving and caring ways. This book assumes that an adult will work with one child (or more) who probably has not yet developed reading skills. Practicing our faith is a lifelong process. When completed, this series will offer 24 practices in 10 different life settings. This series can be used at any time or stage in your life.

Children’s Bibles are often the first encounter people have with the Bible, shaping their perceptions of its stories and characters at an early age. The material under discussion in this book not only includes traditional children’s Bibles but also more recent phenomena such as manga Bibles and animated films for children. The book highlights the complex and even tense relationship between text and image in these Bibles, which is discussed from different angles in the essays. Their shared focus is on the representation of “others”—foreigners, enemies, women, even children themselves—in predominantly Hebrew Bible stories. The contributors are Tim Beal, Ruth B. Bottigheimer, Melody Briggs, Rubén R. Dupertuis, Emma England, J. Cheryl Exum, Danna Nolan Fewell, David M. Gunn, Laurel Koepf, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Jeremy Punt, Hugh S. Pyper, Cynthia M. Rogers, Mark Roncace, Susanne Scholz, Jaqueline S. du Toit, and Caroline Vander Stichele.

Education within the Church and within the family is the only way to change old patterns and smash cultural stereotypes. Reid and Hawkley reexamine God's message of love for all people through the lens of Scripture. Children Together will help the church teach children about inequality and discrimination and help children learn to value themselves and others for who they are. Each age-appropriate lesson covers topics such as learning to work together, exploring individual potential, media and stereotypes, and sexual harassment. This resource will be a welcome addition to parents, pastors as teachers, Christian educators, and those who do ministry with children.

Traditionally in the West, children were expected to “know their place,” but what does this comprise in a contemporary, globalized world? Does it mean to continue to accept subordination to those larger and more powerful? Does it mean to espouse unthinkingly a notion of national identity? Or is it about gaining an awareness of the ways in which identity is derived from a sense of place? Where individuals are situated matters as much if not more than it ever has. In children’s literature, the physical places and psychological spaces inhabited by children and young adults are also key elements in the developing identity formation of characters and, through engagement, of readers too. The contributors to this collection map a broad range of historical and present-day workings of this process: exploring indigeneity and place, tracing the intertwining of place and identity in diasporic literature, analyzing the relationship of the child to the natural world, and studying the role of fantastic spaces in children’s construction of the self. They address fresh topics and texts, ranging from the indigenization of the Gothic by Canadian mixed-blood Anishinabe writer Drew Hayden Taylor to the lesser-known children’s books of George Mackay Brown, to eco-feminist analysis of contemporary verse novels. The essays on more canonical texts, such as Peter Pan and the Harry Potter series, provide new angles from which to revision them. Readers of this collection will gain understanding of the complex interactions of place, space, and identity in children’s literature. Essays in this book will appeal to those interested in Children’s Literature, Aboriginal Studies, Environmentalism and literature, and Fantasy literature.