Homeschool Preschool: When God Made Light

I tried preschool unit studies last year and I initially loved them but quickly burned out. They’re not really for me but I do still find them fun to read about on other homeschool blogs and I have to admit that I still sometimes get really excited about a concept and have a million little unit study ideas pop into my head.

I excitedly selected a copy of When God Made Light* as my next review book—we read the first one, When God Made You, and loved it. We had actually just read it again the day before I picked my next book!—and the very next day A asked me a million questions about shadows.

It was on.

We enjoyed a mini unit study on light and shadows and When God Made Light, by Matthew Paul Turner, was the kick-off book.

The book opens up with those oh-so-simple words, “Let there be light,” that let me guide the whole study with a spiritual background. Much like its predecessor it’s told in rhyme and this one is all about God’s majesty in creation, of course. This book is illustrated by David Catrow (as is the first) and my kids enjoy the illustrations. A was initially not all that taken with this book but once we got to the page with the jar of fireflies he was suddenly very interested. I definitely like this book, as well as the first, and genuinely recommend both.

If you’re interested in the unit study, a few other things we enjoyed:
-on a sunny day, we set up a few things on the patio and outlined their shadows in blue chalk at 9am (Ideally you’d do this sooner but I have four little kids so I’m never ready for anything before 9am). Then we went out again after lunch, just before noon, and outlined their now-moved shadows in yellow chalk. We went out again at 4pm and traced yet another set of shadows in pink chalk. It was fun to observe how much the shadows grew/shrunk and moved throughout the day.
-We learned how to make a few shadow puppets!
-We spent about 14 seconds moon-gazing one night. It was cold and A has no meat on his bones so we went back inside pretty quick but we paid attention to how much light there was just from the moon and stars. 

-We made sun catchers! I have clearly earned my mom-of-the-year badge with this one. I remembered doing it as a kid and loving it so I thought now would be a great time to do it. I used a self-laminating sheet and it worked out pretty well.
-We read the story of creation in his Action Storybook Bible (comic book-style illustrations, his current favorite Bible story book) and through actual scripture in my own bible, enjoyed using a flashlight in one of our Usborne shine-a-light books, and read a few other fun books that talked a bit about light/shadow.

Have you read When God Made Light? Do you have any other fun light/shadow activities to share?

*I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this (completely honest) review.