August 8, 2013

VBS 2013

On the tail end of the Specktacular visit came this year's vacation Bible school. Our church skipped hosting VBS last year -- instead we had a one-day Fun Day one weekend.

This year the theme was "Miracle at the Zoo." The curriculum, skits, and song lyrics (sung to borrowed tunes) were written by a creative and talented lady in our church with help by her equally creative and talented daughters (including SIL2 Deanna.) They also headed up a lot of the decorating. If you've read my blog for any length of time you know that our church goes ALL out with decorating! I volunteered to do crafts -- the past few times we've had VBS my craft table was set up in an already-decorated area. This year our fellowship hall is finally useable again, so that's where I was. On the day that everyone was beginning to set up, the lady in charge asked me if I was planning to decorate my craft area. Well, that had never even occurred to me! I felt really badly that I hadn't planned anything and that they had to come up with something to cover for me.

The kids were divided into three groups: pre-K, K-2nd, and 3rd-6th. Each teacher was responsible for decorating her own classroom (but I think they all kind of helped each other), and prepared one lesson to teach to each group of kids. Because there were five days but only three groups of kids, each teacher taught her lesson on three days and had the other days off.

This year there were five classrooms with themes:

Big Cats




Apes





Giraffes (my favorite room)



I think there was a "pond" here with live fish swimming in it




Reptiles and Baby African Elephant (I didn't get a chance to take pictures of these rooms before they got undecorated. There was a paper mache elephant in one, and hidden creatures in the reptile room that the kids had to find with flashlights in the dark -- I understand that was a BIG hit!)

The hallway was decorated.
This picture doesn't do it justice
A bear made out of paper
 

The foyer was decorated.


A jungle with lots of trees, peacocks and other birds, and real fish


Jack and Mr. Pickles came every day. Sometimes they were let out of the cage and allowed to sit on a "vine" which they loved. They sang and chirped.

Notice the birds and caterpillars? There were little details like that everywhere!




The auditorium was decorated.
Two turtle shells had disappeared when I took this!
 





A giant paper mache hippo!
 


It was amazing! It always is.

Eric was in the skits. He played Marvin the Magician who proclaimed himself to actually be Marvin the Miraculous while performing hokey tricks that he called miracles. He spoke with a French accent and I must say he was pretty funny (though it's possible that I am biased in his favor.) Peabody LOVED it. The next Sunday when I asked my Sunday school students what their favorite part of VBS was, she immediately said, "Daddy!" Today when I told her that we will be going to church tonight she asked excitedly, "Will Marvin be there?" then when she prayed before dinner she thanked the Lord "that Marvin was jus' so silly."


His face! Ha!

In order to give the decorators 2 full days to do their magic, VBS ran from Tuesday-Friday evenings with lessons, crafts, and snacks, and finished up with a fun day on Saturday with extras like lunch, games, face-painting, a bouncy house, and a pinata that almost refused to break.
Every session started with the Pledge of Allegiance and Pledge to the Bible



Two ferocious tigers
Camo, of course!

A monkey


A butterfly
Rain threatened, so games were moved indoors
4-year-olds do NOT understand the rules of Simon Says
Peabody got first whack at the pinata
 


The pinata did NOT want to break. Each child had a turn to hit it ... then they all had a turn hitting it again ... then again ... and so on. Finally it had to be scored in several places with a knife, and "helped" along by some adults taking turns hitting it, too.



Crafts were:
Snakes -- pipe cleaners, beads, and googly eyes (the little kids used big beads which made them look more like caterpillars.)
This one lost an eye already

Lion masks -- paper plates, crayons/markers, straws (I used a craft knife to cut the eyes out ahead of time.)
The Boogie's on the left, Peabody's on the right

"Sand" art chameleons -- a picture printed on cardstock, Elmer's glue, q-tips for painting glue on paper, colored salt (I used food coloring, table salt, and kosher salt. It turned out really pretty, and salt shakers and empty spice containers worked great for distribution, but what I didn't count on was that the salt would start to dissolve once it touched the glue. This craft turned out okay, but I don't think I would repeat it.)
Hmm, why is this sideways? Peabody's on the top, the Boogie's on the bottom.
Elephant puppets -- paper bags, elephant "parts", googly eyes (I forgot my resolve to avoid crafts that require me to do much cutting out! It took forever to cut out all of those ears, tusks, and trunks ... and I even eliminated all the other extra stuff that came with the printable template.)
Peabody's on the left (she glued on her own pieces), the Boogie's on the right

Giraffe magnets -- popsicle sticks, clothespins, brown ink pads which the kids used to put fingerprint spots on their giraffes, pom-poms, googly eyes, magnet strips (I had to glue the popsicle sticks together the night before, and someone helped me to glue all the heads and eyes on after the kids did the fingerprint part. The magnet strips had adhesive which did NOT stick very well, and we ended up having to glue many of those on as well.)

We had what I think was a really great turn-out with 19 kids as our smallest number one night, and 25 on the last day! The largest group was the pre-K, with anywhere from 9-11 three- and four-year-olds ... mostly boys. Whew! Peabody was in that group. Really the minimum age was 4 but they let her in and she did great and had a blast.

I think all the kids had a wonderful time, and at least one made a profession of faith during the week (which I got to be a part of!) Hopefully lots of spiritual seeds were planted and watered in these kids' lives.

1 comment:

Rhonda said...

Wow, I wondered where you were. Great memories were made at VBS.