Vacation Bible School Crafts: Ideas for Vacation Bible School

Vacation Bible school (VBS) is a great rostrum for reaching out to children and teaching them more about the Bible. Vacation time is the best time to bring to children the Word of God. Organizing fun, exciting, dynamic art and craft activities which are powerful with the gospel message will help lead children to their Savior, Jesus Christ. Organizing vacation Bible school crafts requires quite a bit of effort on the teacher's part. As a VBS teacher, one needs to keep a few points in mind before going ahead with the Bible school craft preparation. An important point to consider is the budget available. One needs to have a fair idea about the amount of money available for the VBS craft sessions. Vacation Bible school materials are available at several stores. If the budget is small, then one could try asking member of the church for donations of egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, staples, cotton balls, crayons, etc.

The next point to be considered is the age of the children. This is very important, as this factor will determine the complexity of the craft ideas. If one is working with preschoolers, then the number of activities will be limited. The older children will be able to handle more complex crafts. Moreover, if it's a mixed group, then again the type of activities will vary. Time is another factor to be noted. The activities planned should be completed within the allotted time frame. Activities involving detailed painting should not be planned for a 30-minute slot. Moreover, the vacation Bible school crafts planned should be linked to various vacation Bible school lessons. While planning, one must remember that the idea of introducing these crafts is to teach children more about the Bible in a fun and interesting manner.

There are various ideas for vacation Bible school that one can adopt and implement. One of the Bible crafts for kids that can be implemented is as follows:

Fish Pond Quiz
This is my favorite activity! It's an activity that unites craft fun with a Bible quiz. Before heading into the activity part, one can narrate the story of Jonah and how he was swallowed by the fish.

Age Group: 6-14
Requirements: Oak paper for fish cutouts (body, tail and fins), cardboard box, stick, magnet, paper clips, paints, paintbrushes, glitter, crayons, white board and white board markers.

Preparation:
There are certain things one has to do before conducting this activity in class. For this activity, one needs a fishing rod, fish cutouts and lots of Bible quiz questions ready.

• For the fishing rod, a slender arm-length stick will do. To one end of the stick, tie a piece of string and attach a magnet to the end of the string.
• Once the fishing rod is ready, one needs to prepare the fish cutouts. For the fish cutouts, one needs to draw fish of different sizes and shapes on a piece of cardboard. Draw funny cartoon fish which have cute, wavy tails and fins. Children love the attractive shapes.
• Once the fish are done, use a cutter to cut off the fins and tails, thereby separating these parts from the body of the fish.
• The fins, tails and bodies will be placed on a tray, from which the children can choose the parts they like and assemble their very own unique fish. Children thoroughly enjoy this assembling activity.
• Next, prepare loads of Bible questions and write them on small pieces of paper.

Procedure:
Part 1

• Place the fish cutouts (previously prepared) in a tray on the table. Have the children seated at their respective tables and provide them with glitter, paints, crayons, etc. to decorate their little fish.
• Ask the children to come up one by one to the tray and pick one body, tail and fin part of their choice and go back to their seat.
• Give the children time to decorate their little fish parts. Once they are done with it, use tape to join the parts of the fish.
• Next, attach one Bible question chit to the rear end of the fish by means of a paper clip. These paper clips have a dual function: they hold the quiz chit in place and get attracted to the magnet on the fishing rod, thereby assisting in the fishing process.
• Place all the fish in the cardboard box, which serves as the fish pond.

Part 2
Part two can be carried out in another session on the same day or on the next day. For the quiz, one will need a white board and marker to keep score. If the number of children is large, then one can sort them into teams, or else they can play individually. The children are asked to walk up to the fish pond and pick up one fish using the fishing rod. He or she is to then answer the question on the chit, and will be awarded points for the right answer. Once the activity is done, the children can keep their fish with them.

Besides the above craft activity, there are various other vacation Bible story crafts that one can implement. There's Joseph's story, wherein one can draw cutouts of a cloak for each child. Provide different colors and textures of cloth pieces for the children to decorate their own version of the colorful cloak. There are several different ideas for vacation Bible school, and one can be as creative as one wants.