Our sixth year of VBS we were able to branch outside of Alaska! We shared in Trout Creek, MT in May and then Bethel, AK in August.
Our theme this year was based off of the life of Jesus and all the things he did around water. We especially were aiming to connect with the kids in Alaska who are familiar with waterways, but the kids in Montana enjoyed it to. We are excited to share this year's journey and theme. We hope you can find some inspiration and something that is useful for your VBS.
Our theme this year was based off of the life of Jesus and all the things he did around water. We especially were aiming to connect with the kids in Alaska who are familiar with waterways, but the kids in Montana enjoyed it to. We are excited to share this year's journey and theme. We hope you can find some inspiration and something that is useful for your VBS.
Lesson Inspiration
While there are many stories to chose from about Jesus, we narrowed our picks down to stories mostly related to Jesus using water. You will note some stories that don't fit that criteria, but we wanted to tell them so we added them as a segue into the story that is about water. We also didn't tell the stories entirely in order, again we did that for effect such as telling the Cana Wedding story at the end and inviting the kids to come celebrate with us. Finally, it helps to have a strong knowledge of the gospels in general, especially Matthew and John.
Schedule- 5 day VBS
| Songs- 10 min Water of Life Video/Prayer- 5 min Activity Time: (40 min)*
Q&A- 5 min Prize bag- 5 min Total: 1. 5 hours | *Note- We ended up with the groups we had doing two small rotations instead of sending everyone to everything as written in order. So it goes likes this... Rotation 1: (Switch between the two) 1. Craft 2. Water Experiment Rotation 2: (Switch between these two) 3. Games 4. Jesus Video & Snacks |
Memory Verse | Tag Line... |
 "Whoever is thirsty let him come! and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life." Revelation 22:17 b By our second VBS, we got a little silly or creative and made up a song to this. You can hear it on our video here (starts around 4 min 30 sec) | This year's tag line: We say: JESUS IS.... Kids say: WATER OF LIFE! Don't forget if possible have an extra special prize for those who memorize the memory verse! |
Lessons
This year, the creative juices were flowing plus we were down a couple of people so we changed a few things up. The story was told from the front with a character named "Darlane" who was a descendant of the woman at the well, but the kids don't find that out until the 4th night (and yes made up that character. Don't go looking for a Darlane in your Bibles.) Darlane is the keeper of the local well and one day two sisters (Sasha and Manna) show up looking for some water. The rest of the week progresses with Darlane telling them a story about Jesus each night. The girls get more and more excited about the real water of life: Jesus. It is always hard to tell what the VBS kids will like, but this year's idea really caught their attention. We as per usual wrote our own scripts and have posted a copy for your use for free below.
| Day 1: Jesus' Baptism and Temptation Bible: Matthew 3:13- 17 Day 2: Healing at Bethesda Bible: John 5:1-17 Day 3: Jesus Feeds the 5,000 and Walks on Water Bible: Matthew 14: 13-33 Day 4: Jesus meets Zacchaeus and the Women at the Well Bible: Luke 19: 1:1-10, John 4:1-45 Day 5: Jesus Turns Water into Wine at the Cana Wedding Bible: John 2:1-12 Another quick note: Per the request of our actor who played Darlane and also arranged our lessons, we downloaded some visuals for each lesson to play in the background while the story ran. You can access the slideshows here: https://freesundayschoolcurriculum.weebly.com/old-testament-lessons.html | Water Seekers Script 
| ||
Water of Life Videos
Something else new this year was we recorded a short segment that we called Water of Life Videos. These videos used people from our church that were willing to share about their answer to the question "What does Jesus, Water of Life mean to you?" We encourage you to consider making your own videos to share, too.
| Day 1 video Day 3 video Day 5 video | Day 2 video Day 4 video For the tech savvy: I know that many of you could create a much nicer flow of a video. Our only excuse is that these got edited at the last minute when we had a team emergency. The point though was we got them done. For the less tech savvy: Give it a try with your basic software such as window movie maker or you can try an online option called animoto. It's fun and it adds variety. Trust me the kids don't mind. . |
Registration
| We have been trying to get church members to help the last couple of years in this area as they are the ones that will be seeing the kids regularly. We provided the registration forms, name tags, and end of the week booklet. The name tags we have used in the past have been stickers, but this year a team member had an idea for reusable tags. Some of us were skeptical at first, but it worked out fine. You can see them in the pictures on the left they are the cards with the orange yarn. | A few more notes on registration. We have posted our registration form as an example (forgive the typo, please), but we want to point out that it is a good idea to get parental consent for photos which we added at the last minute on the road. We don't post the pictures here on the blog for privacy sake though. And for the booklet, we didn't picture the whole thing here just the cover. Inside the book we had color pages for each days story, so we encourage you to use your imagination on what to put in your books. The kids then get something to take home with all the things they learned.
|
Craft
| This year we did a mix of foam crafts and original craft ideas. The foam crafts were bought at: oriental trading Day 1: Jesus' Baptism foam craft Supplies- all supplies came with the order Day 2: Well project Supplies: popsicle sticks, construction paper, cardboard, scissors, hot glue gun with glue, toilet paper rolls Day 3: Jesus Walks on Water foam craft Supplies- all supplies came with the order Day 4: Zacchaeus Tree Supplies: construction paper, paper towel or toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, cardboard, scissors, glue or hot glue gun supplies Day 5: Jesus, Living Water foam craft Supplies- all supplies came with the order | For instruction on the two original up crafts: Zacchaeus tree & Well project Both are found on our Pinterest page under the VBS board. Extra Craft idea: You can have a simple coloring page for the kids to write their memory verse and color. Good for kids who finish faster than the others. |
Water Activity
 Day 1: Ice Fishing Supplies: Ice, Ice tray, String, Sticks, Salt, Cups Instructions: http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/ice-fishing/  Day 3: Tin Foil Boats Supplies: Tin Foil, Pennies, Container for floating boats Instructions: https://www.kids-fun-science.com/easy-science-experiment.html |  Day 2: Slime Supplies: Glue, Baking soda, Food coloring, Borax, Containers, Bowls or cups Instructions: https://www.thoughtco.com/step-by-step-slime-instructions-604173  Day 4: Glitter Bottles Supplies: Water bottles, Food coloring, Glitter, Super Glue, Stir Sticks, Permanent marker, Stickers Instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=LVQSE82-c3Q |
 Day 5: Water to Wine Supplies: Water bottles, Kool-aid, Construction paper, Tape Instructions: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/695172892464220831 |  Extra activity: Bubbles Supplies: Water, corn syrup, soap, bubble blowers, bowls Instruction: https://www.homesciencetools.com/article/how-to-make-super-bubbles-science-project/ |
Games
Jesus VideosFor this rotation we showed the DVDs from the Nest DVDs called: The Miracles of Jesus and He is Risen. We showed them in 10-15 min segments, which left the kids wanting more! | Ideas: T or F game running game How to: Name off some facts about the lesson of the day and the kids run to another spot with what they think the answer is. Musical game How to: Similar to music chairs except standing in a circle. The person who gets out has to tell some thing about the lesson of the day. Package game How to: Kids have to guess an item in a bag related to the lesson of the day. Then they also have to share another bible story that has this item or what it represents in it. Nothing gross, please. Guessing game How to: Similar to charades, except that the game leader prepares a list of items that the kids will act out about the lesson. They draw these items from a hat or bucket or our case a stuffed animal whale. |
Music
Music team at Bethel, AK Theme song: I've Got a River of Life
About 3 songs this year filled up the time. We made it a little shorter because we felt like the kids got bored with the longer set up.
Special music: There were only two On Fire for Him members that went to VBS this year so we kept it to a special at church. Here is a link to the song: here (shown as performed for Easter not during VBS).
Goodies
| Snacks: We tried out doing our snack time during game time instead of at the end. We were going to do it during the movie time but all our movie time was in the sanctuary so that was a no go. The biggest thing about snacks during games is that you give it out early during instructions, no choking please while running! Goodie bag: We still use our brown paper sacks. The kids get anything you can think of that is small: pens, notepads, tops, etc. We tend to mark our bags boy or girl and sometimes small boy or girl if we have items specific to them. Prize box: Prizes were larger items that kids earned for either answering questions during the Question and Answer time or when they had done their memory verse. | |
Decorations
This year's inspiration, of course, was WATER! We decorated the front of the sanctuary with a water background, with boats, fishes and streamers to represent waves. The main attraction up front was the well that the Water Seekers met at each night to hear the story of the night. We got creative and made one with wrapping that looks like stone and covering the outside of a laundry hamper. And we had some posters of various water scenes with kids on them that we put on the walls of the church. The registration table had the theme on the front "Jesus, Water of Life" as well as some boats and fishes. We did streamers elsewhere per usual especially in the craft room at Bethel we had fish hanging from the ceiling. We posted the memory verse everywhere at kid height so that the kids could see it and learn.
Ta-Dah! A Jesus, Water of Life DIY VBS
This was the most fun VBS that any of us could remember. The flow worked out really well with the double rotation. We had a lot of laughs. The kids got into all of it, but especially loved the water activities this year. Anyways, we hope we have inspired you to try your hand at your own variation of a Jesus, Water of Life DIY VBS. And per usual all the materials we created are free to use.
| For video diary of this year's trips to Troutcreek, MT and Bethel, AK, make sure to check out our Vlog link to the right. | |||
RSS Feed