Planning

The Easy VBS

Welcome to "Destination without Limits" a simple VBS that is easy to plan and easy to do. Just pick a date, gather some volunteers, hang some invitation posters around the community, and you are ready to go!

This year, the team at "Children are Important" visited several VBSs in various countries to see what changes in the curriculum the churches would like. Some churches in India requested MORE activities for a longer time spent with the children in the VBS. For this reason, we have added two more stations, the mission's station, and the Bible station where Joseph comes to visit! They will be easy stations to do, will add more fun and learning to your VBS, and provides you with more content for a longer VBS as needed.

The other request was for more activities on the student sheets. We are thrilled that we were able to incorporate 5 different activities onto 1/2 a piece of paper! This should provide more for your students to do, with only a very small cost per child.

Whether you use the "rotation" system, or the classical "classroom" system, there are plenty of activities to make your VBS lots of fun, where the whole church learns together how to "gain their lives by losing them."

Dramas

The dramas are a fun way to introduce the lesson for each day, as well as help the students connect the teaching to their daily lives. We recommend you use the same actors each day, and that they stay in costume all week. They can visit the stations to greet the students, and take "selfies" pictures with students randomly throughout the day.

In this year's dramas, rabbit is learning to ski, and moose is his instructor. Their goal is to go all the way up to the summit and ski from there, but first rabbit must start on the lower and easier slopes and learn to ski well. During each drama, the rabbit must learn a similar lesson that the children are learning. Since rabbit will need to tumble and fall in some of the dramas, recruit a young or athletic actor for rabbit if possible.

The dramas for the five days are:

  1. Bunny slope: Believe God
  2. Jumps: Trust God
  3. Slalom: Serve God
  4. Wait: Hope in God
  5. Summit: Thank God

Rotation VBS system

This VBS is written to be used with a rotation schedule with three stations at a time. This means that you break your group up into three groups, and those groups rotate through three activity stations. Each station lasts 20 to 40 minutes, and each station is repeated three times so that each group goes to each station once each day.

The easiest way is to divide your group into the three age groups that we use for our student pages:

  • Easy (4-6 years old)
  • Medium (7-9 years old)
  • Difficult (10-12 years old)

We recommend that you use your adolescents (13+ years) as young helpers for your VBS. However, the "difficult" student page will be fun for all older ages, including adults. Our favorite way to rotate through the stations is to play music when it is time to rotate, so that there is lots of energy as the students rotate from one station to another.

Traditional classroom system

If you would rather not use the rotation schedule, there is a schedule with the traditional classroom system for your VBS. This schedule has the added benefit of taking more time, if you need a longer VBS. However, it requires more teachers, as each age group would need a Joseph actor, as well as teachers who have to learn all the different activities.

Staff

With a larger team of staff, the VBS is more fun for everyone involved, so we have divided the work into various roles to involve more people. The following staff roles are if you are using the rotation system:

1 VBS director
1 Song leader (Extras to help with actions to songs)
1 Preacher for the main lesson
2 Actors for the drama (the moose and the rabbit)
6 leaders for small groups, 2 leaders for each age. (They go with the students around to the different stations)

Stations:
2 Bible station (1 coordinator, 1 actor for Joseph)
1 Class coordinator (for student Activity sheets)
1 Crafts coordinator
1 Snacks coordinator
1 Games coordinator
1 Missions coordinator

Traditional schedule (6 hours)

Opening group time (1 1/2 hours)
30 minutes Devotional: Use the main lesson for each day
30 minutes Songs: Use your favorite worship music as well as the new CD provided special for this VBS.
15 minutes Drama with moose and rabbit (helps introduce the theme for the day)
15 minutes Review main theme for the day, main memory verse for the day, then separate into classes
Classroom time (1 1/2 hours)
15 minutes Teacher and guest "Joseph" share with class (from Bible Mountain station)
15 minutes Do classroom activity with Joseph (from Bible Mountain station)
45 minutes Student activity sheets (from ski class station)
15 minutes Voting activity (from ski class station)
Snack time/ Tea break (30 minutes) (from summit restaurant station)
Classroom time (1 1/2 hours)
20 minutes Learn about missions (from missionary excursion station)
30 minutes Missions activity (from missionary excursion station)
40 minutes Craft time (from Cabin crafts station)
Game time (30 minutes) (from frozen games station)
Closing group time (30 minutes)
15 minutes Songs
15 minutes Review and announcements for tomorrow