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VBS Games & Decoration Ideas

Vacation Bible School serves a twofold purpose: to offer children a time to relax and have fun, and to share some religious insight with them. These week-long events often use themes such as "Shake It Up -- Where Kids Carry Out God's Recipe." Most of the activities and decorations reflect that theme. However, as a change of pace, teachers can use some freelance games and decorations to break up the day.
  1. Non-religious-themed games

    • Hopefully, the weather will be conducive to outdoor play. The traditional kickball game, played on a baseball-like diamond, but with a soccer ball, gets everyone involved. You can also bounce balls around on an exercise parachute (which you can rent or borrow from a fitness center). Just put five or six balls on the chute, have the children hold the chute and lift it up together, creating a wave effect. They can bounce the balls by making waves with the chute, and other participants can crawl or run under the bouncing chute. You can also employ some traditional pastimes such as blowing bubbles and chasing them, renting a jungle gym for the day, having a water-balloon toss or coloring the sidewalk with chalk and then playing hopscotch. An obstacle course race is also fun. Teachers can use their imaginations for designing the course, such as using trash cans as obstacles to run around, hula hoops to jump through and having participants bounce a basketball 10 times or throw a football into a wastebasket or at a tree.

    Give games a religious theme

    • Teachers can use an old-school game, like freeze tag, and give it a religious spin. The normal game entails one team chasing and tagging others, thereby freezing them in place until one of their teammates "unfreezes" them by tagging them. Teachers can use the symbolism of the game to share lessons: Sometimes we are "frozen" in our lives by fears or sorrows, but God, sometimes through the help of friends and family members, is able to "free" us from these burdens, according to Ministry-to-Children.com.

    God is a father figure

    • Another fun and thought-provoking activity is to bring in men's clothing and let children dress up as their fathers. After letting them role play for a while, have the children discuss how well they know their fathers, how their fathers act and relate it to God the father.

    Let the children decorate

    • If your Bible School is themed, decorate most of your facility to reflect that theme. For instance, an outer-space themed school could have a launch pad in one room, a moon-like alien surface made of sand and rocks in another room and stars and other images of the galaxy (such as nebulas) in a third room. Let the children design a fourth room with their own space-themed decorations that they can bring from home. Teachers can do something different by buying craft kits that allow children to make their own pinwheels, backpacks and birdhouses. Use those as decorations until the end of Bible School, then let the children bring them home. The primary lesson is: Let your imagination loose, have fun and share the message of God.


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