Catholic Vacation Bible School Reviews

With Christmas behind us and before lent begins, this is the perfect time for your parish to start thinking about vacation bible school. Obviously the most central point of vacation bible school is to bring religion to kids, so I think it's important to choose a program that agrees with your theology. I taught vacation bible school for 2 years at a Catholic church using protestant materials (or rather, protestant materials that were called Catholic because they came with a little Catholic add-on), but the truth is there's no need for that anymore- there are many programs now available that are written by Catholics! Who could better understand Catholicism than actual Catholics? Before recommending programs to you that I knew nothing about, I wanted to see them first hand. I do love for things to be Catholic, but I still expect high quality products from all companies. In other words, if the Catholic programs were junk, I didn't want to recommend that you buy them. So, I contacted several Catholic VBS companies asking for a review copy, and was able to get programs from Cat Chat, Growing With the Saints, and K4J (Kids 4 Jesus). I was not paid anything to write this Catholic VBS review, and had no personal need to own 3 VBS programs, so this is all for you, my wonderful readers! :-)

Growing With the Saints VBS Review- Parade Around the Our Father

This Catholic VBS program arrived in a very organized (and very colorful) binder that was super easy to use and all inclusive! There was no guessing when opening this package- it was super easy to find everything and know exactly what it was for. The circus theme ran flawlessly through their program- from crafts to snack, lesson plans to decorating ideas, this package was all under the big top! The crafts included great tips for the craft leaders, full color pictures of all the completed crafts, lists of supplies (all affordable and available at any craft store), and easy to follow directions. Some of the crafts were designed to go with their circus theme, others were "Catholic Crafts". They also provided full color pictures of all the completed crafts- a major plus in my book! The snack section had 15 circus themed snack ideas, and 14 religious snack ideas! All came with recipes and directions. The music was very professionally done (I know they recently revamped their music and they did a great job!) and the songs were very peppy. Some of the songs were written just for them, and others I recognized as remakes from my local christian radio station. In the music section, they did say "Kids love motions to songs! Incorporate them in you worship time." but I will admit that it would be more convenient if they coordinated the songs with motions for us. They do include some tips for coordinating them yourself. They also have sheet music with lyrics available, and it comes with guitar chords! The music section does include a closing ceremony guide, and recommended songs for each grade level. I loved their big overview page that was included to give you a visual layout of the week. This program also includes picture books about the saints, which I thought was a really unique thing to incorporate! From decorating ideas to classroom plans, an optional field day to a "free floating" clip art CD, this package definitely includes everything you need to run a Catholic VBS at your own parish. For more information, visit Growing With the Saint's site.

K4J VBS Review- Circus of Stars, Spotlight on The Father

I really couldn't be more impressed with this program. The information in their booklets was overflowing. Not only do they tell you what to do, they really give all the information about how to do it, and they serve it to you on a platter. This program arrived broken down into booklets- one for each section of volunteers in the program. So a booklet each for the craft volunteer, the skit leader, the snack people, etc. At the beginning of each booklet, there's an introduction to the program and characters as well as an overview of the kid's week so that all the volunteers are on the same page and everyone is informed of the day's events. You can open up the craft book to the page of the day, and it tells you what to say and do with the kids (including magic tricks and other fun tid-bits!) and everything else you need to know for the whole class time. There was tons of information in their booklets including what how to work with different age groups of children, and even quotes from the catechism! (Now tell me you're going to find that in a protestant alternative- I don't think so!) The booklets included pictures of all the completed snacks and crafts, but none of them were in color. Their program also came with a very cute and professionally done CD with great kid music. They have pre-coordinated motions to their songs written out line by line, such as "stomp feet: Left! Right!". The package I reviewed was also circus themed, and well done. (I'm such a fan of themes). The theme they have coming up this Summer is "Win the World for Jesus" and it's about going out to be a missionary in the world. I really think that sounds like a great theme! You can see the overview of their upcoming program here. Their artwork is well done, and their characters (such as Spark the conscience, and Vice the bad guy) really are adorable. This program also had a lot of "extras" that you can order if you choose such as take home packages to send with each child, and saint trading cards! There was such a wealth of information for each of the volunteers in this program, I couldn't possibly find the time to comb through it all. This program will take all the guess work out of running an authentically Catholic VBS program! Visit the K4J site for more information.


Cat Chat VBS-  Marvelous Mystery, The Mass Comes Alive

This program I reviewed for them had a theme of "The Mass Comes Alive". This theme is meant to "help children understand the Catholic Mass and deepen their love for Jesus in the Eucharist". How awesomely Catholic is that?! I love how easy-to-use their director's guide is for understanding the layout of their program. They also had cute songs that my kids and I have been singing along to, and actually included a DVD showing you how to do the hand motions for the songs! My kids and I loved this! (Can you tell I'm into the hand motions for the songs?) Cat Chat also came with easy-to-handle booklets for each section of the VBS week. In the craft booklet, they had some really cute Catholic based craft ideas. While they did have pictures of all the crafts, none of them were in color. Each booklet comes with an overview of the week, so each volunteer understands the layout of the entire program. Their booklets come with tons of handy checklists of things to prepare, supplies to gather, etc. The cute snack activities that came with the program were above and beyond- lots of great ideas! This program also came with a resource CD ROM with spreadsheets, masters, and more. Cat Chat offers tons of extras such as Saint Cards, and take home parent/child activity sheets. This program was well laid out, and very cute. I love how they say "100% Catholic". I think it's so important to have an authentically Catholic program rather than just squeezing it in. Again, this program included too much information for me to even read through it all. Visit the Cat Chat site for more information.

Comparison Chart for Catholic VBS
GWTS= Growing With the Saints
K4J= Kids for Jesus
CC= Cat Chat

Music

	_GWTS_	__K4J__	__CC___
Professional Quality Music CD	yes	yes	yes
Choreographed Hand Motions	no	yes	yes
Instructional DVD for Motions	no	no	yes
Sheet Music	yes	yes	yes
Guitar Chords	yes	no	yes
Lyrics	yes	yes	yes

Included Program Sections

(K4J and CC had these sections available in booklet form. GWTS

had these divided in a 3 ring binder with loose papers in folders)

These were hard to compare because they were all organized a 

little differently, but I did my best.

	_GWTS_	__K4J__	__CC___
Music	yes	yes	yes
Crafts	yes	yes	yes
Snacks assigned for each day	yes	yes	yes
Director Guide	yes	yes	yes
Lesson Plans for different age groups**	yes	yes	no
Captain leader book	no	yes	no
Games	yes	yes, with pictures	yes, with pictures
Skits and scripts	yes, devoted section	yes, devoted section	yes
Faith Leader Booklet	no	no	yes

**GWTS had their lessons for their age groups broken into

these age groups: Pre-K, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

K4J's age groups are broken up into these ages:

3-K, 1-4, and 5-8

CC didn't seem to have anything broken into age groups

Crafts

	_GWTS_	__K4J__	__CC___
pictures of crafts	yes	yes	yes
full colored pictures	yes	no	no
needed templates included	yes	yes	yes
leader script for class	no	yes	no
different crafts for different age groups	yes	no	no

K4J really goes above and beyond with tips and classroom

instructions, station guidelines, preparing your craft station,

work job charts, etc, but their pictures were small and hard to see.

Extras

	_GWTS_	__K4J__	__CC___
Optional parent take-home papers	yes, activity and coloring page	yes, full color posters and activities	yes, one b&w page per day
Optional take home  items	yes, (children's book on saints)	yes, circus toys	yes, fun items
Optional VBS t-shirts	yes	yes	yes
Concert DVD	no	no	yes
CD Rom clip art	yes	yes	yes
All inclusive carrying case	yes	no	no

The checklist above doesn't include everything from the packages, I just though it would be helpful to view things side-by-side. Also, I dove into the craft section a little deeper than the other sections because crafts are my thing. :-) I certainly hope this was helpful to some of you because it took me forever to put it all together! ;-)

I want everyone to understand that I was given random copies for review, and these are not the themes of the packages the companies are carrying this year. Check out their individual sites for more information on their current packages and prices. I also know a lot of you told me your parishes write their own programs, and ya'll know I'm all about diy! But... these packages are actually very affordable for the amount of information they come with, so consider the time it takes to execute something as large as a VBS program without pre-written curriculum before you dive in! :-) There are also more Catholic Vacation Bible School programs available than the ones I mentioned here, so feel free to do some more research before committing!

In short- these programs were well written, and professionally executed. There is no need to buy protestant VBS programs when these amazing Catholic companies are providing programs like these! I don't think you will be disappointed in any of the programs mentioned above upon ordering. Keep in mind that supporting Catholic companies further funds them to improve their materials and grow the ministry. So before ordering your VBS program this year, consider the available Catholic options! Please send this link to your parish's DRE to let them know you want your kids to be a part of an authentically Catholic VBS program this year! :-)

*UPDATE*
Due to a high volume of emails, I wanted to lay this all out for you. Growing With the Saints definitely revamped their program since a lot of you tried it in the past. These reviews were very honest, and I do understand what high quality products are. I will admit that the K4J program seemed to include the most information and was very comprehensive, and the Cat Chat program was a close second. Both K4J and Cat Chat were overflowing with bells and whistles. Growing With the Saints was a lot more simple and unembellished, but it definitely included all the necessary parts to run a program and was laid out in a very easy-to-follow manner. I welcome your opinions and personal reviews in the comments section! :-)
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