Catholic Vacation Bible School Ideas

Earlier in the year, I reviewed several Catholic Vacation Bible School packages (and I mean real Catholic packages, meaning they were developed by actual Catholics). Our parish, however, wrote their own program this year, and it was fabulous! They have used packaged kits in the past, but ultimately ended up tweaking them so much they thought they may as well go ahead and start from scratch.

(This is a picture of the last day of VBS-

we ended with a First Friday mass!)

I do have a bone to pick with popular VBS packages- what's with the weird "themes"? I mean, if we're learning about the bible, why did we decorate our whole church like the old west, or like the arctic with polar bears everywhere? I think that choosing a random additional theme seems over the top, and like a far stretch. For our VBS this year, our theme was "Jesus' Family Summer Vacation", and each day we learned about a different prophet from the Old Testament. Know what our them was on the day we learned about Jonah? Whales. Not panda bears, but whales. Know what our theme was the day we learned about Daniel? Lions. Not surfing, but lions. Novel idea- I know! ;-)

Anywho, our parish doesn't have a school, so we don't have a great big facility to host Vacation Bible School. What do you do when you want to have VBS but you don't have a good location? You just work with what you do have! We rented a tent, made use of our picnic pavilion, had one station meet inside the church- we even made use of our Mary garden! It all worked out beautifully.

Obviously a Catholic church is different than most because we have Jesus present in the tabernacle. We made sure to catch the kids outside of the church each day to make them practice genuflecting and making the sign of the cross. We also discussed reverence each day (especially on Thursday when our church time was adoration). 

The kids were actually a lot better during church time

than I had expected- especially on adoration day!

It's pretty standard for everyone to get shirts at Vacation Bible School, but at our church each grade got a different color shirt. I thought this was a really cool idea! It was so easy to see where all the kids belonged. Also, you see our priest in the picture below? It was amazing how helpful and involved he was! :-)

I loved that during snack they watched the coordinating Veggie Tales video to go with the day's bible story. Cute!

I also helped teach all week. They already had a craft volunteer, so I became the "Music Lady". Until last week I had never played the guitar in front of more than about 10 people at a time, but I'm really glad I did it! It doesn't take much to impress the kids, so the 6 guitar chords I know worked just fine. By Wednesday I wasn't even nervous anymore. ;-)

I love dressing for VBS because for me it's a chance to wear outrageous accessories that don't fly on "normal" days.

For instance, I hardly ever get to wear this necklace I made!

I also wore several skirts with my t-shirt since I was mostly

in the church all day. (And yes, the bandana tied on my head

is from World Youth Day Toronto. Whoo hoo!) :-)

On Friday I paired my VBS t-shirt with a crazy tie dyed skirt

and I also wore outrageous jewelry, flip flops, and pigtails! :-)

(Also, this is a picture of me standing with a whale our drama team

made from a trailer and a tent. Isn't it awesome?!)

Even the little nursery kids got t-shirts.

Violet wore hers all week, too! :-)

For my kids who were too small for their shirts, 

I just tied up the extra with a rubber band and rolled the sleeves.

This really was a great program, and I'm hoping to be able to post it for free for everyone to be able to use next year. In order to get that to happen, I'm going to need to get the permission of everyone who was involved (because I only developed the music and helped with the church time) so say a prayer that it works out! I know there are a lot of parishes that could benefit from having access to a program like this.

We had such a fun (and really exhausting week) for VBS. I was actually surprised at how much I learned and grew spiritually during the week as well! Vacation Bible School is a great way to get involved with your church and teach your children about the bible in a really fun way! If you don't have a program like this available, you could just do VBS with your own kids or perhaps a few friends. Holy Heroes provides a free Catholic Vacation Bible School program that can be used at home, so be sure to look into that. 

Happy Summertime, everyone! :-)

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

How to Make "Jesus Loves Me" Shirts with Kids {and a linky!}

Back in the Spring, I made these "Jesus {hearts} me" shirts with my whole preschool class, and they were a huge hit! The kids were so proud of them because they actually painted every part of the shirt even though they were only 2 or 3 years old. These shirts would be great to make at Sunday School, or even as a Vacation Bible School Shirt! Also, today is First Friday, so that means I'm hosting our First Friday link up! If you have a blog post (or several) you'd like to share with all of us this month, please scroll to the bottom of this post. :-)

Materials Needed to Craft Jesus Loves Me Shirts:

• White T-Shirts (I found ours at the Dollar Tree)
• Acrylic Paints (Don't waste your money on fabric paint- it won't matter)
• Letter Stencils (I actually substituted foam letter stickers for stencils because I couldn't find any actual stencils in the right size)
• Foam brushes or stencil brushes
• Cardboard (for inside the shirts)

Prep Work: Glue your stencils together in the words "Jesus" and another that says "me". Again, I used foam letter stickers instead. I did this by cutting a square around each sticker and removing the middle like this:

Also, put a piece of cardboard inside each shirt. This keeps the paint from bleeding through to the other side of the shirt, and also makes a nice, flat work area out of the front of the shirt. 

I then glued a poster board "shield" around them because the kids I was working with were very small, and I wanted them to have a bigger target to work with. 

 Back of Stencil

Front of Stencil on Shirt

I have a few classroom assistants, so I had one of them go around allowing the kids to stencil Jesus, another go around having them stencil "me", and I went around stamping their hand-prints into heart shapes. 

We used 3 different colors of acrylic paints in class, but if you have older kids you could actually stencil each letter a different color. Also, upside down hand-prints make a nicer heart shape, but you do what you can with little kids. ;-)

We ended up having a little trouble with our "Me" stencil, so I quickly went back over the letters with one of the foam brushes in a darker color. 

That's it! Let them dry and wash as normal. Acrylic paint is not going to wash out of clothes, so it's perfect for this project. Your only motivation for buying fabric paint is that it might dry a little softer than stiff acrylic paint, but even that totally depends on the brand you get. 

My entire class wore their shirts to the end of the year ceremony, and they were adorable! Can you guess which song we performed for the group? ;-) When my 2/3 year olds sing Jesus Loves Me, I have them point to themselves each time they say "Me" in the song, and this is a big hit! 

Again, I think these would be an absolutely great craft to make for VBS! Then the kids could wear them all week! :-)

Ok, now it's your turn to share your links! Feel free to share any blog post that you think would interest Catholic mothers or those working with children. Also, feel free to share more than one, and don't forget about your archives! I love to see the things you all link up! Just link back here so others know where to join in on the fun. :-)

<a href="http://catholicicing.blogspot.com/2011/05/catholic-link-up-first-friday-every.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="First Friday Link Up" width="180" src="http://i554.photobucket.com/albums/jj427/bunnydeau/sacredheart3.jpg" /></a><br />

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

How to Make Candy God's Eyes

I'm sure you've all seen God's Eyes, or "Ojo de Dios", but have you ever seen an edible God's eye?

Now you have! :-) This is normally the part where I tell you how easy this project is... well, don't hold your breath. Usually after I tell you how easy it was, that's when I tell you how much fun it was, and yes, it was a lot of fun! Also, it wasn't super difficult, but it did take a little patients. If you have some patients and would like to try to make this fun religious snack, read on. (If you've never made God's Eyes before, learn how to make them out of some good 'ol fashioned yarn first, m'k?)

Start with some dowels that are super glued together, 

and a bag of Twizzlers pull and peels.

Wrap the candy around in the same way that you would yarn. When you get to the end of a string of twizzlers, pinch the candy together in the back. Just give it a good, hard pinch and the candy will stick to itself. Add the next string using the same technique. 

Here's a picture of the back of mine.

That's it. I wouldn't try to make huge ones, just little ones. Also, they don't hold up long term- after they've been together awhile the candy starts pulling apart, so go ahead and eat them when you're finished.

Enjoy making (and eating) you candy God's Eyes!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Toss Your Nets to the Other Side {Teaching tools for kids}

So we're still learning about tossing our nets to the other side. Here's a craft that goes with the bible story.

This craft is mostly pre-cut-out fun foam stickers on foam board. The little "net" (which is a piece of touile used to wrap wedding favors) sticks on with velcro and is removable. The little fishermen are also removable, and just stick into the slit in the boat. You gotta love interactive crafts! ;-)

Also, here's a great song that you can use to tech your children about the toss your nets to the other side bible story!

Toss Your Nets to the Other Side Song for Kids
(To the tune of 10 Little Indians)

Peter James and John in a sailboat,
Peter James and John in a sailboat,
Peter James and John in a sailboat,

Couldn't catch any fish!

Jesus appeared on the beach,
Jesus appeared on the beach,
Jesus appeared on the beach,
and told the apostles this:

"Cast your nets to the other side"
"Cast your nets to the other side"
"Cast your nets to the other side"
so the apostles did.

Now their nets were full of fish,
Now their nets were full of fish,
Now their nets were full of fish,
and they recognized the Lord!

This would be a great song for at home, for a CCD class, or a Sunday school class to teach this bible story to kids. My kids love it!

Remember the toss-your-nets snack that we made earlier this week with goldfish crackers? {You can find the directions here}

My kids also love this apostles play set! It's a great toy to go along with this bible story, and I like to keep ours in the "church toy bag". You can order your own Galilee Boat with Apostles Play Set here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Toss Your Nets to the Other Side {Snack Idea}

We've still been focusing on the Stations of the Resurrection (14 things that happened from the resurrection to Pentecost). Station number 10 is: Jesus Appears by the Sea of Tiberias (John 21:1-14). Are you familiar with this story? In Jesus' 3rd appearance after His death, the some of the apostles have been fishing, but they can't catch any fish. Jesus tells them to toss their nets to the other side of the boat, and their nets are so full of fish they can't even pull them in! That's when they recognize Him as the Lord!

Inspired by Tiffany's snack, we made our own "Toss your nets to the other side" treat. :-)

These are very yummy- the perfect mix between salty and sweet!

See our "nets"? :-)

Ingredients Needed:

• Snyders window pane pretzels
• Hershey's Kisses
• Goldfish Crackers

How to Make Hershey Kiss Pretzels:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Place Pretzels on a cookie sheet
• Place one unwrapped kiss on each pretzel
• Place in oven for 1-2 minutes until kisses look shiny
• Remove from oven and press on goldfish crackers
• Place in refrigerator to speed the cooling process

The most time consuming part of this is unwrapping the kisses, which is actually a great job for little hands. (This still requires supervision unless you want it to become a job for little mouths as well).

When I took a picture of these Hershey Kiss wrappers, Lydia said "Mommy, you're taking a picture of garbage!". She's only 5. I didn't think she was going to figure out I was a weirdo until she was a teenager. 

Classroom Variation

If you'd like to do this as an activity snack for vacation bible school or Sunday school, try this. Give the kids some pretzels, goldfish crackers, and blue icing. Then let them "catch" their own fish while you tell them the story. No oven required. :-)

When Family at the Foot of the Cross made a similar snack, they actually counted out 153 goldfish crackers because that's how many fish the apostles caught. Sounds like a fun counting activity to me, and a great way to learn a bible story!

You can find more fish crafts and activities for kids here.

So I have this obsession with buying unique dishes at thrift stores, and I bought this blue plate for $1 because it read very "Starry Night" to me, and I'm a total van Gogh freak. Isn't it the perfect plate for this cute goldfish snack?!

... and my husband thought I didn't 'need' this plate. ;-)

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

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! :-)
If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.