Our VBS starts Monday. I will be teaching the 5 and 6 year olds. We are working up our own curriculum on the topic mentioned above. Our week will follow the following plan:

• Monday — Cornelius teaches us we must hear the word of God
• Tuesday — Lydia and the Philippian Jailer teach us we must believe that Jesus is the son of God
• Wednesday — The Jews on the day of Pentecost teach us to repent
• Thursday — The Ethiopian Eunuch teaches us to confess our faith in Jesus
• Friday — Saul (later named Paul) teaches us we must be baptized

Instructions for the pop-up book along with pdf files described below can be found here: Salvation Pop-up Book

My class will consist of the following activities:

• Object Talk
• Telling the Bible story
• Making a Pop-up Book
• Field Trip (mainly going outside for a story or other activity)
• Story Folders (to review the Bible story)
• Craft Time (making a craft that will emphasize the lesson learned that day)

Monday
Cornelius Teaches Us We Must Hear The Word of God

Introduce the VBS theme — explain what salvation is and it’s reward

Pass out salvation gloves and sing Steps to Salvation

Discuss posters on the wall. The posters are covered with a plain poster and labeled Hear, Believe, Repent, etc. Each day, I will remove the cover for the poster we will be discussing. The poster is a picture that relates the story of the conversion to be discussed that day. By then end of the week all the posters will be revealed. Wait until later to remove the first cover.

Object Talk:

• Discuss the importance of hearing God’s word. This involves careful listening.
• Play CD with various sounds on it. Ask them children if they can identify the sounds (bird, dog, clapping, bell, etc).
• To emphasize the importance of the Bible and the difference in it and other books, do the following activity:
  • Show the children a stack of children’s books. These books were written by men. Show the children a Bible. This was written by God.
  • Pass out the paper Bibles and book covers. Ask them children to separate the covers of books written by men from the one written by God.
  • Pass out first page of pop-up book. Ask children to put the paper Bible in the pocket labeled “written by God” and the children’s book covers in the pocket labeled “written by men”.

  Remove the cover from the poster labeled HEAR.

  Tell the story of Cornelius’ conversion from the book of Acts. I’ve chosen to not use visual aids while telling the Bible story. These are the same kids I teach in regular Bible class. I wanted to make sure they didn’t feel like we were in just the same old class. So, I’ve chosen to teach it in a different way. Children are usually very receptive to simple teaching straight from the Bible — especially at this age.

  If weather permits, take the children outside. Sit down on the ground and listen very carefully. Let the children tell what sounds they hear. This exercise emphasizes how important it is to listen.

  Craft time. I don’t like calling it craft time. We don’t do crafts just for the sake of doing crafts. Our crafts are directly related to the Bible story or the theme of the VBS. This year one of the ladies from the congregation (also the local high school art teacher) will be conducting the craft session). She has some great plans. I believe the first day the children will be making plaster hand prints. This goes along with the theme we chosen of using the hand to help remember the steps to salvation.

  Return to class.

  Pass out story folders. These folders have a picture on the front (like the poster on the wall). On the inside is a brief summary of the Bible story and an application picture for the children to color (this one is a picture of children listening to their Bible class teacher). There is also a pocket. As they are coloring their application picture, I will be reviewing the story and then asking review questions. When a child correctly answers a review question, he gets a paper hand to put in his pocket. All of these story folders will be saved until the end of the week and put in a large envelope to take home.

  If there is time remaining, sing songs that will be sung in the auditorium.

  Go to the auditorium. We will be meeting with the rest of the classes in the auditorium. Danny will review the story with the kids in the form of a game — Keeping score (boys vs girls) throughout the week. We’ll sing some songs and then go home.

Today’s class was interesting. The lesson was on hearing the word, so we practiced listening. That was fun. Then when it came time for them to really listen to the lesson, they didn’t. I asked questions afterwards and got blank stares. So, I told the story again. I hope that throughout the week, they’ll get better at listening.I have officially lost my voice. I can’t utter a sound. I called my assistant teacher if she would teach for me and she said she would give it a shot. I’m going to write the lesson plan out as if I was going to teach it. If she wants to use, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too.

This lesson is about believing in Jesus. We will be learning about the Philippian Jailer’s conversion, and how he believed in Jesus.

My Lesson Plan for Tuesday is:

Pass out salvation gloves and sing Steps to Salvation. The gloves worked better than I thought they would.

Review yesterday’s lesson. Point out the poster on the wall and hopefully they’ll be able to tell something about Cornelius and Peter.

Object Talk:

Using the large sequence pictures of Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension, discuss the importance of these events. Talk about how we can believe they happened because the Bible that God wrote (we went over this yesterday) tells us so. Emphasize that Jesus was a real man that walked on the earth and He is really living in Heaven now.

Pass out small sequence pictures of Jesus (these are identical to the large ones). Have the children put them in order. See if they can tell what’s happening in each picture.

Pass out second page of pop-up book. Help the kids put together the story wheel using the small sequence pictures of Jesus’ life. Be sure to trim off some of each picture so they will fit on the wheel. Glue the wheels onto the 2nd page of the pop up book. Glue the 2nd page side-by-side to the 1st page.

Remove the cover from the poster labeled BELIEVE.

Tell the story of the Philippian Jailer’s conversion from the book of Acts. Emphasize the fact that he believed and then was baptized to be saved.

Craft time. This time went really well yesterday. Our teacher in this area is very talented. I don’t remember what she has in store for this lesson, but I’m sure it will be great.

On the way back to class, take the children outside. Sit them down and read the book What Is Faith>?

Return to class.

Pass out story folders. This activity should be done basically the same as yesterday. Review story, ask review question, discuss application picture, allow the children time to color the picture. While they’re coloring either talk to them about the picture, sing songs or review questions some more.

If there is time remaining, sing songs that will be sung in the auditorium.

Prayer — Each child can have a turn saying a prayer, or just 1 or just the teacher.

Go to the auditorium. We will be meeting with the rest of the classes in the auditorium. Danny will review the story with the kids in the form of a game — Keeping score (boys vs girls) throughout the week. We’ll sing some songs and then go home.

Class went well today. I had a very capable substitute. I stayed to help, she did the talking and singing. She did a great job.The craft activity for the day was tye dying t-shirts. One of the conversions discussed today was Lydia. She was a seller of purple. To help the kids remember, they prepared their t-shirts (tied them up with rubber bands) for dying purple. Tonight, the craft teacher and her daughter will do the dirty work (dying the shirts). Tomorrow the kids will get to see the end result.

The craft teacher also made a jail for one of the classrooms. It is really neat looking. While that class was in craft time, we took our kids into their room and let the kids get in the jail. They were really excited about it. We got some pictures. I’ll try to post them later.

Tomorrow, Dawn will again teach for me. I’m going to do the lesson plan, and she can use it however she wants. We will be discussing repentance. The Bible story will be how the Jews on the day of Pentecost were told to repent.

My Lesson Plan for Wednesday is:

Pass out salvation gloves and sing Steps to Salvation.

Review the past 2 lessons. Point out the posters on the wall and help them remember the main points we talked about.

Object Talk:

Teach them that Repent means to change or be sorry for what you’ve done and want to make it right.

Pass out the wooden hearts. When we are doing wrong, our hearts are hard. We want do what we want no matter what.

Pass out the stuffed hearts. When we are repentant, our hearts soften. We see that we have done wrong and want to change.

The teacher will have several pictures of kids doing various activities. Some of the kids are doing good things, some are doing bad things. All of these pictures came out of Thru-the-Bible Coloring Pages. Discuss the picture. Let the kids decide if the child has a hard heart or a soft heart. Have the kids hold up the appropriate heart.

Pass out third page of pop-up book. Help the kids glue the wooden heart on the side of the page that talks about having a hard heart. Then help them glue the soft heart to the other side of the page. If there’s time glue these side-by-side to the other pages of their book.

Review the past 3 days using the pop-up book — hear, believe, repent

Remove the cover from the poster labeled REPENT.

Tell the story of the Jews conversion on the day of Pentecost in the 2nd chapter of Acts. Emphasize the fact that after hearing they had killed Jesus (their savior), they were pricked in the heart. They asked what they should do and Peter said to repent and be baptized.

Craft time. We’ll see what the teacher has planned for today.

Return to class.

Pass out story folders. This activity should be done basically the same as yesterday. Review story, ask review question, discuss application picture, allow the children time to color the picture. While they’re coloring either talk to them about the picture, sing songs or review questions some more.

Attendance Chart — I keep forgetting to mention this, but we are getting it done during class. Their attendance charts have a place for each day of the week. They get to add a paper hand to the correct day when they are there. It’s very simple, but again reminds them of the hand which should remind them of the steps to salvation.

If there is time remaining, sing songs that will be sung in the auditorium.

Prayer — Each child can have a turn saying a prayer, or just 1 or just the teacher.

Go to the auditorium. We will be meeting with the rest of the classes in the auditorium. Danny will review the story with the kids in the form of a game — Keeping score (boys vs girls) throughout the week. We’ll sing some songs and then go home.

Well, we’re half way through. Today was great. We had all 5 boys in class. We studied about repentance and the Jews on the day of Pentecost. My voice is halfway back, but I’m still probably going to need Dawn to teach class tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be able to teach Friday.Tomorrow we will be studying about Confession. The Bible story will be the Ethiopian Eunuch.

My Lesson Plan for Thursday is:

Pass out salvation gloves and sing Steps to Salvation.

Review the past 3 lessons. Point out the posters on the wall and help them remember the main points we talked about.

Object Talk:

We’re going to learn that we need to confess Jesus before others. As the teacher is talking about confession, she’ll be cutting out paper dolls. When she’s through she’ll open up the paper dolls. They are to represent the people in the child’s life they can tell about Jesus.

There are already enough paper dolls cut out for each child. Pass them out and let the kids decorate them. This would be a good time to review the 4 pictures of Jesus’ life that we’ve been using during the week, reminding them that this is what they can tell their friends about Jesus.

When they are through decorating their children, pass out the pop-up page for today. Help the children close their paper dolls and glue them onto their pop-up book. When they are through they will open their page and the paper dolls will unfold.

Review the past 4 days using the pop-up book — hear, believe, repent. confess

Remove the cover from the poster labeled CONFESS.

Tell the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch. Stress that he wanted to understand the scriptures, but he needed someone to help him, so God miraculously sent Philip. Philip taught him about Jesus. Because of this teaching he confessed Jesus as the son of God and was baptized.

Craft time. Yesterday they made sun-catchers — Wax-paper, crayon shavings and an iron. The teacher put them in a paper frame with a Bible verse written on the bottom.

Take the children outside and read to them My Story About Jesus

Return to class.

Pass out story folders. This activity should be done basically the same as yesterday. Review story, ask review question, discuss application picture, allow the children time to color the picture. While they’re coloring either talk to them about the picture, sing songs or review questions some more.

Attendance Chart — I keep forgetting to mention this, but we are getting it done during class. Their attendance charts have a place for each day of the week. They get to add a paper hand to the correct day when they are there. It’s very simple, but again reminds them of the hand which should remind them of the steps to salvation.

If there is time remaining, sing songs that will be sung in the auditorium.

Prayer — Each child can have a turn saying a prayer, or just 1 or just the teacher.

Go to the auditorium. We will be meeting with the rest of the classes in the auditorium. Danny will review the story with the kids in the form of a game — Keeping score (boys vs girls) throughout the week. We’ll sing some songs and then go home.

Friday
Saul (later named Paul) teaches us we must be baptized