This page is devoted to sharing the actual lesson plans I used while teaching about young men that grew up to do great things in the Bible (Joseph, Samuel, David, Josiah and Timothy) to a K-1 class in a Vacation Bible School setting.

• Joseph — Making Good Choices
• Samuel — Listening and Obeying
• David — Having Faith and Courage
• Josiah — Respecting God’s Word
• Timothy — Teaching Others What You Have Learned

Joseph
Making Good Choices
Became a ruler in Egypt

Our VBS starts in the morning.

Theme: Remember Your Creator In The Days Of Your Youth

Monday: Joseph — Making Good Choices — Became a ruler in Egypt

Tuesday: Samuel — Listening and Obeying — Became a Judge/Priest

Wednesday: David — Having Faith and Courage — Became a King

Thursday: Josiah — Respecting God’s Word — Was a King That Restored Worship As God Intended It

Friday: Timothy — Teaching Others What You Have Learned — Taught Others About Christ

Some of the songs used during this VBS:
Remember Your Creator
Joseph, What Will You Choose?

Our week will be spent studying Bible characters that were faithful to God as children or young men. These same Bible characters were used by God to do great things later on. My class is 5 and 6 year olds. At this time, I plan on having about 7 in attendance. That, of course, is subject to change.

The wall decorations are pretty simple this year. I’ll have some pictures to post later. One of the things I want to teach this age is who their Creator is. So, one of the walls is about God’s creation. Right now, it is 2 bulletin boards (bulletin board paper with border put around it to simulate real bulletin boards) with nothing on them but a black sky and water on one and a blue sky and green grass on another. Each day, each child will get to choose one item (animal, fish, bird, star, etc) to place on the bulletin board. By the end of the week, the bulletin boards will be full of things that God made.

The kids are going to be memorizing Ecclesiastes 12:1 — “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come, And the years draw near when you say, “ I have no pleasure in them.” The passage has been divided into 4 parts. Each day the children will copy (I know this might be a stretch for 5 and 6 year olds– we’ll see how it goes) the section for that day and do an activity with it. Each day, they will get to stick stickers of things God made in their booklet also. Hopefully, they will have the verse memorized by Friday.

Each child will get a booklet for each character we are studying. The booklets have the story plus several activities and a song that goes with it. We’ll do as many of the activities in class that we have time for or that their attention will allow. Other activities can be completed at home. By the end of the week, they’ll 5 booklets that tell the stories we learned and a booklet with their memory work. All of these will go into a backpack that has the theme of the VBS ironed on the front. We’ll also be working on decorating a pillowcase to remind them of the story of Samuel. This is a 4 part project so, it’s the only artsy sort of thing we’re doing in class.

As usual, there will be an activity room that the kids will get to go to each day. The teacher in this room is the local high school art teacher and a member here at Huntington. She will be doing art projects that will help reinforce the lessons we’re studying in class. I love this because art things are not my favorite thing to do. We don’t have to mess up our classroom with that kind of stuff and we all get to leave the classroom for a little while. This breaks the class time up nicely.

Lesson Plan:

Attendance Chart: Each day they will put a picture of the Bible character we are studying on their attendance chart.

Creation Bulletin board: After discussing the theme of the week, we’ll talk about who their Creator is and what He has done for us. Let each choose a picture to add to the bulletin board.

Creation Stickers: Pass out black paper and planet stickers to each child. Let them put their stickers on their paper. Set aside for a little bit.

Memory Work: Pass out Memory booklets. “Read” the passage with them. Allow them to copy the passage. Trace the letters at the bottom of the page (It spells GOD). Show them how to glue their black paper with planets on the next page.

Song: Introduce the theme song for the week: Remember Your Creator. This is a song I wrote. There are 2 verses that will be sung everyday and then each day a verse dedicated to the Bible character we’re studying about will be included. Click here to listen to a recording of Remember Your Creator In The Days Of Your Youth — Joseph.

Introduction to Joseph: Pass our Joseph books. Pass out pictures of good/bad choices and let them glue (I painted these with watered down glue so hopefully they’ll be “lick and stick”) pictures in the columns labeled Good and Bad. These pictures are of things that they should recognize as being obviously good and bad activities. Discuss with them about making good choices in their lives.

Tell Story of Joseph: Even though we’ll be going over the entire story of Joseph, we’re going to be concentrating on the choice Joseph made to run from Potiphar’s wife. I’m going to use some pictures I have to help tell the story the first time through. I will retell the story again before class is over letting them “read” along with me in their Joseph Booklets.

Sing: Joseph What Will You Choose. This a song I wrote for this class. It briefly tells the story of Joseph choosing to run away from Potiphar’s Wife. ng.

Choices Activity: The back of their Joseph booklet has a place for them to draw a picture. I will present a scenario of a time they might have to make a choice (I have yet to decide what scenario to use). We’ll discuss it and then they will get to draw a picture of the choice they made. This will be something about telling the truth, or cleaning up after themselves, or obeying their parents.

Review Memory Work: Go over the memory verse either with their booklets or just by memory.

Activities Room: I’m not sure where this is going to fit in. We’ll be flexible tomorrow and just go when we’re told.

Sing: Joseph This a song I wrote a few years ago. It doesn’t necessarily go along with Joseph making the right choice, but it is a fun one to sing.

Samuel
Listening and Obeying
Became a Judge/Priest

 

We survived day one. It went pretty well. I had 7 students and one assistant. We discussed Joseph and began our memory verse. The activities room room involved some very basic watercolor. Today, she plans on letting the children draw flowers around the watercolor splotches they made yesterday. Like I said yesterday, I really like having her do this because I would not be very good at it.

When I was originally assigned the group I’m working with, it was going to be 6 and 7 year olds. I got busy planning my lessons for that age. As we saw which kids were going to be coming my class was changed to 5 and 6 year olds. That doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is. I was gearing the activities towards kids that for the most part could read and write some. Now, I have a group that is only beginning to read. There’s one little boy that doesn’t even know how to hold a pencil. I have an activity that requires them to copy their memory verse. I have 3 out of 7 that even attempt it. One thing about teaching a Bible class, especially a VBS, is that you have to be flexible.

Lesson Plan:

Attendance Chart: Each child will add Samuel to the chart

Creation Bulletin board: They enjoyed this yesterday. The bulletin board is getting full of pictures.

Creation Stickers: Today, they will be sticking fish on dark blue paper.

Activities Room: We go to the activities room about 10:30. This is where it fit in yesterday.

Memory Work: Pass out Memory booklets. “Read” the passage with them. Allow them to copy the passage. Let them color the shapes with a dot in it. The colored part will read GOD.

Song: Introduce the theme song for the week: Remember Your Creator. This is a song I wrote. There are 2 verses that will be sung everyday and then each day a verse dedicated to the Bible character we’re studying about will be included. Sing Samuel today. Click here to listen to a recording of Remember Your Creator In The Days Of Your Youth –Samuel.

Introduction to Samuel: Pass our Samuel books. We will be learning about how to listen and obey today. The first activity in the book has 4 pictures of various animals. I will use a See ‘n Say and play the animal sounds. They are supposed to listen carefully and stick (lick and stick) the picture in the Samuel book. They don’t all have the same pictures so they are going to have to listen carefully and not just look at what their neighbor is doing.

Tell Story of Samuel: There is a flip chart for this one. I may get to use the blacklight story too.

Sing: Samuel

Choices Activity: In the back of their book they are to draw a picture of something I describe. It will be a flower. They will have to listen carefully to do this one.

Review Memory Work: Go over the memory verse either with their booklets or just by memory.

Samuel Pillowcase: We are working on a week long activity. Yesterday they drew a picture of themselves. Today they will copy (those that can) what Samuel said to God “Speak Lord, I’m listening”.

Blacklight story: If there is time use the blacklight flip chart about things God made.

David
Having Faith and Courage
Became a King

Here we are in the middle of the week. The class is settling into a routine. The kids are getting a little more used to me. They all have such different and sweet personalities. One sweet little girl likes to give Jesus as the answer to most questions. She’s learned early what I didn’t figure out until High School — if you don’t know the answer, it’s probably Jesus. Actually, in my classes growing up it always seemed to be Paul. I have one little boy that doesn’t want to lick the back of his stickers. I think I’ll just give him a glue stick today. I have one (mine) that likes to talk too much. I need to put him away from the little girl he sat by yesterday. They talked and talked.

I didn’t have time to work on Samuel’s pillowcase with them yesterday. We’ll need to do some today. I’m saving the painting (I bought spray paint for fabric. I hope it won’t be too messy) until Thursday. The temperature is very, very hot here. It’s supposed to be 100 for the next 3 days. I’m planning on doing the painting outside. But, that is tomorrow.

For Samuel’s story, I used the black light flip chart. If you’ve never used one of these, you’re missing out. There are only 3 kids in class that have seen these used before. They are always thrilled with them, but the new kids were totally mesmerized.

Today’s lesson is about David and how he showed faith and courage in God at a young age. He then went on to become the king of Israel. It is a favorite story with kids and I love to teach it. I’ll be using a flip chart I made years ago and a black light story as well.

Yesterday in our activities room we tie dyed t-shirts. We’ve done this every year and the kids love it. It always seems to fit in to what we’re learning. These shirts are very colorful and help remind the kids about Joseph’s coat of many colors.

Lesson Plan:

Attendance Chart: Each child will add David to the chart

Creation Bulletin board: Our bulletin board is beginning to look like something now.

Creation Stickers: Green paper with animals stickers today

Activities Room: We go to the activities room about 10:30.

Memory Work: Pass out Memory booklets. “Read” the passage with them. Allow them to copy the passage. The activity for today is a word search. It just has six words and they are animals that God made. They’ve been looking ahead in the book and keep wanting to do this one.

Song: Introduce the theme song for the week: Remember Your Creator. This is a song I wrote. There are 2 verses that will be sung everyday and then each day a verse dedicated to the Bible character we’re studying about will be included. We’ll sing the David verse today. Click here to listen to a recording of Remember Your Creator In The Days Of Your Youth — David. Again, it’s not online yet but hopefully will be by the end of the week.

Introduction to David: Pass our David books. We will be learning about faith and courage. The first activity in the book is a place to draw a picture of something they are afraid of. The last activity in the book will be about praying to God when we are afraid. We will trace their hand in a praying position and those that can will write a short prayer to God. Those that can’t write will dictate it one to a teacher. There is also a puzzle of David and Goliath they can put together.

Tell Story of David: There is a flip chart for this one. I may get to use the blacklight story too.

Sing: David

Review Memory Work: Go over the memory verse either with their booklets or just by memory.

Samuel Pillowcase: We are working on a week long activity. Yesterday they drew a picture of themselves. Today they will copy (those that can) what Samuel said to God “Speak Lord, I’m listening”. This is the activity we didn’t get to yesterday. Hopefully we’ll have time today.

Blacklight story: If there is time use the blacklight flip chart about things God made.

One last song: If there is time I’ll introduce a new song to them called Thank You. It is intended to be sung on Friday, but it is long with lots of words and fun to sing so we’ll start it today — if there is time.

Josiah
Respecting God’s Word
Was a King That Restored Worship As God Intended It

 

Josiah is the lesson for today. Josiah is a great example of a young man standing up to the establishment of his day and doing things God’s way. My class will be concentrating on the respect Josiah had for God’s word once he found it.

This lesson is not as easy as the others to prepare for because there just isn’t that much available out there in the way of visual aids. One of the problems we run up against making our own VBS curriculum is the lack of visual aids. I know that most teachers are like myself and scour the internet for material to use. We have a few good sources of visuals in our resource room and this year, Danny (my husband) put his artistic skills to good use and drew pictures of the Bible characters we are studying. Now if I could get him to do that all the time, I’d have it made.

I plan on doing the “big” art project today. I had the kids draw a picture of themselves on Monday. Then, the ones that can copy are going to copy the phrase from Samuel “Speak Lord, I’m listening”. Tonight I plan to go over their pictures and copy work with a sharpie, scan them in the computer and print them with iron-on stuff so I can iron them onto a pillow case. I have placed a square of contact paper to the middle of their white pillow cases where I am going to iron on their picture. Today, they will spray around the contact paper and wherever else they want on the pillow case with fabric spray paint. Tomorrow they will have a pillow case they decorated that hopefully will remind them of our lesson about Samuel and how listened to God.

Lesson Plan:

Attendance Chart: Each child will add Josiah to the chart

Creation Bulletin board: Our bulletin board is beginning to look like something now.

Creation Stickers: Light blue paper with birds. This will be the last of these sticker pages to do and will go in their memory book with the rest of them.

Activities Room: We go to the activities room about 10:30.

Memory Work: Pass out Memory booklets. “Read” the passage with them. Allow them to copy the passage. The activity today is to learn to say thank you by spelling it out in sign language.

Song: Introduce the theme song for the week: Remember Your Creator. This is a song I wrote. There are 2 verses that will be sung everyday and then each day a verse dedicated to the Bible character we’re studying about will be included. We’ll sing the Josiah verse today. Click here to listen to a recording of Remember Your Creator In The Days Of Your Youth — Josiah

Introduction to Josiah: Pass our Josiah books. Today we will be learning about respecting God’s word and how a young king destroyed all the idols and people that were involved in worshiping those idols. The activities on the first page are to help them know the difference in God’s book and man’s books. There are pictures of stories we learn from the Bible and stories we read in picture books — Noah, Creation, Baby Jesus, Little Bear, Clifford, Madeline. They will decide if the pictures go under the “God’s Book” column or the “Man’s Book” column. The 2nd activity is similar but there are pockets with actual pictures of book covers from books like Corduroy, Harry The Dirty Dog, etc. There is a little book made of black construction paper with white paper stapled inside to represent the Bible. The ones that would like will get to write GOD inside their “Bible”.

Tell Story of Josiah: We will read the story of Josiah from their little books.

Sing: Josiah

Review Memory Work: Go over the memory verse either with their booklets or just by memory. Today they should be able to put their third sticker on the back of their books. Some of them can tell what their pictures are already. Some will need to wait until the last sticker is in place.

Samuel Pillowcase: Go outside and paint the pillowcases. I live next door to the church building and I have a clothes line in the backyard. We will be hanging the pillowcases from the clothesline to paint and to dry.

Blacklight story: If there is time use the blacklight flip chart about things God made.

One last song: If there is time I’ll introduce a new song to them called Thank You. It is intended to be sung on Friday, but it is long with lots of words and fun to sing so we’ll start it today — if there is time.

Timothy
Teaching Others What You Have Learned
Taught Others About Christ

 

It’s the last day of our VBS. It has been a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. Danny was looking through some old VBS song books he had put together. It was interesting to see the topics we’ve studied in the past. I think the earliest he came across was 1991. Back then we were buying packaged curriculum. The curriculum available years ago was actually pretty good stuff. Then, things changed. It seemed like all of the publishers were competing to see who could have the most exciting, fun-filled VBS. Many of themes I’ve seen published had to be looked through deeply to find any Bible being taught. So, we started writing our own. Basically, Danny comes up with a theme with a few scriptures and objectives and then tells the teachers to go for it. Our teachers have always worked very hard and the students come away with lessons that just can’t be found in modern packaged VBS curricula. I’m very proud of our teachers and the work they put into this. It is not only good for the students. It is good for the teacher as well. It is a known fact that the teacher always learns more than the student does.

Tomorrow’s lesson is on Timothy. Timothy was chosen because as a young boy his mother and grandmother taught him about God. He later went on to become a teacher of God’s word to many other people. He’s a great example for our young people to follow. My class will be talking about how thankful we should be to the people that teach us about God. Whether it’s our parents or grandparents or teachers or whoever, we need to realize what a gift they have given us. We’ll also talk about how we can teach others like Timothy did. Now, I know that 5 and 6 year olds are a little young to be having Bible studies with their friends, they can begin thinking now that teaching others is something they will want to do later.

As I sit here typing at 12:30 AM I just realized that I forgot to do a project for tomorrow. Unless I wake up early to do it, I guess it will have to wait for another class time. I’m sure we’ll have plenty to do tomorrow as it is.

Lesson Plan:

Attendance Chart: Each child will add Timothy to the chart

Creation Bulletin board: I’ll let them add as many of the animals that are left as they want to.

Activities Room: We go to the activities room about 10:30.

Memory Work: Pass out Memory booklets. “Read” the passage with them. They should be able to say the whole verse by now. Most of them have 3 stickers already. The 4th one will complete the picture of their animal.

Song: We’ll sing the Remember Your Creator song about Timothy.

Introduction to Timothy: Pass our Timothy books. The first activity in the book is to draw a picture of someone that has taught them about God.

Tell Story of Josiah: We will read the story of Timothy from their little books.

Timothy Puzzle: This is an eight piece puzzle I made using one of the pictures in the little book. It goes into the pocket inside the front cover.

Sing: Thank You This song is a mouthful. We worked on it Thursday so they are a little familiar with it.

Blacklight story: I’ve been wanting to show this one to them for the past couple of days. I will make time for it today.

Get Ready To Go: Pass out back packs and let them start filling it with their stuff they did this week. Pass out each book and remind them briefly about the story. Pass out the memory booklet and see if they say the verse from memory again. Pass out the pillow cases. Pass out the attendance charts (these will have to be folded to fit in the back pack) and the attendance certificates.

Pictures: Take a group picture

Songs: Let the students choose their favorite song to sing.