Greetings all:
Hope you all have the power! I ran Bible Blast about two weeks ago and thought I’d share some thoughts looking back. First, I’d like to mention that I have run Bible Adventures for the past seven years, and I think this was one of the best in content and activities.
We have 150 kids in our Catholic program. Our color groups have 7 to 8 crews. I have learned through the years that streamlining and efficiency are important so we don’t have any pauses that break the momentum or experience.
For decorations, we kept things pretty simple. Our program is in an elementary school. In the hallway (which is our gathering area), I painted a board in neon orange and put on top a florescent green burst (poster board) with neon Pink letters saying Bible Blast. We used “black lights” in that area and the sign glowed (with the overhead lights off). I had a few lava lamps as well that sat on a table with a blue plastic table cloth on it. Under the table, I had moving Christmas lights. From behind the table cloth, they looked like some bumbling potion. A big cut out of “Fizz” also sat on the table.
For the “classroom”, I hung a rope off of electrical conduit in the room and hung up painters tarps (this covered two walls). For the two remaining walls, I covered them in brown paper (from Home Depot). This basically gave me a blank backdrop for all of the adventures.
When I greeted the kids the first two days, I welcomed them to “laceName w:st="on">PowerlaceName> laceName w:st="on">LablaceName> laceType w:st="on">UniversitylaceType>” where they would learn cool things about science and the Bible. This provided a nice bridge into the activities.
For the first day in the room, I had the crews circle around large pieces of poster board. Instead of having the kids draw on the wall, they drew on the poster boards. The markers were there at their poster boards when they entered to save time. I told the kids that they were filled with a special ionized ink that needed special instructions so that no one would start drawing with them ahead of time.
In the center of the room, I put a rectangle on the carpet with blue tape. I told the kids not to go in the box when they entered. This became our quarantine area. On one of the painters tarps, I had hung up some rough drawing of a city drawn on brown paper.
The day went really well. I didn’t encourage a lot of the running around when they became free because I didn’t need things torn apart. I also should have collected the markers when they were done because kids returned to drawing after they were cured from their leprosy. We probably went threw two sheets of stickers for every rotation.
For the second day, the day we cured blindness, we made blindfolds out of some cheap material found at a local clearance section of Walmart. This was more cost effective than trying to find scrunchies. But beware! Make sure it is not a slick fabric. Some folds kept “sliding” off of the girls with long hair. As time went on, I instructed crew leaders to make sure they “hooked” the blindfolds on the kids ears. We probably used less than a standard big can of oatmeal for the entire day. We actually made it the night before.
For set up, I took a couple of blue tarps and put them on the floor. I used the poster boards from the day before (flipped over) to create crew stations again. We had the wipes and oatmeal at each station so that everything was in place.
The oatmeal was a little messy, so have a couple of helpers ready to clean and set up between rotations. The kids loved it overall. Some really thought it was mud. The crew leaders enjoyed themselves as well.
Day 3- Be prepared!!!!!!
For decorating, we used classroom tables and desks (covered in brown paper) to create the outline of a boat. We used blue tarps and plastic dollar store table cloths to create the water. We had a ramp (that was a stretcher used several years ago for another VBS story) that was the dock. At the foot of the ramp, we had a brown tarp. Next to the ramp were the cornstarch mixture and the rinse water as well as a few towels on the floor for afterwards. When kids entered, we had the cornstarch and water covered with blue table cloths. The kids were so focused on the boat, that they didn’t notice the raised water.
We used about 30 boxes of cornstarch (30 lbs.) I had mixed it up the night before in a large under-the-bed container at home (purchased at Home Depot for about $12). We had poured all of the corn starch in at first and then added water. I wish that we would have made small buckets of it so it would have been easier to mix up. The next morning, my assistant and I spent about a half an hour re-mixing it (with our hands) to get it to the right consistency. It worked well for the first two rotations. It could have been remixed during the snack time because it started to become less fluid by the last two rotations.
When the kids walked across, we had them exit back into the hall where we had towels and discussion questions ready to go. Having them all “walk on water” did take a while.
I also had prepped the crew leaders a head of time to have the kids take off their shoes as they came up to the station. It made things work so much better for entering from the hallway to the “boatroom”.
The kids loved it.
For the fourth day, it was fairly easy set-up. We had three wood crosses that I had found somewhere in the storeroom. They were painted white. I left one white and covered the other two in brown paper. I leaned them up against a wall. It worked well.
For the fifth day, my “actor” had gone on a translation website (I believe Bablefish.com??) and translated into German a basic story of the decent of the Holy Spirit story. He put it on a clipboard and looked as if he was showing me his notes. He repeated it over and over again. The kids thought it was great.
We used a half of cup of vanilla in a crockpot with about 16 washcloths that were rotated. It was smelly enough.
I hope this is helpful. I hope I didn’t scare anyone. Compared to past years, this was probably one of the simplest Bible Adventure weeks that we have ever had. It was also one of the most effective. I look forward to running this station every year!
God Bless-
“Professor” Steve