Other than "to make them feel better after the Sabbath was over,"  what is a better explanation of why we smell the spices in the b'asamin box?

Do the kids only wear the yarmulkes in the synagogue?  In JM photos, I see all the kids wearing their headdresses or tribe bandannas.  Are the yarmalkes worn UNDER the headdress or do they just put them on in the synagogue.  I've been to Israel, and I've seen that the orthodox men wear their yarmulkes all the time but my brother-in-law who is nonorthodox just would wear his at the synagogue.  So which are we?  Nonorthodox?

I think it's a real problem that the director's manual doesn't have all the information that is in the leader manuals, too.  A nightmare, in fact.  Maybe it's just how we're doing it, but I am having to round up so much info from the leaders.  Yiiiks.

Thanks for your help.  We are doing this over 5 Sundays, starting September 14.  I'm excited but we sure have a  lot to do this week.

Blessings,

Jan

I rewrote the tribe leader directions to have them talk about the B'samim boxes as a way to celebrate the goodness of God.  God created the world, and He made it good.  Therefore, we appreciate the good things God has made and thank Him for them.  The good smells of the B'samim box remind us of this and inspire us to a sense of gratitude to God.

Yes, we only had the boys wear their yarmulkes during synagogue (while the girls wore little scraps of clothing we called headscarves.)  It helped give a sense of specialness to synagogue.  If you try to have them wear their yarmulke during the entire VBS, you may find discarded yarmulkes in all sorts of odd places.  One of our children wore his to the bathroom and it accidentally fell in the toilet bowl!

Yes, I agree it would be nice to have all the information that's spread out in the various booklets contained succinctly in the leader manual, though I'm sure Group has many reasons for spreading it out the way they do.  Their method encourages the various volunteers to take more responsibility for their own parts, easing the burden on the VBS director.  My way of dealing with it (which I admit is not the best) was to copy only the pages I wanted to share with the various volunteers and add in my own supplemental information.  In some cases, especially with the music, that included pages from Galilee booklets of last year.  I just can't seem to leave the program alone and with all the changes I make, it's easier for us to not give out the actual booklets from Group.

I hope your VBS goes well.  It's almost time!

Katinka