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We have done the Easy VBS for the last 9 years and every church does it around the area now. I was really thinking about switching this year and didn't. I really think a switch next year would be great. However, is it possible to do this theme similar to the "room to room" and mixed age crews without parents staying? I don't think a "family" VBS would go over well here. Any help would be appreciated. I start CDock on Sunday and I have LOTS of decorating still left to do.
First Church PA
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| Yes, you can have rooms for the different stations at Egypt and Tribes can only consist of elementary and preschool age kids with adult or teen Tribe Leaders. I think that switching from Group's "Easy" VBS to their Holy Land Adventure theme is doable but it's going to take some work. You'll need a big room for Celebration. This is like Sing & Play in the "Easy" VBS model. Then Tribes (like Crews in "Easy" VBS) will have Tribe Time. Tribes can have Tribe Time in the Celebration area. This is when the Tribe Leader (like a Crew Leader) does the daily Holy Land activities. Then the Tribes travel to different stations. You have a lesson station (I don't know what it's called for Egypt) where kids learn about Holy Land times. There's also Pyramid Playground which is the games station. Then there's the Marketplace where different shops are set up with different crafts that tribes do. The lesson, games, and marketplace stations are stations that the tribes rotate through. Sometime during the stations of before, it's always at a different time each day, a daily drama will go on where all the tribes gather to watch and talk about it. Then after all tribes have gone through the three rotation stations, they have Tribe Time again and have bread as their snack. Then it closes with worship at Celebration. If you have any specific questions, I'd be willing to help you in any way I can. God Bless, Josh 
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We've done HLA every year and we've never done the family format. We do mixed-age tribes/families for grades K-5. We do preschoolers, but they're in a separate area and are only in the marketplace for the opening and closing each day. Any adults who are available to be present are put to work! It works great this way and you should have no problem running this program like you do the easy VBS.
 Amy in Ohio
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| Is there seperate preschool curriculum? I just finished Croc Dock, about 1 hr ago, and am planning next years already. I loved the format of Croc Dock. THe kids really learned alot from the lessons. Will this have the same type of lesson, Bible Bayou this year, set up? Sorry to ask so much. Thank
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| There is no specific preschool curriculum for the Holy Land Adventure VBS programs. There is a station like Bible Bayou. It's been called Synagouge School in the past but I don't know what it's called for Egypt this year. Kids are also learning in their Tribe Times with their Tribes. God Bless, Josh
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We've done the Holy Land Theme for several years now. We present it as a family VBS but very few adults come. It works out fine anyway. I mix ages in each family group. We do the whole thing in our fellowship hall except sometimes games are outside. Mixed ages works fine in the family groups. Usually parents of babies and toddlers do come. I do make sure there is an easier craft or suggest how to modify the crafts for younger ones. It has been a very rewarding VBS for everyone involved.
jj
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| Hi, I have done VBS for the last 6 years...5 of those years were the easy format. We did Bethlehem and the kids LOVED it. They still talk about it. We ran it like the other format and had no problems except for preschool. There was a little more thinking involved for 'bible' and the preschool director was overwhelmed. part of the problem was my lack of knowledge that it was a family based VBS and not an easy VBS.(it was the first yr they offered it) By the time we realized there was no preschool program we were running out of time. We are going to try Egypt this year and just knowing that preschool will need to be more thought im sure will make it run smoothly. BTW the church community was thrilled with the more 'religious' overtones and that we had a different program than every other church. Hope this helps. Debbie
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| We used the Bible-times curriculum, Marketplace 29 A.D., for MANY years (waaaaaaay back before Group publishing bought the rights to it). This was such a rewarding experience for the kids that we re-used the concept for multiple years, and just changed the crafts, snacks, and Bible stories each year. One person asked about the lack of a preschool program to go along with the Egypt curriculum for next year. Here's a possible solution: Group publishing's Hands-On SUNDAY SCHOOL curriculum for Pre-K and Kindergarten! (I used this curriculum for several years when I taught Sunday School). If you can find an old Sunday School kit that includes lessons on the life of Joseph, you will have EVERYTHING you need for a successful VBS preschool program! Each lesson in the Hands-On curriculum includes: Bible story, coloring pages, simple crafts, snacks, songs, and games. Hands-On curriculum is the most volunteer-friendly curriculum a Sunday School teacher (or VBS leader) could ever ask for! And no, I don't work for the company.
Beth Plybon
Dayton United Methodist Church
Dayton, Indiana
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| I'm chiming in a little late, but maybe this will help someone else. For the past several years, our church has switched back and forth doing an easy VBS one year and an HLA the next. This is my second year as director. We are just finishing up the Rome VBS and did PowerLab last year. As far as I can tell, the only thing that makes the easy VBS easy is that you don't need as many adult volunteers. Because the group leaders in the easy VBS don't have to do any teaching, they can simply shepherd the children from station to station, which means you can have mature 12 and 13 year olds doing this job (we did and it worked well.) By contrast, the HLA VBS requires the family/tribe leaders to actually teach and so you need more adults and older teens. In every other way, they are about the same amount of work. We use mixed ages, but limit the youngest age to 4 since we don't have enough volunteers to do a separate preschool program. Even 4 is pushing it, but there are enough older kids to help them out and it usually works well. The HLA allows for a little more creativity and flexibility because it is less structured--you can choose which shops to offer in the marketplace and leave out some of them without losing much--but I think it costs about the same as the easy VBS. And you can always find ways to substitute cheaper things for expensive crafts and activities in both curriculums. The HLA tends to offer healthier snacks--our kids disliked some of the PowerLab snacks and refused to eat them, but I think this may be a regional thing. I noticed that people from the south and midwest said on this site that their kids really liked the fun, junky snacks.  No matter where you live, you can always substitute what you know your church family will prefer. I really love both types of VBS, so I usually let the congregation vote in December which one we'll order for the next summer. This way, I figure if they like it, they are more likely to want to help out.
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The programs have many of the same elements--Bible, music, games, snacks, crafts--but the format feels completely different. I wouldn't give up the open Marketplace unless absolutely necessary. It's so different from the norm, that kids really feel like they're in a different place. Egypt takes them back in time, whereas High Seas takes them to a new place. Personally, I think you'd sacrifice some of the fresh experience if you tried to structure Egypt like an Easy VBS program. The change is part of the appeal to kids
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