Colossal Coaster World - VBS 2013

This year's VBS theme was Colossal Coaster World. Making a church look like a theme park is surprisingly easier than expected. It helps when you can use another church's decorations once they are done with them. I helped with crafts, its my favorite area.

Day 1: There were way more kids than we expected to show up but it was great. The kids were excited and well behaved (excluding a few pains). Our craft for the day was fireworks. We cut out circles and let the kids pick paint colors and then they dripped paint in a pattern of their choosing. For the younger kids they picked the color but we did the dripping. Once they were satisfied with the pattern we would come around with salad spinners and place the paper in it. If they were big enough they were allowed to spin it themselves but if they were little and not quite strong enough we would spin it. The result was a cool firework pattern. The only problem was glitter got everywhere because we let them put glitter once they'd spun it and a lot of them wrote their names in yellow on the back.

Day 2: For the rest of the week we had less kids than day one but still quite a few showed up. Our craft that day was making a basket out of paper and yarn. Turns out kids are not so great at following instructions when it comes to origami. Nathan and I had practiced the craft earlier that week so we knew how to do it and were able to help the ones who were struggling. The other helpers needed help too during the first round of kids because they hadn't practiced. We went a little over on time that day.

Day 3: We made optical illusions! They put a picture of Paul and Silus on side of a folded piece of paper and on the other side we taped coffee stirrers to look like prison bars. In the middle of the folded paper was a pencil. When they spun the pencil in their hands the people looked like they were in and out of prison.

Day 4: Picture frames! Everyone knows them, they're pretty easy for everyone. Most parents don't use them though. to encourage the parents actually putting it somewhere around the house we took pictures of the kids throughout the week so they'd have a picture to put in it before they took it home.

Day 5: We made bookmarks out of paperclips. This and the fireworks seemed to be everyone's favorite craft. They picked the color paperclip, color of yarn for hair, and another color for the bow to tie the hair with. Once they were done with the hair we came around with tape and added googly eyes. The kids loved them and treated them more like new toys rather than a bookmark.