At Mom's Request

Here are a couple of things that I did with the 2 year olds for VBS. Our theme was the Olympics. The first nights theme was Wrestling. The story we focused on was Jacob wrestling with the angel all night before the angel blessed him and gave Jacob his new name, Israel. Well, again, Chris and I had 2 year olds for an hour and had to do something to talk about this. I thought that we would focus on the angel because they all probably had heard of an angel before some how. This is where I used the Making Friends website. I printed the information on the paper before class and had people, wings, hair, clothes, and a belt cut out for everyone. I printed the people from different neutral colored paper and let the kids choose what they wanted. I put the outlines of everything into the Paint program and had different colored wings (some light yellow, some bright yellow, some yellow orange), different colored hair, and different colored belts for the kids to choose from. I made all their clothes white just because that seems like the right thing to do. Anyway, I think the kids were excited about getting to choose the stuff and then we put sticky squares (like you use in scrapbooks) on the back and helped show them where to put it on the page. I think they had a really fun time with this and it was a neat and different thing for them to take home. I really love doing stuff where each child's finished product looks different. Here is a picture of mine.

The second night was about archery. The story they focused on was the story of David and Jonathan where Jonathan warned David and David ran away. I actually thought this one would be easy but it wasn't. I decided to focus on the friendship with the 2 year olds. They are hearing a lot about being good friends these days and so I thought they may understand it. SO, I just read a story about David and Jonathan and a book about being friends and then let them color a coloring page. Nothing really different or significant.

The third night was about weight lifting. The story we focused on was Samson. I thought the part of the story I would focus on is what it is like to be strong. I went to the dollar store and bought a bag full of different colored little pompom cotton ball things. Then I bought a couple of bags of big rocks. (SO, I spent $3). I put the pompoms in a container and the kids passed it around and held it high over their heads and we talked about how light that was. Then I put the rocks in it and passed it around and they could not lift it very well. We talked about how heavy the rocks are and that you have to be strong to lift it. We talked about how strong Samson was. As a project to take home to remember this I got some really heavy duty paper and put some stiff foam on it and they each got to stick a pompom and a rock on their paper. They really liked this, I think but it all ended up falling apart. I used the same sticky squares but that didn't work well on the foam. By the time it was time to give it to their parents everything was falling apart and I just ended up throwing them all away instead of trying to give them out. Luckily they did a coloring page too so they did have something to take home. I think this would have worked if I had made sure I had something that stuck well. Mine, that I did at home and did not mess with, turned out great. Oh well, at least I tried. Here is a picture of it.

If there is anyone else out there teaching any classes then I would love to hear about the things you do in your classes. It is fun to get other's ideas.