Bible story crafts

[freshlyground]

I am looking for crafts that remind the children of the Bible story for each day.

I appreciate the theme, but I want kids to walk away with the story in their heart and in their hand. I see the theme as the vehicle in which kids come to VBS, but my desire is that it is the story lesson that they remember.

Any help or ideas out there on how to achieve this for all age groups at minimal expense?

[comfy_kids]

Freshly Ground,
We have the same principles with our crafts. We like for them all to have some component of the day's scripture verse or reminder of the story rather than just the theme. I have found many crafts in the book that help with this. I will be posting next week what are crafts will be for each day and hopefully have pictures for you. I only oversee pre-school through 2nd grade, so do not have crafts for the older kids. I also have to deal with a very limited budget. Hope that helps. Look forward to the forthcoming ideas.

[TnVallyGrl]

I teach our 3 & 4 yr olds and we have done the four men and a friend lesson with a fun craft. We actually used it as a teaching aid but it could be done as a craft. I found it online so I can't take credit for it but it worked perfectly. They could each retell the story. We made a house by cutting off the bottom of a small brown bag, lunch bag style the kind you use for making hand puppets, and turning it over so it stood up. Then cut some windows out and a door. Don't forget to cut out a big square in the roof, the bottom of the brown bag. We used some left over items out of our craft room next. We had a very small basket we used as a bed and put a little picture of a man in it. They sell them at craft stores maybe Walmart too, they are about 2 inches big. Anything would work even a strip of index card. The picture was some materials left from old preschool sunday school books. We tied some yarn to the basket and was able to lower him into the house. We also found some stickers of Jesus from the old sunday school books and stuck one inside the house. All of the pictures could be made or drawn easily. If the kids are too young for cutting you could give them some small squares of index card and let them draw and color the man and Jesus on them. You could already have the houses made. Let them help with the yarn and each retell the story. Just make sure the man can get up and run out of the house, don't draw him on his bed. I hope this helps.

[janethenley]

I like to put the verse on the crafts.. I print them on printer lables and they can stick them on the back or front of craft :-)

[brutgers]

oriental trading has paper glasses you decorate yourselves....dirt cheap! You can marker, sequin, glitter, bead....etc. for pennies. We are using this for the blind man bible story

also, I saw several companies offering a token bag at great expense. I took felt rectangles, folded them in half and glued the seams....the kids will then hole punch the top, weave through yarn (or colored shoe strings), or raffia, place pony beads on the ends, and use markers to decorate the outside of the token bags.....which can include writing their names and the bible verse or daily choice. I ordered plastic coins from oriental trading @ 3.95 per gross...this token bag represents the rich young ruler story. I think its my favorite craft!

and just an fyi....OTC also sells sand art cross necklaces....which we will be filling with the sand art CANDY! its fairly inexpensive and yummy!

[kidsmatter]

My crafts don't always remind kids of the Bible story of the day, but I do work hard to choose crafts that will have some lasting value - maybe a tie-in to the memory verse or the daily choice. I'm still working on this, but here are the crafts I'm hoping to use:
Day 1 - SonWorld Autograph Book. (We'll probably let kids carry these with them all week or just use them at the story or verse station. Kids will use the books to write down their daily choices - I choose to Believe that Jesus is the Savior God promised to send, I choose to follow Jesus' example by caring for others, etc. This way they'll be able to remember their choices long after VBS is over. for a little more fun with this craft, if we can find people to be the skit characters - Dusty Chaps, Flora Rose, etc - we'll ask them to do some planned "surprise" visits to sign the kids' autograph books. A little hint about this one - I have a lot of kids to prepare these crafts for, so pre-cutting all those jean patches to cover the books was going to take quite a while. I went to a local gift & thrift store and they were quite willing to cut the patches for me from their extra jeans. Saves me some works, and supports the ministry of this MCC store.
Day 2 - Build-a-pet Puppies (Called Care-for-me Pups in the SonWorld craft guide, pg. 29). I had a hard time finding the right kind of socks at a reasonable price, so these will cost about $1 CAD/craft. But since the rest of the crafts will cost about half that, it should be okay.
Day 3 - Sculpey erasor-clay crosses (Ties into the salvation message and the memory verse for today...We can choose forgiveness and let God "erase" our sins)
Day 4 - Rich man's money bag (from the SonWorld craft guide, pg. 54). I'm using a specialty felt called Kunin felt. I got it at Walmart.
Day 5 - Painted picture rocks (from the SonWorld craft guide, pg. 89). I used this one at my after-school kids club already, and found that it was too difficult to put the wire on after the kids had painted them. Also, it'll go much smoother at the craft station if you wrap the wire around the rocks ahead of time. Then kids could just paint, bend the wire ends, and decorate / cut out the verse cards.

I've written up instructions for the crafts that aren't in the SonWorld craft book, complete with a picture of the finished product. If anyone wants them I'd be happy to share them with you.

[Tlynne]

kidsmatter,
I'd love to have the instructions and see a finished product. I too try to tie in all our crafts with the theme or Bible story.
Thanks for sharing,
Tess