Many of you work with or directly plan Vacation Bible School for your Churches. It can be a huge task to come up with unique and inspiring crafts and activities to make a lasting impact on the kids. Hopefully this will help a little.

Little Kid^TM Crafts

• Joseph's Coat of Many Colors - First create a vest out of a large paper bag by cutting a slit up the front of the bag and cutting out neck and arm holes. To make Joseph's Coat, use marker or crayons to decorate it. You could also make this more difficult by cutting out squares of patterned paper and gluing squares all over the vest.

• Peace Dove Ornament - This craft comes complete with a printable pattern and makes a nice addition to many Bible story activities. The pattern is also very pretty!

• Now Available In Spiral Bound Version! Now Available In Spiral Bound Version!

  L O V E Doorknob or Wall Hanging - This makes a very nice take home craft for younger children because it really looks like something when they are done. They will love hanging it on their bedroom door (at least my children do).

• 'Forgiveness' Craft - This is a cute craft that's easy for younger children to do... it also helps teach a great lesson for Bible School and or any other time.

• Bible Collages - Younger children love to put together collages... it makes sense to create them for Bible stories as well. You'll find some helpful collage components for some specific stories here.

• Noah's Ark and the Rainbow: God Keeps His Promises - This page puts together an entire Bible lesson centered around Noah's Ark (Genesis 9:8-17) with focus on The Promise that God makes to Noah and humanity, and God's gift of a rainbow that represents that promise. This one is VERY well done.

• Bible Coloring Pages - Sometimes the best crafts for younger children are just plain coloring pages. The coloring pages here represent different passages and Bible stories to help you reinforce what you're teaching.

• Armor of God Paper Craft - This is a very cute craft project for younger children... simple print, color, cut out, and glue together! It doesn't get any easier!

More Challenging Crafts

• Moses Meets God at the Burning Bush - This is a great idea for making a burning bush pin intended for children in grades 1-6 and based on Exodus 3:1-10.

• God Dictionary - This craft helps the children make a dictionary about all the things that they know about God.

• I'll Shine For Jesus - This is a very unique idea... but be sure to only do it with kids that are old enough not to hurt themselves.

• Moses and the Parting of the Red Sea - This craft just looks really neat when finished. It has a bunch of templates to use, so it only looks difficult!

• 10 Commandment Tablets - Cut heavy cardboard into 12" squares and cut them to resemble the commandment tablets that Moses was given. Give the children enough clay, (the old fashioned store-bought kind). The idea is to spread the clay like icing; only thinner. Then, using a pencil, inscribed a short version of all ten commandments onto their clay tablet. All of the kids will be very impressed with their own and each others work and learn to say the commandments.

• Palm Leaf Cross - This page has detailed directions for making a cross out of a real palm leaf, but you could also use paper to illustrate the idea.

• Foam Fish - This is a brightly colored foam fish craft that includes a template to make it easier. This is an ideal Bible School craft.

Other Useful Vacation Bible School Links

• Bible Detective - Have a little fun with the Bible by playing Bible Detective.

• Fishers of Kids Games - This site has several different game ideas to add a little pizzazz to VBS.

• Kids Sunday School Place - This website has a tone of resources and activities to help you plan and run your Vacation Bible School with style.

• Oriental Trading Co. - They always have a ton of craft kits to choose from for groups. The best thing about them is that you can purchase complete craft kits for an entire class for pennies per person... this makes it really easy!

By The Way...

By the way, don't forget to check out the message boards at: http://www.kidcraftsmagazine.com/messageboards.shtml

One last note... we are moving our family and our business from Virginia to Kentucky in the next few weeks. As you might imagine, this is a huge task!

The reason I'm telling you is so you'll understand why I may not be able to answer your questions as quickly as we'd both like and why the newsletter is a little slow for the next couple of weeks. We expect to be settled in and back to normal by the middle of August, so we hope you'll bare with us!