VBS: Shake It Up Cafe

I got to help with Vacation Bible School again this year and I am so glad I did!  Our theme was Shake It Up Cafe, so we had a kitchen/cooking type theme.

Our group was the "carrots" and we hung around with the "lemons" for most of the stations.  Each day we had a "Secret Ingredient" that we learned about. They were:

• Monday--Be Ready for God
• Tuesday--Give Happily to God
• Wednesday--Believe Fully in Jesus
• Thursday--Remember Jesus Often
• Friday--Celebrate God Forever

Each day started out in Chef Basil's kitchen and then we were dismissed to our stations.  Each station had a project or activity that used the secret ingredient.

We got to go to science and do some fun cooking experiments, like a blindfolded, nose-plugged taste test.

And there were games inside and outside. Frances didn't last long in the water balloon toss. I wonder why??

She loved getting wet in the cup relay, though!

They had a cute cut-out by the front door for the kids to pose with.  I only took about 16 shots here and this is the best I could get! (Henry was downstairs in the pre-school session, so I didn't get many pictures of him.

Snack was fun. One of the sub-themes this year was about celebrations in the Bible and we talked a lot about unleavened bread.  Snack one day was tortilla faces. It seemed like an odd combination, but it was pretty good.

We had music every day and sang some really great songs.

During Bible time we learned about the different Jewish festivals that Jesus would have celebrated growing up.  The kids sorted pictures of the different items at each festival to display on posters around the room.

And the kids had arts & crafts time where they illustrated these cool chef hats, painted t-shirts, penned some evangelical fortune cookies, made coin banks to collect money for the poor, and decorated paper crosses.

One of the biggest hits of the week was Chef Basil.  We started and ended each day in his kitchen along with his sous chef, Scraps the Squirrel.  He led games for the kids, introduced the secret ingredient for each day, and led us in prayer. The kids loved him!

This is our favorite song from Bible School this year. I recorded the practice, so I could get out of the way when we recorded the second performance, but I think it turned out really well anyway!

All in all, it was a great week at VBS.  And the kids really had fun learning how to SHAKE IT UP!