Day 3 of VBS

Greetings Pals!

Two days ago.... I was too tired to post anything...after VBS, I spent the day with Meredith and Sam in Sheboygan.  We had a lot of fun...which led me to fall asleep after I got home! Then I started writing this blog entry on Thursday evening, but then Skyped with Brittany.  Our conversation lasted until about 2AM, so now it is officially two days late! Oh well!

So Wednesday at VBS was probably one of my favorite days! We did a LOT of painting! But before that, we went fishing! Here are the fish!

Each child had a chance to scoop out fish with a net, just like James and John did when they went fishing!

We had the kids take one "fish" out at a time so we could count them.  This way we were practicing out counting skills too! The kids loved it!  Mr. Steve came in and tried to "fish" but he wasn't able to do it, so he asked the kids to help him.  They taught him how to fish, and he ended up catching 4 fish!


Then we painted!

We took marbles, dipped them in paint and painted the plates by rolling the marbles around!

Only three marbles fell on to the ground....

My mom worked in the letter recognition area...

The kids drew a card and then they had to find it's match (which was written on a fish.) The fish didn't stick to the fishing poles, but that's all right! My mom said they wanted to do this activity again the next day!

My favorite was when we worked with SAND!

The kids put glue on the stripes and the poured sand over it...

...some of our friends decided to just color the fish.  However, most of them followed instructions:) It's all good...it's just Bible Camp...not real life!!!

Here are the final ones!

We also made little "Ocho's" aka the Octopus! The kiddos cut legs and then colored the toilet paper rolls.  I sadly didn't get as many photos as I wanted to, but there isn't time when you are teaching sometimes!

That's all for now... Part 4 will come very soon!

<3

Em

Day 2 of VBS!

Hey All!

Today was the second day of Vacation Bible School!

Things were a lot more organized today! The only "bad" thing that happened, was somebody took two of our jellyfish! Who would steal jellyfish is beyond me, but I sure hope whoever has them A/enjoys them to the fullest, B/understands if I find them, they will be tortured with Gegorian Chant as well as all my organ jokes...and C/you should consider going to confession for taking something that is not yours! I know we won't find them, and they weren't that expensive, but still! Why do people steal? It leaves a bad impression on the program! Surely the people that took them obviously didn't care about that.  However, we had more expensive things they could have taken...  I had Hannah's CD player stored in there, as well as a few other valuables.  Elieen locked the door, so there shouldn't be anymore worries!

We added a new student...who turned out to have joined because of the VBS parents took a picture of my classroom and shared it with others! Awesome! That added a little chaos into the mix...but I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Today we read the story: "The Rainbow Fish"

After our discussion about how "Rainbow Fish" shared, we made our own rainbow fish! (I'm sorry of this is a "bad angle," but I didn't want the kids' faces posted on my blog!)

 

The kids took the tissue paper that my friends so kindly sorted out, and glued them on paper plates! Then, we added tin foil to make the glittery scales.  Finally, we added an eye ball. 

Once the kids were all done, then they got to find a special place to put them up! They went crazy for this!

For science, I had 3 centers.  My partners in crime: Marie, Lizzy and Sue (aka my wonderful mother), all took a station more or less.  Lizzy helped out with the sink and float activity.   Saint Norbert taught me well...I was short one Science activity and I pulled this one up withing 7 minutes! Easy to set up, I just walked around grabbing tiny things that would fit in cups of water. 

Next, Marie helped supervise the playdough.  The kids had two colors of play dough: green and blue.  Animals that lived on land were to be made with the green play dough and water animals with the blue play dough.  They loved it! Most of them actually remembered to do it and were able to make connections such as "hey we put that animal on the ark yesterday!" (I didn't take any photos of this--next time I promise!)

Finally, we made doves. 

 

The kids glued feathers onto an image of the dove.  At first, I was worried the kids wouldn't like it, but they had fun! Many of them loved the big feathers that my mom brought! Of coarse, the end result was flawless!

That's all for now...tomorrow we are learning about the fishermen James and John! I have so much more fun news to share about that once VBS is done! I can't believe that we are 1/2 way through!

Hugs

<3

Em

Day 1 of VBS!

Hey All,

Today was the first day of VBS...and OMG has it been a great time!

Before I get to that though, I must back up and tell you about yesterday's adventure.  Yesterday was VBS Set up day, aka a very long day! Last year, mom and I scrambled to get things set up and ready for the classroom.  This year, we had everything planned out, however, we needed the man power.  So I asked Leah and Brittany to help set up the classroom this year.  We worked on it for about 6 hours...but the end result is amazing...

Here it is...ready???

Well, this is what the place looked like first...

Then after some very hard work...the classroom now looks like this:

Awesome...huh?

Here are more pictures of the room!
 
We hung up table cloths for the water and ground.  Then we took the Cricut and made enough fish to last us all a lifetime!

I will be sitting on the treasure chest for teaching...

This is my teaching area... my flannel board serves as my whiteboard, the baskets are for my centers.

As always, Resurrection makes an appearance (which we are very happy about!) this time, they lent us some fabric.  In result, we made a waterfall for the kids! Originally we wanted it hang it higher, but this height actually works out better!

Then there's the "Ark Area."  The ark area is the arrival site for the children.  They come to the site and can either color, draw, read books, or play with blocks.  They love sitting on the bean bag chair and reading a good book!

Another view of the arrival site!

This is mom's bean bag...again...Resurrection lent us the bag:) Thanks guys!

More wall space!

Here are the mailboxes... Marie suggested for us to use shoe boxes.  We found enough for the kids, painted them blue and put them on a rack!

More wall space.  This table is for the art and science center!

A closer look at the mailboxes...

For the wall, we used noodles to make seaweed.  We stuffed tissue paper in them to make coral.

Another view of the classroom!

The door: we covered cellaphane paper over the windows to make the underwater theme stick out.  Each child's name is written on a die-cut on the door as well.

The other side!

The doors together!

On the inside doors, we made jellyfish.  Mom cut bowls in half and I added cray paper to them. The results were awesome, however, they tend of fall down!

Mom took her fish and put them on the "death" candle....thank goodness nobody at Old Saint Joe's died this week...(we put the death candle in their seat to show that a person passed away.)

My area: the green baskets are for science.  Red is for drama, and blue is for arts and crafts.  This way things are easy access.

The felt board! 

Mom's trees!

We used fabric to cover up things we didn't want the kids to touch.  We also put beanie babies on a net! We will use this on Wednesday!

Another overview! 

One more!

Ah, one more!

 I hope you like my classroom...totally worth the aches and pains! Please comment on what you think!  (My comment section should be at the bottom of the entry, please scroll down, if it isn't there, please leave it on Facebook!) PLEASE... LEAVE ME SOME SORT OF FEEDBACK!!!  I want to know what you think! Thanks so much for everybody who's helped, especially Leah Allen, Brittany de Laruelle and Sue Bielinski:) You guys are the best!!!

Hugs

<3

Em

Twas the Thursday Before VBS...

 Hello Everybody!

As the days wind down before VBS starts, I am getting more and more things ready! While I am responsible for doing the work, I always get some help.  I'm blessed to say that my friends are used to helping me out.  They know when I say "let's go out for coffee," I really mean "I need you to do some mindless project for me that will benefit children." They roll right along with the punches and always help out...for a small price:)

Well, yesterday was one of those days.  Brittany and I first met up at Carrot Tree Cafe in Pulaski for some R&R.  Turns out...  I put her to work. Brittany started erasing my fish for me. 

While she was erasing the numbers on my fish, I wrote my students' names on the fish.  I wrote them on tiny fish so I can post them on the door.

 

 I also wrote them on large fish so they know where their carpet seat will be at VBS!

Brittany also cut up my tissue paper for me! Why cut tissue paper? Well...why not? (Just kidding!) We are going to glue tissue paper to represent "gills" on a fish. 

Isn't she a trooper for cutting all of these things for me? 

While she cut my tissue paper... I made one of the projects the kids are going to make.  They will be gluing feathers onto a dove.  Why? Because the dove is an important symbol in the church!  We are going to be talking about how the dove symbolizes Baptism.   I was worried that this project would be "too hard" for the kids, but it was very simple.  Brittany thought it looked awesome...and if she says it looks awesome...then I GUESS it is all right! ;) 

I am hoping they understand the symbolism behind the dove.  We will talk about it throughout the day...so hopefully it will stick!

I also practiced reading my flannel board stories.  Turns out that most of the people at the coffee shop were watching and listening! Below is the story of John Baptizing Jesus! Needles to say...I am going to need some more practice! It didn't help that Brittany was making fun of me...and that I had a crowd watching me:)

Then, after I left Brittany, I headed over to Cafe Express where Vanessa, Vicki and Liz sorted out all of the tissue paper squares! 

Here they are...working hard! Poor Vanessa didn't expect to work...but Vicki and Liz knew better!

 

Liz even smiled for the camera!

 

So the end result of everybody's hard work looks like this:

 

All that for just that huh?

What do you think...excited for VBS as the final steps are being set up? Please stay attuned to my blog over the next several days: Bible School starts on July 16th! (That's THIS Monday!) I will be posting every night on what we did and how much fun it was!!!!

<3

Em