VBS Recess: Fun Plus Interactive
Joy Weber
Outdoor time at Vacation Bible School can be more than just a noisy chase around the churchyard. Here's what two churches—one rural, one urban—are doing to make recess reinforce learning.
For the past three summers at Holmes Baptist Church outside Clarion, Iowa, each child has received ten tickets on opening day for recess rides. More tickets were readily available by memorizing Scripture (two tickets per verse) and bringing a visitor (five tickets).
One five-ticket ride that interested younger children was a snowmobile trailer pulled by a lawn mower. Ten tickets were needed to ride horses, brought each day by a church family.
Other activities, of course, did not require tickets; kids could always play volleyball, Frisbee, or start a game of their own. "But they worked extremely hard to earn tickets," says Marilyn Howieson, who taught third and fourth graders. "The rides were a terrific incentive to learn verses and bring friends."
A ticket system also works at the large Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis, only the rides are different. Two of the most popular are:
• A monorail—a rope on a slant between two Strong trees on the boulevard next to the parking lot, with a tire hung from a pulley. The child climbs into the tire at the low end and is hoisted more than 20 feet into the air by a VBS worker, then swoops down again.
• A tractor tire roll. The child is strapped inside, then sent cartwheeling down a ramp that leads from a second-story landing to ground level.
Tickets, earned through memorization, may also be used to buy Christian books as well as play games and enjoy rides. In the gym, an obstacle course is set up, and the person with the best time of each day receives an award.
As a result of the fun and Bible teaching, ...
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