VBS 2007
2007 Vacation Bible School Review
It is that time once again to check out the new vbs kits and decide which resources will best fit the needs of your church! This year our comparison chart and individual VBS reviews may be found at www.yourchurch.net "Special Downloads" section.
I
will be reviewing craft supplies from
Oriental
Trading, Co., S&S Worldwide and GuildCraft, Inc. again this year
and you will find those reviews right here - as soon as I receive the
craft resources in this year's review, so keep checking back!
It's
here!
It was extremely difficult for me to pick my favorite vbs resources this year as so many were extremely well written. In the past, the classroom/teacher model was the standard everyone used for vbs, but then along came the site rotation vbs - a much superior, student focused and significantly more effective model! Over time the publishers began to change how they designed and wrote their curriculum and left the classroom/teacher model in favor of the site rotation model. When I began reviewing vbs there were only a few companies who included the features I look for in vbs, but now nearly all of them have the tools for truly effective vbs!
However, since people ask me each year which
kits
were my favorites, the following kits are the ones I'd want to use in
my church.
| 1. |
Great
Bible Reef Augsburg Fortress |
 |
| 2. |
Avalanche
Ranch Group Publishing |
 |
| 3. |
Quest
for Truth Concordia Publishing House |
 |
| 4. |
Water
Works
Park Cook Publishing |
 |
The reason Augsburg is my top pick is because
of
their science station! Kids will absolutely love this station!
Everything in this vbs is well written and designed to provide truly
effective tools, but the science station is the one thing that gives
them that extra special thing and causes them to be my favorite vbs
resources for 2007!
Group, of course, once again has an extremely well written vbs, but like I said last year, they need to dump Chadder's Theater. The Chadder video may be okay for preschoolers, but please replace Chadder with something cool like science stations for your elementary age kids. I hear from many churches that they have to come up with something on their own to replace Chadder when they use your vbs - why don't you just provide a station that holds up to the quality tools we have come to appreciate from Group and dump Chadder!
Concordia has almost everything I look for in a vbs and is extremely well written and Cook makes my top pick list because they are reproducible and can be used any time of the year, plus they did a good job writing their vbs as well!
Remember, vbs is the perfect time each year to pick up new music, puppets and craft resources for your children's ministry. Once you decide on the vbs you will use, check out other publisher's music, puppets and craft books and add a few to your ministry resources closet!
I hope you find the reviews and comparison chart to be helpful once again! As always, feel free to email me with any questions you may have!
Lynda Freeman
One more thing, since publishers tend to provide information in their vbs kits on their regular lines of curriculum I guess I'll do the same with my curriculum - kidz Connection! This large group/small group curriculum is specifically designed for any size church and each week includes an optional second service lesson! Check it out at KidsConnection
Lynda Freeman editor 'Round About the Church Copyright © Lynda Freeman Last Updated March 29, 2007 Web Page by Lynda Freeman Send an e-mail to Lynda at Lynda@roundaboutthechurch.com