Say Y-E-S to Preschool V-B-S!
VBS season is in full swing & while all of you have been gearing up for VBS in your churches, all of us on the VBS team have been doing the same thing! It is so wonderful to get to experience VBS “from the trenches”… not as a job but as Kingdom work! I taught kindergartners this year… 31 of them, in fact! Out of those 31, only 7 were from my church. VBS really is an incredible outreach tool!
This year, my church tried something a little bit different. We added a second worship rally to our schedule that was specifically for preschoolers & kindergartners. The morning kicked off for 1st-6th graders with the traditional Worship Rally, but preschoolers started the morning in their respective rooms. Then at 9:40 (when all of the big kids had cleared out), we got to fly in for a worship rally designed just for us! We had a fabulous leader who basically modified the preschool music rotation teaching plans so that we could sing songs, play instruments, move around, and talk about the daily Bible stories in ways that just wouldn’t fly if preteens were in the room. But it was perfect for preschoolers! We even had time for offerings and practicing the theme song each day.
The kids’ favorite song from the week had to be one called “Always”… and it played a significant part in one of my all-time favorite VBS memories. The song lyrics are almost identical to preschool’s Day 2 verse: “Be strong. Do not be afraid. God is with you” (Joshua 1:9). On Wednesday morning one of my kindergartners came in the door and walked straight to me. “Miss Melita,” she said, “last night at bedtime I got kind of scared. But then I remembered that song. I sang it to myself probably 4-20 times. And you know what? It worked! God was with me, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
WOW! A 6-year-old child connected the truth of the Bible to a real life situation because she had “hidden it in her heart” through song. Wow! That’s what it’s all about!
Here’s a little video of “Always” from our preschool worship rally. And if you’re really good, you might be able to catch a glimpse of Gordon, too! Enjoy!
Always — preschool worship rally
The idea of a Preschool Worship Rally is intriguing. This is in place of a music rotation for them? Did you do the video and all for them? Our rotations are shorter than the big Worship Rally…. hmmmmm…. I will think on this for next year…
Yes, we did it in place of preschool music rotation. With time for the offering and the theme song, it lasted a solid 30 minutes. But there was lots of activity to keep everyone engaged. No, we did not show the worship rally drama videos or do anything that required reading from screens (like the pledges, theme verse, etc.). It was TONS of fun & a big success!
We’ve done something similar for the last couple of years, and it has been a huge success. We do it in our preschool area…never thought of using the “big kid” worship area aftervthey vacated it…hmmmmm.
Our 2 year olds went to the regular worship rally & LOVED it & did great! I have never understood why lifeway changes the curriculum for them! As an early childhood teacher it makes no sense to me
This is a great idea. I’ll have to discuss it with the VBS team when we begin making plans in January.
We had a pre-school opening rally too this year. It went really well. It also helped take care of our dismissal time and the take away from the chaos.
We’ve done this for the last couple of years but we still have our music rotation also. Once everyone gets into their rooms and settled, we all go to our theater for our opening session. We have pledges, penny march, a song and our Bible story. It would be great if Lifeway included the Bible story section as a separate rotation like they do missions, music, etc. We also have everyone come back to the theater at the end of the morning to review the story. Our VBS is only for K3-K5 and this works great for us.
Our preschoolers always go to the regular worship rally and they’ve never had a problem. They can’t read the screens of course, but they generally catch on by the third day and always do the motions and love the daily videos.
I agree with Amy. Our worship rally includes children ages 2 through 5th grade. Everyone had a blast this year!!! As a kindergarten parapro for 24 years I have never understood why Lifeway changes curriculum for them.
Our worship rally is for pre-k through 5th grade and works well… This is my 8th year in VBS and was very disappointed with the changes in the curriculum, like others have stated too… Looking forward to seeing what’s new and upcoming for next year