Last week I helped my church run our own Vacation Bible School. We haven’t yet found a company that produces a VBS kit that we love all the elements of, and we’re a tiny congregation so the cost doesn’t really make much sense, either. So we put together our own versions. Games are a simple thing to invent for children and you can instill a moral in almost any type of game. We make our own Bible lessons for the rest of the year, so that part’s not hard either. You just need to have an imagination to make them fun. We opt out of putting on the skits, since somebody would have to write them, but we show educational, fun movies or shows instead, like Veggie Tales or whatnot. Creating decorations every year, though, has caused some trouble. I really think having fun, plentiful decorations is essential for VBS, since it makes the kids feel like they’re somewhere special and helps to immerse them in the program. This year I took charge of organizing decorations, and I was struck with an absolutely brilliant idea: shower curtains.
My friend owns a company that sells shower curtains online. She introduced me to her products at close to the same time I was beginning to plan out decorations for VBS. This year’s VBS was Little House on the Prairie-themed, and when I saw her choice of country shower curtains I realized they’d make absolutely perfect scenery for many of the classroom walls. In fact, her surf shower curtains would have been perfect for last year’s White Water Rapids VBS. Not only can you hang up the curtains whole as wall decorations, but you can cut out pieces from them to use separately. Also, they’ll last practically forever. We can store the decorations in the church cellar until we run another VBS for which they’d be useful.
I feel like I may have solved our VBS decoration quandary for good. I’d urge using shower curtains to everyone. For me of course the situation was better than for most–she just donated the items I wanted to the cause. But really, shower curtains are a relatively inexpensive, long-term solution to the problem. If you’re running a VBS, think about picking up some shower curtains. You’ll find that you’ll soon have a collection of decorations that you can use over and over again and won’t have to worry about it much again.
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