The Little Big Day Out is a program our church has once a year during the winter school holidays. It’s just like Vacation Bible School in the States. I had the opportunity of being involved this year as one of the teachers and it was really great! I was so amazed at how much the kids learned and retained. On the last day, there was one girl that remembered the Bible verse from the first lesson of the first day – pretty impressive!
LBDO was from 9:30 – 3:30 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We had between 105-120 kids (from kindergarten through 6th grade) per day. This year, the theme was the underground church when Paul was a prisoner. All of the verses came from Romans. We had five themes about God’s love that we talked to the kids about each day: God’s love is a gift, God’s love changes us, God’s love is always with us, God’s love saves us, and God’s love is worth sharing.
We started out each morning with singing, which the kids absolutely loved! We taught them motions to go with them and it was so neat to see all the kids singing along and doing the motions, even the older ones.
Here’s a group shot during singing time.
The kids were divided into four groups according to their age. They got to go to different places for half-hour sessions. They heard two lessons, went to craft-time, played sports, had group time, and went to the marketplace….as well as morning snack and lunch, of course!
Here’s a couple of pictures from my classes. I taught the same lesson four times a day, just slightly changed for each age group. It was a bit challenging since we didn’t have curriculum to use this year, but it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
Antoun was the other teacher. He was “Paul” for the week and the kids absolutely loved it. He had chains around his wrists and was in a tent to simulate the underground church. Antoun did a great job.
For one of my lessons, the main idea was “God’s love changes us”, so I wanted to use the caterpillar/butterfly analogy about complete transformation. I found a cute butterfly, but I couldn’t find a caterpillar. So, at about 11pm the night before, Anthony helped me make one. I think it turned out pretty cute…and, it was good practice for kid school projects some day :)
A quick group shot of some of the volunteers. We were pretty tired by the time 3:30 came and all the kids went home, but we had so much fun.
This was the marketplace. The kids each got six gold coins per day to spend at the marketplace.
There were three stations for the kids to spend their coins. They were able to taste some “authentic” roman food; try out some roman activities like bubble swords, archery, & games; and complete different crafts.
This was the craft room. The kids made a journal, a mosaic, and a board game over the three days. They turned out really well.
The sports and games were a favourite, especially for the boys. They loved being able to get out all their energy!
This is the group shot of all the volunteers after the last day of LBDO. It was a long three days, but we had such a great time. Just the fact that we were able to tell so many kids about God’s love for them was really amazing. I am so glad that I was able to be a part of it.
We had fun tubing in the snow! We rode up the chair lift to the tubing hill and felt like kids again! Here’s an “action” shot :)
