Everywhere Fun Fair -- Our Vacation Bible School

Last week was our church's Vacation Bible School. We get together with two other churches to put VBS on. I was in charge of Science and Snack for the preschool, Junior Kindergarten and Senior Kindergarten kids. My friend, Karen, did the snack and was my helper. I planned the science experiments, either based on the curriculum I was given or coming up with my own. We had sixty kids come to visit us in four groups every morning. It was really exhausting and I can't believe how much energy it took. It was also really fun too and I'm already excited for next year.

The theme for this year was "Everywhere Fun Fair" and we "traveled" to five different countries to meet our neighbours throughout the week. Sam was in the Shetland Ponies preschool group and I think he really enjoyed it. Rachel hung out in the nursery with her friends, and after her initial reluctance over me abandoning her (gasp!), she enjoyed it too. I had a few flags of the world and and a map in my room and every day we discussed the country we were visiting and checked out its flag. The experiments usually tried to relate to something about the country.

We also had to wear the colour of the day every day, as well as our sweet VBS leader t-shirt which I, sadly, did not get a picture of. It seems I do actually own bottoms with orange, red, blue, purple and green :) On Wednesday night we had to quickly do some shopping for Sam because he was super-sad about not owning any purple.

 (all flag images from here, except for Zimbabwe)

On Monday we visited Japan. I did a taste test with the kids. We checked out lemon juice (sour), salt (salty), cocoa powder (bitter), sugar (sweet) and oil (fat). It was not the greatest experiment to do with four and five year olds because they weren't very adventurous. Sam was the only kid who practically drank his lemon juice. The rest of the kids just ate all the sugar! Ha ha ha!!!

 

(image from here)

On Tuesday we visited Zimbabwe. We talked about Victoria Falls and rainbows. I wasn't excited about the experiment the curriculum suggested so I did this one with milk, dish soap and food colouring instead. I think it was the highlight of the week. Adults who weren't busy were coming in to check it out!

Tuesday was also the morning when Sam threw up (just water, thankfully) all over the kitchen about ten minutes before we were supposed to leave. A few cute quotes from Sam that morning, "Rachel, someone in our family who normally goes to VBS won't be there this morning. There will be no Sam in the Shetland Ponies group today." (I laughed because "normally" was just based on one day! Ha ha ha!) Thankfully, Sam was also completely fine for the rest of the day.

Wednesday, we went to the United Kingdom and I did an experiment about currents and water temperature, demonstrating the Gulf Stream which keeps the UK at a temperate climate. We poured 1/2c of boiling hot red-dyed water and 1/2c of ice cold blue-dyed water into a pan of regular temperature water and watched the red and blue water interact. But they didn't mix and turn purple. It was kind of cool to see.

On Thursday we visited Australia and experimented with surfers (smiling ping pong balls) and waves. We especially figured out some good ways to make waves with straws.

And on Friday we went to Mexico and saw how raisins dance when they are dropped into really fizzy club soda. Some of our raisins, however, were kind of tired from a busy week of VBS and so they didn't really do all that much dancing. This experiment was the only one I pre-tested at home and our raisins here "danced" for half an hour. It was riveting!

It was a fun week and, although incredibly tiring, I had a good time. I really enjoyed working with Karen, seeing Sam having fun, and doing some neat experiments along the way. And I really love hearing Sam continue to sing the songs he learned.