VBS Crocodile Dock

Toni and two of the girls from her crew

My interactive bayou...the baby snakes.

Our door to our craft room "Craw fish crafts"...yes I drew the craw fish LOL

Toni and Elizabeth playing with the snakes on day two (Snakes are Larry and Joe)

....don't try and count them...over 50.

...I am a dork....but a fun one.

Our church has a wonderful VBS that grows every year. This year we had 574 kids pass through our wonderful Crocodile Dock. I signed up to be a station leader....crafts of course. Let me explain a little bit. First we have to have over 100 volunteers to start. I think we ended up with over 130 but needed more like 150...anyway. Now VBS is open to the public for kids who have completed Kindergarten thru 5th grade. Here is the cool part...we have a preschool VBS as well but it is only available for the VBS workers kids. So...Toni goes to big VBS and Mikey is in the preschool wing having a very fun time with 30 plus kids, he gets to enjoy all the stuff of VBS plus more because his starts when the workers need to be there....7:55. Big VBS starts at 9 a.m. and lasts till 12:30. There are several parts of VBS first we have crew leaders and these are the people that get assigned the kids when they walk in the door. We need more crew leaders than any other position so we call all the teens and adults from the church to help. Each crew has 2 leaders and between 7 and 25 children depending on the experience level of the crew leaders. In Toni's crew she had 14 kids and two very energetic teen girls. Now the crew leaders job is gather up there kids and head to there very own crew room and wait for any late arrival's. Once they are in there room and accounted for they lead there crew from station to station all day. The crew leaders act like cheer leader and help the kids have a fun filled time of learning the bible. They paint there hair...there face...and most of all help the kids write Gods Word on there hearts. They are to help station leaders keep the kids under control and behaved during station times. There are spirit awards for crews with the most spirit. Now don't think these crew leaders get off easy because they just lead from station to station. The Sunday before VBS starts we have a huge dinner and decoration party. Everyone attends...crew leaders and station leaders. We all talk about our stations and rules one last time and then everyone heads to there station or crew room to decorate for the coming week. My station and the other lady with me stayed till around 9 p.m. to rearrange our room and decorate. When we left we saw tons of crew leaders still cutting paper and making decorations for there walls. The last crew leader did not leave the church till after 11 pm. Talk about a well decorated church. Every room...every space was taken and decorated. The large rooms were divided into sections so we could have more rooms. The second part is station leaders. We have Outside games and that needs a few station leaders...we have our big production on stage with singing, dancing, and short skits....that has 3 main singers and then lighting and sound guys... so lets say 6 leaders for that...then we have Bible Blast stories (very important) and that has 2 leaders per room (3 rooms/stations so 6 people all in all)...we have a short video drama that plays 15 min. a day called chatter (3 stations...3 people), we also have craft stations...3 stations..2 people per station (this is where I come in). I am one of six craft leaders. I can not fully explain what goes on in other stations but crafts I know. First lets go back a few months. All the craft station leaders have had meetings about what we are going to be doing and suggestions on the crafts to make life easier in the rooms and then tons of projects to take home and cut, sort, measure...you name it. My station was fun! The other lady (Judy) and I worked last year together doing the same thing. Judy and I decorated our very own snake pond. We put up a interactive bayou that we did not mind the kids playing with and jumping on. We have about 20 min. with each group that walks in the station and that gives us just enough time to explain how to do the craft, relate the craft to the days bible lesson and then help and play with the kids till time is up. Some of the kids finish faster than others...some really really really take there time and make everything perfect and some just slap it together and then need to be entertained. We kept word finds in the room for the kids that finished early and needed to be busy...we also let them take our snakes out and play. The first day we took our "grow-a-snakes" out of the package they were about 12" long...by day five they were over 3 feet long and today about 4'6". The kids loved our room....but there were sooooo many piled in at one time. One of our groups (three crews make up a group) was over 50 kids. Man it was fun! From 8 in the morning till 1 every afternoon last week I was having a blast at VBS. My daughter ended up in tears when she found out the VBS was only one week long and not all summer (truly a heart breaking moment). Mikey was very well behaved and did all that was asked of him (after the first day). The first day was funny for him. He was very well behaved but my little man is a story teller. The teacher pulled out markers and Mikey informed her that he is not allowed to play with markers and that his mom would get him in trouble if he did. Then later that day she pulled out stickers to decorate there VBS bag they would be using all week.....well...same thing. "I am not allowed to play with stickers or stick them on anything". Lucky for me his teacher knew me and just kind of laughed him of and told him she would take the blame...then her happily obliged. Toni was having a blast till they went outside to game...the second day they had water balloons and one broke on the ground beside her and she refused to play because she did not want to get dirty...yep sat on the side lines. Soon she had a follower who decided to keep her company. WHAT...this is Toni...the girl who will lay in the dirt and make dirt angels. She is silly and has her moods. I thought that was funny when the teacher was secretly telling me. My kids are a trip.