The Community for Catholic Moms

Crafts for our summer program

We're starting planning for our summer program (we don't call it VBS at our parish). We're running out of good Catholic craft ideas. We need 4-8 crafts for the week depending on what ages can do them. We have 4 y.o through 6th grades.

Any great ideas ?

Thanks,
Gretchen

Tags: crafts, vbs

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Permalink Reply by Deanna Bartalini on May 2, 2010 at 5:26pm

What is your theme? Some general ideas:
tissue paper candle holders, tear tissue paper and glue onto baby food jars with watered down glue. Add a tealight and there you go, Jesus is our light!
sacrifice beads out of pony beads and jute twine
rosaries
tee-shirts with each group's thumbprints on them
kites
paper windsocks with crepe paper tails
every year we make a mural that goes with the theme, the children have a challenge to do each night and if they do it they color in a picture that goes on the mural. For example, when our theme was Treasure Island, they colored fish for the ocean, shells for the sand, etc...
prayer boxes out of wooden boxes or shoeboxes
stained glass using tissue paper and clear contact paper
paper flowers for Mary
saint coat of arms
Oriental Trading has a religious craft section with necklaces and foam craft kits
Not sure if these are great, but maybe they'll spark you to think of others too. If you cna post the theme, I may have more specific ideas.
peace, deanna

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Permalink Reply by Gretchen on May 3, 2010 at 9:44am

Hi Deanna,
Our theme is something to do with God being our Father.

We always do a banner with the kids handprints on them. We're thinking of doing a box decoupaged with a holy card for kids to put their holy/religious items in at home.

Thank you for the good suggestions!

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Permalink Reply by Patricia on May 3, 2010 at 11:15am

Gretchen,
You might check into the crafts from the Blue Knights Boy's Club, Little Flowers Girl's Club, Little Women Hospitality Program, & Pilgrims of the Holy Family programs. Another idea might be some of the activities/crafts from the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program. When a friend & fellow mom in our Catholic homeschool group goes on her annual summer retreat & her 3 children stay with us for the week, we have what we call "Catholic Camp" -- one of the activities the children really enjoyed was making t-shirts that had the symbol of the Saint they were named after painted on the front. We choose a theme for the week & have that painted on the back.