TLC VBS: Day 1 Gideon Defeats the Midianites

For this year's VBS, we are creating our own and called it TLC: Trust, Loyalty, Commitment. We are studying these Old Testament people: Gideon, Esther, Joseph and Joshua. For this first night of Bible fun learning, we are looking at Gideon Defeats the Midianites. The theme is TRUST: Against all odds, Gideon trusted that he and his small army would defeat the Midianites.

This post is my class only and not the general building decorations. I have included the lesson, posters, bulletin board printables, etc. that I created for this VBS.

Scripture: Judges 6-7 Bible verse: Judges 6:16

Since Gideon is already posted here, and there is so much other information in this post, you can click on the following to download the lesson and some of the extras:

Gideon VBS Lesson

Gideon VBS Visuals

Bible Verse Posters

Student Pitcher & Torches

I kept the Joshua & Gideon bulletin boards simple and more as information boards this year. This has the scripture which you can download above. Also, the main theme for this lesson. Below are some of the printables for you:

Gideon Bulletin Board Posters The poster with the open spot in the center is for the wool test. I stapled a piece of wool-like fabric to this area.

Groups of Tents The download includes the groups of tents only. You can purchase the single tent clipart to add, if you'd like here. I am not permitted to give the tent clipart to you plain. I printed onto brown Kraft cardstock.

Right next to the Gideon bulletin board, I have a tent in a corner of my room that stays up and I use it mostly for Paul, but I purchased the night scene background and stapled it to cover the tent. Because of the ceiling height, I layered it two times and added the Midianite camp at the bottom.

We made small tents and placed them in front of the Midianite camp scene. We (my husband) just used cheap wood firring strips (sticks) from Lowe's to build a small version of a sawhorse. I just used brown bulletin board paper stapled to the frame to cover them to look like a tent. Fabric would be easier and look a bit better, but a lot more expensive.

I also took a picture of Shelby getting ready for the 4 & 5 year old classes. They used paper clamps to attach the painted cloths around one corner of the room. They covered boxes with paper and added some paint. The kids sat on the floor with the boxes at their backs.

For the review game: For this lesson, our time was used as an intro to talk about doing scary jobs. Paulette held up different Community Worker cards and briefly talked about them. That led to God wanting Gideon to a job. Gideon was unsure since he asked God for proof, but he did what God wanted. Gideon TRUSTED God and did exactly what God told him to do.

Click here to download the updated visuals.

The file contains updated visuals for Judges 6-7 and all are not shown.

Click here to download the pictures to color.
(These are the same as the visuals but are black & white.)