TLC VBS: Day 3 Joseph's Hardships

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 the third night of Bible fun learning, we are looking at Joseph's Hardships.

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.

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

Joseph VBS Lesson

Joseph VBS Visuals

Bible Verse Posters

I like to have some small handout for the kids that have something to do with the lesson. I have 20 minutes to discuss the lesson and about 5 minutes of that we use a review game of some type. I decided on these pyramids for Joseph. I found the free Pyramid Template here. I put it on a Word Document as big as I could, printed one for a template, then cut the amount I needed from cardstock. I folded all the edges, including the tabs.

I put a piece of tape on the back of the tab when I glued the tab for STEP 1.
For STEP 2, the square will look like a diamond once the Pyramid is put together.
For step 3, I used a small hole punch found in the scrapbooking isle (Michaels, Hobby Lobby, etc).

All the above steps were done months ahead of time, and when it was time, I added the Cheerios into 3"x4" clear bags (found in the jewelry making department) to represent the grain Joseph saved. I also added a coin to represent the money Joseph collected for the food. I did NOT glue the two tabs that are on the open side of the pyramid. I tucked the bag and coin inside, lifted the side, folded the tabs inside, and used the string to close the pyramid. The string is 2 mm craft cord and I cut it 12".

Unlike the Gideon and Joshua bulletin boards for this VBS series, I used the whole wall as focal points for Esther and Joseph. For Joseph, I purchased the sky and sand backgrounds and covered the whole wall.

I used the overhead projector to draw the pyramids onto posterboard as big as I could. You can purchase the Egypt graphics here. After drawing them, I painted them and used a darker brown to highlight the lines. This will use less sand spray paint.

Once they were dry, I used Krylon 'Make It Stone!' (Travertine Tan #18203) to spray paint the pyramids. This spray paint gives it great texture. I have used it to make pyramids before and the kids loved it! They couldn't figure out how we make them look so real! Once the paint was dry, I cut them out and they were ready for the wall.

I am not permitted to share the plain Egyptian graphics here to use for your overhead. You can purchase them here to create your overhead printables. I used the man as Pharaoh, and used the top part of the princess for Joseph. As you can see from the photo, I shortened the hair and used the bottom from the belt down for Joseph. I also added a jewel in the snake part of their crowns and on their belts. They were drawn using a overhead projector as large as I could onto a piece of posterboard.

I purchased the sky background here and the sand background here. I also purchased the Egyptian wall extras here. Usually, if you use your search engine, you can find an additional percent off at Party Cheap.

Click here to download the 30 updated visuals.

This is a variety pack for Genesis 39-46 since it covers so much!

There is a visual(s) for each event that is in these chapters.

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

Intro graphics by Ashley Hughes.