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making spirit sticks

Last week our church had Vacation Bible School. Since we don’t own a building – we have our Sunday morning services a downtown performing arts center – we have to get creative with VBS. In years past, we’ve had VBS at the zoo and at a historical park. This year we had VBS at the at the square downtown. At first I thought it would be too small, but it really worked out great. We had about 100 children and about 50 youth and adult volunteers. There was plenty of shade and even a stage.

At the end of each evening, they would choose a couple of groups to get the spirit sticks and the next day those groups go to carry them around. The sticks were just simple pinata sticks and the kids were alittle rough with them. After a couple of nights one of the teachers asked Phoebe if she could redecorate one of them. After the last night she took the remaining ones home and is redecorating them for Kids Camp. This is how she did it …

 These are the supplies you need – pinata sticks with the paper taken off (or thick dowels or an old broom stick)tissue paper (or crape paper), curling ribbon and packing tape (scotch tape would also be handy.)
  • The first thing you need to do is to cut about 12 lenths of ribbon that are about 6-8″ each. Tape those to one end of the stick, so that they dangle -kind of like bike handle ribbons. (Phoebe did hers a little different, but this is how she’ll be doing the ones for Kids Camp.)
 Fold your tissue paper in half. Tape a the edge to the stick.
 Roll the stick until you get to the other end of the paper and then tape it down.
 Our paper wasn’t long enough for the whole stick so she repeated the previous steps.
 Tape some ribbon to the end of the stick and begin wrapping it around the stick – like a candy cane. When you get to the end tape it to the stick.
 Take a second color and do the same thing – going in between the wraps of the first color.

Next, take your first color and wrap it the opposite way you did the first time so that the ribbons crisscross. Do it again with the second color (each time you add a ribbon be sure to tape the ends to the stick.)

Once all the ribbon are wrapped around the sticks we covered the whole thing with packing tape. We started at the end that did not have the ribbons dangling and I held the tape and Phoebe rolled the stick on to the tape. When we got to the end we held the dangling ribbons so that they would not get taped in and taped all the way to the end. We even went up over the dangling ribbons a little so that they look they are coming out of the middle.

Last but not least, curl the ribbon.

For more great craft ideas check out Made by You Mondays and Tuesday Time Out.

Thanks for sharing with your friends!

The Schneiders

Monday 13th of June 2011

It just means that your group had the most "spirit" for the activities. Maybe you had a cheer/chant that you kept doing as you walked from each activity. Or all the members of your group participated in the activities without any complaining. Kind of what cheerleaders use at pep rallies. It's kind of funny, but all the group does is get to carry it around the next night - showing it off.

After the first night, Benjamin came up with a couple of cheers/chants for his group since they did not win the stick the first night. It's serious business.

Rachel E.

Monday 13th of June 2011

It looks beautiful! What is the significance of a Spirit Stick? What do children do with them?