10 VBS Attendance Chart Ideas Name Them 1x1

Teaching Bible School this summer?
Here’s some VBS Attendance Chart Ideas
to name them one by one, like the song says about blessings.

What makes teaching Bible School fun for you?

If you teach the youngest students, you probably feel as if you’re babysitting with a Christian theme.

Lower Grade students love learning about God, but it has to be lively and interesting. And you wonder if you’re getting through to them. (You are. Even when children don’t seem to pay attention, they still absorb through one learning gate or another. Be sure to try all the gates!)

The Upper Grades get more serious, where the children think and ask questions, and the focus isn’t on memory work and simply getting one or two ideas into their heads. These can be very rewarding classes to teach, without as much pressure to have incentives or room décor.

The important thing about this post that we want to convey is that while it’s fun to have a classroom theme and interesting learning incentives, always remember the real reason for Bible School. You want your students to feel God’s love, through you, and learn that He is the One they can depend on when life gets tough.

A young man who came to our Bible School as a boy ended up in prison. He told someone later that when things got rough for him in there he would sing the songs he learned at our Bible School. Those are the stories that keep us teaching Bible School year after year, even though it can be a sacrifice to find time and inspiration.

VBS Attendance Chart Ideas

We don’t want to make VBS a contest between the teachers to see who’s class is the most exciting. There’s no star in your future crowns named “best VBS classroom décor.”

However, some teachers wish for ideas so they can do less brainstorming themselves and concentrate on the important part of teaching. With that in mind, here’s a short list of 10 Attendance Chart Ideas. Which aren’t necessarily charts at all, as you will see!

1. Clay Pots.

Decorate little clay pots and personalize them with each child’s name. Paint pens or permanent markers work great for this. This can be part of the class activities if you need to fill in some time. Most teachers do it ahead of time.
Cut a piece of floral foam to fit into the pots. Cover the foam by hot gluing Easter grass or artificial moss onto it.
Each day of attendance the child adds a “flower” to their pot. The flowers can be lollipops, jerky sticks, pinwheels, or anything that can poke into the foam and create a bouquet.
If the children can write, have them write their memory verse or the lesson theme on a “flag” and then wrap and tape it around the item they stick in the pot.
The flowers stay in the pot until the end of VBS! (No eating them before Bible School is over.)
If you have a different item for each day, you can use that item to review the memory verse or lesson they learned the day they added the item.

2. Mini Aquariums.

Buy a clear round ivy/fish bowl for each child. Place a layer of coarse sand, pebbles or crushed seashells about 2″ deep on the bottom. Add the child’s name, as above, or with a string or raffia and tag around the neck of the bowl.
Every day add something for an aquarium. A plastic plant, a pretty rock, piece of coral, a starfish, clam shell, etc.
The last day, if you feel it is safe, and you are able to check with parents, give them a beta fish or goldfish in a sealed plastic bag of water. Include instructions on how to feed fish, keep the water clean and how to treat chlorinated water (if that’s what comes out of their taps.) Note: Allow chlorinated water to sit on the counter for 24 hours before adding to the fish bowl, and the chlorine will have dissipated. Then you don’t need chlorine neutralizing drops. Also, don’t use RO water for a fish tank. It doesn’t have enough natural elements for fish. Note 2: Don’t add water to the fish bowl before they transport them. They can add water to the bowl, let it come to room temperature, then place the fish – still in the bag – in the bowl for slowly adjusting the water temperature of each. After a couple of hours, dump the fish into the bowl. The fish will only grow as large as the bowl it’s in. If they want their fish to grow bigger they’ll have to get a bigger bowl.
Stress the beauty of the sea/water creatures and Who made all the beautiful things they can see in the oceans/lakes.

3. Sunflowers.

Buy yellow 9″ paper plates, the kind that have a raised edge. Attach them to the wall with the rim of the plate against the wall and the center raised toward the room. Add the child’s name with decal letters or markers. Detail the sunflower “centers” with brown dots if you wish.
Every day the child adds a “petal” to the flower. This can be shaped paper petals, or for more fun, add a non-frozen treat that comes in a long, narrow packet (Mr. Freeze? Go-Gurts?) over each petal or instead of the petal.
At the end of VBS place all the “petals” in a gift bag and explain how to freeze them for a cold treat.

4. Fairy garden.

Buy clay saucers (not the planters) for each child and add the names with a marker or paper tag.
Each day add a segment for a fairy garden. What you add will depend on the ages of the children. Older children will be able to create it from the dirt up. Younger children will need the base in place and only be able to add a rock one day, a plant the next day, a plastic animal, and so on, to complete the details by the end of Bible School.
Everything they add will be a part of God’s creation. If they add a rock, talk about all the kinds of rocks they can find and how God made each one. Some rocks are soft and can be crushed to make chalk, and some are hard like diamonds, which can be used as a drill bit to cut through softer rocks. God made clay. Create a detail for their gardens with clay one day if there is time.
Now the big question: Did God make fairies? Or why are they making a fairy garden?? Hmm. Perhaps fairy means “tiny” or “fake” in this case?

5. Ark and Animals.

Buy oval bread baskets. Create a platform in the basket about 1″ from the top of the basket. Cut it from brown cardboard box, perhaps. Then build cardboard box houses with slanted roofs like you see in ark pictures. These steps can be part of the daily attendance. First day add the platform. Second day build the house. Third day add a bridge for the animals. Keep it simple or add details like rope rails for the bridge; windows cut in the house; an opening cut out of the basket to the platform level where the bridge can start slanting down.
If you teach younger children finish the arks before Bible School starts, then add an animal pair each day. Buy plastic animals, or cut out of cardstock. Glue your animal pairs together if you wish so they’re more stable. No pun intended.

6. Simple Lady Bug Charts

It’s time for a simple project. Cut lady bug shapes out of red and black cardstock. Add black pipe cleaner legs and antennae. Add large plastic googly eyes. Attach to the wall.
Each day the child adds a black dot to the lady bugs wings.

7. Bee Hive and Bees Attendance Chart Idea

This one can be as simple as cutting a bee hive shape out of brown cardstock, then add a bee sticker for each day.
To add detail: Cut the “skep” shape out of the side of a brown cardboard box. Cover it with burlap and draw horizontal lines on it with black marker or glue black yarn lines on the burlap. Another way is to wind and glue large circumference rope up the skep (hive). Leave an opening or glue a black paper opening on and outline with rope.
Make bees. Wrap 1″+/- yellow pompoms with thick black yarn. Add a small black pompom for the head. Then add white felt or shimmer tulle wings and googly eyes.

beehive attendance chart idea kimenink.com

8. Noah’s Ark Variation

Get a largish animal wall sticker for each student. Attach a small food bucket near each animal. Have a big sack or bucket of animal “food” and a scoop.
Every day of attendance the child gets to feed his animal.

9. Camp Site Attendance Chart Idea

This will work best for middle to upper grade children.
Start with a box lid for each child, such as a large shoe box lid. On the first day cover the lids with brown paper to look like the ground of a campsite. Glue on pebbles and moss if desired.
Day 2: Add a tree made from a small found branch and artificial moss or paper leaves glued on.
Third day: Build an A-frame tent with 6″ dowels and cover with a rectangle of fabric.
Day 4: Build a campfire with small rocks and rolled up brown paper or found twigs. (Add a battery operated tea light in the center if desired.)
Every day thereafter add an item that would complete a campsite. Build tiny fishing rods. Add a small animal as the camper.

10. An Outlier Idea: Elijah in the Wilderness

This fits if you can work the story of Elijah into your Bible Lessons theme. Works best for mid to upper grades.
You will build a diorama, day by day, of Elijah in the Wilderness. Start with the landscape box lid as in the campsite idea.
Add a back wall to the base with a scene of rocks, brush, sky, trees.
Add a rock Elijah could have leaned against.
Each day add something to fit the story: Ravens, bread, etc.
Be sure to discuss the story a little each day. How Elijah must have felt. When do they feel like that? Have they ever witnessed a miracle? Send a copy of the story home with the children at the end of Bible School.
This outlier idea can work with any character from one of your Bible Lessons. We call it outlier because it may or may not fit the topic of the lesson of the day, and is in addition to those lessons. Maybe wild card is a better term? They get double their money, in a sense. The lesson of the day, plus an in-depth study of one character.

What do you think? Can you use one of these VBS Attendance Chart ideas?

Perhaps you have more and better ideas. We’d love to hear about them. If you prefer not to write them in the comments on this post, go to this page and send us a message. 🙂