If you’re planning Vacation Bible School for next summer, you’re probably choosing a curriculum sometime between January and March. The boxed kits from the big publishers are good, but between the starter kit, the music, and the T-shirts, many small churches spend a few hundred dollars before they’ve bought a single craft supply.
So we made a free one. It’s called Trailhead: Following Jesus Every Step, a five-day VBS for ages 4 to 12 with a hiking and camping theme. We wrote it with DiviNav AI, the lesson-planning tool our family built, and put the whole week online.
See the Trailhead week overview →
What’s in the Free VBS Curriculum
The kids are hikers and their small groups are trail crews. Each morning runs about three hours:
- an opening assembly for everyone
- a 20-minute Bible story
- trail crew time in small groups
- four stations that crews rotate through: crafts, games, snack, and missions
- a closing with the day’s memory verse
Every day has a simpler version for preschoolers and a deeper option for kids in grades 4 to 6. There’s no music pack. Where the plan calls for music, it says to use songs your church already sings.
The Five Days
- Day 1: God Made Everything, and He Made You (Genesis 1:1-2:3; Psalm 139:13-14). Memory verse: Psalm 139:14.
- Day 2: Jesus Is With You in the Storm (Mark 4:35-41). Memory verse: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” (Psalm 56:3)
- Day 3: The Shepherd Who Comes Looking (Luke 15:1-7). Memory verse: John 10:11.
- Day 4: Jesus Died and Rose Again to Bring Us Home (Luke 23:33-24:8; Romans 6:23). Memory verse: “He is not here; He has risen!” (Luke 24:6). It tells the cross gently and briefly for every age and spends most of its time on the empty tomb. If a child wants to talk about following Jesus, leaders get a few plain words to say, and the plan is clear: no pressure, no counting decisions, talk where other adults can see, and let the parents know.
- Day 5: Go and Tell: Jesus Sends Us Out (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). Memory verse: Matthew 28:19-20. It ends with a short program for families.
The week builds on itself: God made you, Jesus is with you when you’re afraid, Jesus comes looking for you, Jesus died and rose again for you, and now Jesus sends you out.
Training for Teen Helpers
Most VBS weeks run on teenagers. There’s a one-hour teen helper training to run the week before, for students in grades 6 to 12. It covers why serving matters, what helpers actually do, how to talk with little kids, and the safety rules: helpers are never alone with a child, and if a child says they’re being hurt, the helper tells an adult leader right away. Many churches start helpers at grade 7 so they aren’t the same age as the oldest kids.
Can a Small Church Run It?
The overview page has two ways to staff it. For about 40 kids, plan on roughly 14 adults plus 5 to 10 teen helpers. For a smaller church, about 18 kids and 7 adults, run three crews whose leaders also run crafts and missions at their own tables.
The supplies are ordinary: cardstock, stamp pads, glue sticks, cotton balls, cones, beach balls, a blue sheet, a toy sheep. For 40 kids we’d guess somewhere around $150 to $250 for the whole week, mostly crafts and snacks, if you borrow the props. Your costs will be different.
The overview also has a station rotation chart, all five memory verses, and the safety rules that run all week. Those include check-out every day (including the family program), two adults for every restroom trip, a nut-free week, and moving games indoors when it’s too hot.
How We Made It
DiviNav AI wrote each day for an evangelical statement of faith, and its automatic review checked it for Scripture, theology, sensitive topics, and borrowed writing. Then we had AI review the whole week a second time, role-playing VBS directors, a children’s pastor, a preschool teacher, a child-safety officer, parents, and a teen helper, and we fixed what it found.
We haven’t run this VBS ourselves, no pastor has read it line by line, and the checks are a help, not a guarantee. Read each day all the way through before you use it, and change whatever doesn’t fit your church.
Want It Shaped for Your Church?
Maybe you run VBS in the evenings, or for three days instead of five, or your church’s statement of faith is more specific than “evangelical.” You can build your own lessons in about a minute. Pick your group, your topic or passage, how long you meet, and your tradition, or paste your church’s own statement of faith. Your first three lessons are free, and you don’t need a credit card. A VBS you build yourself gets the same built-in safety rules but not the second whole-week review Trailhead had, so read it with the overview’s safety rules beside you.
We’ll be praying for you and for the kids who show up next summer.