Review: VeggieTales DVD Library Curriculum

Many of our readers at Ministry To Children are familiar with the Veggie Tales DVD’s.  Yes, we have been critical of VeggieTales in the past, but we have also been complimentary as evidenced by this interview with Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales.  Now, they are at it again in helping Children’s Ministries reach children in an easy and fairly affordable manner.
Worthy Resources has compiled 30 VeggieTales titles into one library system complete with lesson plans for each DVD.   The DVD library is subdivided according to Bible Stories (Vol. 1-15) and Bible Lessons (Vol. 16-28) with two bonus DVD’s included (Vol. 29-30).

Bible Stories

The Bible stories DVD’s are the VeggieTale telling of some of the most beloved Bible stories in both the Old and the New Testament.  The titles are familiar to anyone who has watched the VeggieTales.  The titles included in this section are:

• Abe and the Amazing Promise | The Story of Abraham and Sarah
• Ballad of Little Joe | The Story of Joseph
• Moe and the Big Exit | The Story of Moses and The Exodus
• Josh and the Big Wall | The Story of Joshua
• Gideon Tuba Warrior | The Story of Gideon
• Duke and the Great Pie War | The Story of Ruth and Naomi
• Dave and the Giant Pickle | The Story of David and Goliath
• King George and the Ducky | The Story of King David
• Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen | The Story of Esther
• Rack, Shack & Benny | The Story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
• Where’s God When I’m S-Scared? | The Story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den
• An Easter Carol | The Story of Jesus’ Resurrection
• The Star of Christmas | The Story of Jesus’ Birth
• Are You My Neighbor? | The Story of The Good Samaritan
• Wonderful Wizard of Ha’s | The Story of a Prodigal Son

Bible Lessons

Fourteen volumes are based on various Bible Lessons that help the children to understand what the Bible teaches about living for Jesus Christ.  Again, these titles are familiar to anyone who has watched VeggieTales in the past.

• Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella | Confidence
• Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Samson’s Hairbrush | Dealing With Bullies
• Larry-Boy and the Bad Apple | Fighting Temptation
• God Wants Me to Forgive Them? | Forgiveness
• Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler | Friendship
• The Toy That Saved Christmas | Giving
• Tomato Sawyer & Huckleberry Larry’s Big River Rescue | Helping Others
• Sumo of the Opera | Perseverance
• Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed | Power of Words
• Lyle the Kindly Viking | Sharing
• A Snoodle’s Tale | Self Worth
• Larry-Boy! & the Fib from Outer Space! | Telling the Truth
• Madame Blueberry | Thankfulness

Lesson Plans

The lesson plans are simple and straight forward.  While the video says that they are for ages 3-10, you can easily adapt them for children 18 months-3 years as well.  Each lesson plan consists of a summary of the particular VeggieTales episode, the key passage(s) of Scripture and what the subject matter is of the lesson.
The What do you Think? section helps the children to engage the episode by asking simple questions about the movie.  Once you have the children engaged with the subject matter of the lesson, you then move into the Bible and read either directly from the Bible (my preference) or the condensed version written there for you (this really helps when time is of the essence).  They then include an activity portion that offers a quick, easily set-up game to play on the spot. The lessons conclude with an application, “What can we DO?” with a summary of the entire lesson in the “3 Things to Remember about…..” section. Finally, there is a coloring page for the kids and an activity page with little games like word search and matching.
To adapt the lesson for the younger children, simply let them watch the movie (the shorter the better!) and then adapt the “What do you think?” for their age and read the condensed version of the Bible story.  Then you let them color.

Review

As one who has criticized VeggieTales in the past for being too moralistic, I must say that I am very impressed with this Library Curriculum.  There is no denying the impact VeggieTales has had on children’s ministry and there is no denying that children love Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber.  While I am sure many will continue to find fault with the use of VeggieTales in children’s ministry, I am happy to now incorporate this curriculum into my Sunday morning wee worship (2-4 year olds)  schedule as well as using it at other times throughout the year.  What is more, this library system makes for an excellent safety net when you suddenly have an hour to kill one Sunday evening.