Vampire Tag

I'd like to think that I'm a good influence on the children in my Wednesday night Bible class. Yet sometimes it appears that my influence is less than desirable.

Take Vampire Tag. (Please.) Where on earth did THIS come from?

First of all, we're playing with Play-Doh, creating people for our Bible Lesson where this group of friends knocks a hole in someone's roof so they can drop their friend through the hole down into the room where Jesus is hanging out with a crowd, so Jesus will see the guy and heal him. (Sounds like a bunch of hooligans, if you ask me!) The plan is for the kids to make people in the crowd (e.g. disciples, onlookers) while I make Jesus and the guy who is supposed to be healed. Then we act out the story.

So I pull out the Play-Doh and the tools (rollers, plastic knives, molds, etc.) and show the kids what to do. Simple enough. Roll balls for heads and torsos, then roll "snakes" to form the arms and legs. Ta-da! People.

But a couple of the kids discover these Vampire molds among the tools -- where did THESE come from?!? -- and start making vampires instead of people. Why? Because they're all LAZY. Because rolling clay is too HARD. Because they'd rather do it all in one fell swoop and just press these molds into the clay and have "instant" people.

Well, Vampire people.

So now they have vampires on the brain. I'm trying to teach them about Jesus healing the man who was lowered through the roof, they're taking the clay vampire figures and attacking each other. Kind of like Twilight in Play-Doh.

We make it through the lesson (somehow) and they kind of get the point, then we go to the gym so they can run off all their excess energy. (And at this age, which is 4 years to 4th grade, they have LOTS of energy!) They want to play tag. Okay, I ask; do you want to play regular tag, or freeze tag?

Vampire tag! they all say.

Huh? What's that? I ask with a dumbfounded expression on my face.

Well, apparently, that's where you have vampire children who run around the gym, chasing the sole "human" (i.e. Teacher), trying to get him. Not sure what they're supposed to do with him when they get him, because for some reason, Teacher is not allowed to be a vampire; but that's probably beside the point, because the fun is in the chasing, not the catching.

Good thing they haven't actually seen "Twilight", or they'd want to play Werewolf tag as well.