David and Goliath (deeds of David day 7)

We have arrived to the most well known story in David's life. I Samuel 17 tells of David's miraculous defeat over the Philistine giant Goliath. We have done this story before of course so you can check out activities we have done in the past.

Today, we made slingshots. We found sticks that were shaped in a "Y." We tightly wrapped a pony-tail holder across the top two branches of the Y, and attempted to knock an empty cereal box over with a rock on the slingshot. Obviously this was not an ideal slingshot and we are inexperienced operators, so we were only able to knock the box over once or twice. Which shows even more how amazing (and miraculous) it was for David to not only hit Goliath, but to kill him with a stone!

If you have older children I found this game on familyfun.com. It is called toppling towers and it looks like a lot of fun.

the point? God's plans always happen. God can do anything!

David and Goliath continued (day 24)

Another activity we did to emphasize the story was to make a ribbon as tall as Goliath. Since Goliath was about 9 feet tall we used a 1 foot ruler to mark off each foot (up to 9 of course.) This actually was also great exposure to some real life math/science skills. We then taped the ribbon to the wall and marked how tall each of us are in comparison. It is easy to see why the Israelites were afraid and why David needed God to win the battle.

the point? God is not afraid

The young hero and the horrible giant (day 23)

David and Goliath, from 1 Samuel 17, is retold on page 122 of the Jesus Storybook Bible. After reading the story we built "Goliath" out of empty cardboard boxes. Whoever was "David" would say "you come against me with sword and spear... but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty," (from 1 Samuel 17:45.) Then David would throw a ball and try to knock over the Goliath tower (rocks would be better to use but it was raining outside.) Alyse asked "how could just a little rock kill him?" This was a great way to talk about how big the miracle was.

the point? "...and God always wins his battles!" (page 125)