Dearie Summer Camp - David & Goliath

Hello, friends!

Do your kids know the Bible stories?  Do you?

When is a good time to start teaching them? 

{Now.  Whatever their age.  Now.}

Deuteronomy 11:19 "Teach them to your children.  Talk about the when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up."

Is that the church's job to teach them?  

Nope.  Can they help, absolutely.  Is church important to little ones?  Without a doubt.  

But is it all up to them?  Nope, again.

If our kids don't consistently learn it at home 

{whatever the virtue, character trait, life lesson, or story you want them to know}, 

don't count on it sticking in 1-2 hours once a week, once or twice a year told by someone else.

It comes from consistently reading the stories and talking about them and, just maybe, doing it a little creatively, too.  

 So, without further ado, here is my attempt at "Dearie Summer Camp". 

{Go ahead and laugh at that title.  I am cheesy and I own that.}

I wanted to be intentional this summer.  I wanted Jesse to really absorb some of the great life lessons from Bible stories and the rich characters in them.

So our first subject was David & Goliath.  The main part of the story is found in 1 Samuel 17:12-51.  ^The link will take you there if you would like to read the full version.

I did a little research for resources so I wanted to share that with you in case you wanted to create your own little summer lessons.

King's Kids Stuff is a great web page that has lots of links for ideas and projects having to do with David & Goliath.  I only used a few things but depending on your child's age, this was a great resource.

DLTK's Growing Together has a lot to offer and I have a feeling I will be back to this site as I approach the coming Bible characters

I tried to keep track of where I got ideas, but I missed a few, I fear.  ;)

I combined a little from these sources and put them on the same paper.  Easy to print and keep.  I haven't figured out yet how to paste a picture of a PDF on here so I uploaded it to google docs.  Click HERE to view and download.  

Now that is a funny face.  ;)

He enjoyed putting the glue {Elmer's Glue All} on it himself and the "smooth stones" have stayed on well.  Glue dots would work, too.

The document on google docs is what Jesse is working on in the pictures above.  I created the one side that says "You can do anything with God by your side" and shrunk down the little coloring page for the other side.  

I plan to keep these projects in a book we can revisit so I wanted them to be smaller.

I also saw {somewhere} to punch holes in a brown bag, let them weave ribbon through and it makes a little "satchel" for them to put their own "5 smooth stones".   I let him color on it first and then folded it down a couple of times, then used my hole punch.

He needed a little help but enjoyed "taking turns" and was quite proud of his bag after it was done.

We have stones covering most of our ground so he was on a search for the tiniest of the rocks.

He found his own "Five Smooth Stones"!

If you don't know, there is a song about David called "Only a Boy Named David".  I went on grooveshark.com and made a playlist of the various versions they had.  

Jesse enjoys music {and I bet your kids do, too} so this was a great way to also reiterate the story.  The old school Sunday School Songs can be wonderful tools.

We borrowed 3 books from our church library that each had their own take on the story.  I read these every day, sometimes numerous times a day when asked, sometimes together, sometimes alone.  Jesse loves to be read to and so does Abigale.  This is the most obvious way to share the story & Truth to your kids.  I haven't tried to find Bible storybooks at our local library but I am assuming they have at least a small selection, if your church doesn't have a library.

Since they all have the same title, I am going to call them yellow, pastel, and brights.

Yellow:David and Goliath (from 'Now You Can Read--Bible Stories') Easy to read. Semi-realistic illustrations. Adds Samuel coming to Jesse's house to anoint Samuel and the {true} part of David cutting off Goliath's head [though, thankfully, no illustration of that}.  That might be a little much for your little.

Pastel: David & Goliath Has the story of Samuel coming along with story of David protecting the sheep and killing a lion.

Brights: David & Goliath Artistic computerized illustrating. Basic story but I liked that it brought a lesson to the reader instead of just telling a factual story.  My favorite entry of all three was from this book: "When you think you are too young and too small to help someone else, remember how God helped David defeat the giant. Nothing is ever impossible for God, if only you will let Him help you!"
The only little fact of the story that all 3 of these books missed was that Goliath was disrespecting God during that 40 days and taunting the soldiers to challenge him.  Not sure why they all left that out. But they were all nice little reads for Jesse {& me}.

At the end of our lesson, I wanted to video tape Jesse telling me the story.  He told his Nana & Grandma without prompts but got shy for the camera so I had to ask him questions.  I know I will cherish this little video, his sweet little voice, and silly little grins.

This list of things we did is not exhaustive at all.  I meant to look up a video on youtube, church library, or real library and didn't make it.  I will probably incorporate that idea with next week's lesson.  

Originally, I planned to do this 1 per week but 2 weeks seemed to work better for his age.  I wanted him to really grasp it and let it soak in..  I think review of "what we've learned" will be good to go back and do every few weeks, too.

I hope you will take time to teach your kids the stories important to you this summer!

Please tell me about it and share with others, if you do!

Thanks for sticking with me on this long post!
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