David & Goliath Bible preschool activities

 

The story of David and Goliath is one that examines the amazing faith of a young boy in the face of giant adversity… literally.  here are some ways that this event in the Bible was explored with preschoolers in our preschool Sunday School class.

 

The Story
David was a young boy who was given the task from his father to take his brothers food while they served in the king’s army.  When he got there, the men pointed out Goliath, a huge opponent of the army.  Goliath’s large size didn’t intimidate David, he approach King Saul and volunteered to fight the giant.  The king was shocked at the young boy’s statement, but was swayed when David explained that he believed God would keep him safe battling Goliath.  King Saul granted David’s request and even offered him armor and a helmet to wear.  But David was content to be armed with his slingshot, 5 stones, and his faith.  Goliath couldn’t believe that a young boy would step up to him.  Even more surprising was when David flung one stone and struck Goliath in the head, knocking him over and winning the battle.  Find this story in 1 Samuel 17: 1-50.

Finding Stones
In preparation for this activity, I precut circles 6″ in diameter out of brown flannel.  I made small slits every 1.5 inches all the way around the circle.  This provided slots for the kids to use a length of yarn to create a small pouch similar to the one David had.  After weaving the yarn through each hole, the ends were tied together to create the drawstring pouch.  We hid 5 small craft pom poms {per child} around the room.  The children were then able to search for their “pebbles” and place them in their pouch.

To set up this group activity, I drew a face on a paper plate.  I made it similar to the one in our Bible storybook so it was more identifiable as a giant.  I taped the paper plate face a little more than 9 feet high on the wall so that the children could see how tall Goliath really was.  then the children got a chance to take turns trying to hit the “giant” with one “rock”.  To take the place of a rock, I used a bean bag.  It was quite cute watching them fling  the bean bag up at the wall.  the success rate of actually hitting the plate was low.  But that was good because it gave us the ability to talk about how hard it really was for David. (even though he did have a slingshot to help him in his endeavor.)