Rotation.org Writing Team

Anointing of David

Puppet Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activity

Students will explore how David's personal character traits made him a great choice to lead God's people.

The lesson opens with a “Simon Says” activity to illustrate the power a king has. Then after a puppet exercises students will play "What’s Inside the King?" To close, they'll demonstrate with a dog puppet the idea of "going after" something important and leave with their own literal and figurative "ball" of ideas they need to fetch to grow their inner character for God.

Scripture

Passage: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Key/Memory Verse: “For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7b (NRSV)

Objectives for the Rotation

See Bible Background.

Objectives for Puppetry Workshop

Students will leave with a ball that illustrates things they want to be "going after" in order to be "a person after God's own heart."

Preparation

• Read Bible Background and scripture.
• Create a copy of the memory verse. Tape or pin it to the puppeteer side of the stage, for puppeteers to read.
• Print attached - Internal characteristic/Building/Stumbling Blocks Cards onto cardstock and cut apart (Cards were created from table below).
  

  Note from the author about these internal characteristics:
  
  For the past 50 years, The Search Institute (search-insitute.org) has been studying factors that help children and youth grow into the sort of people who make wise choices. Their work, including a handout called “Developmental Assets and Scripture,” served as a shortcut for choosing the building/stumbling blocks for this activity. Other scripture about David also provides some background examples for teachers. Another source of ideas for this activity could be to consider strengths and weaknesses of individual students.

   

  The scripture references shown in parenthesis are intended for teacher background.
  

   

  Internal Characteristic	Building Block	Stumbling Block
  Committed to Learning (Recognizes that learning is valuable)	King learns from mistakes and wants to do better	King keeps making the same mistake over and over, and doesn’t care.
  Caring (Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37)	King wants to help those who hurt	King looks out only for self
  Honest (Proverbs 24:26)	King tells the truth	King lies about everything
  Leads a healthy lifestyle (Philippians 4:8)	King is grateful; recognizes his life as a gift from God deserving care	King complains, eats bad food, doesn’t sleep, bathe, exercise, and so forth
  Responsible (David takes responsibility after Saul kills priests, 1 Samuel 22:22-23)	King accepts/admits responsibility	King always blames someone else
  Peacefully resolves conflict (1 Samuel 24:1-22)	King works out non-violent solutions for problems	King uses violence to solve problems
  Stands up for beliefs (Micah 6:8)	King stands up for the truth even when it is hard	King believes one way, but does another
  Stands up for equality and social justice (1 Samuel 30:23-25)	King protects those who can’t protect themselves	King sees a wrong being committed and ignores, allows, or encourages it
  Has empathy towards others; is sensitive	King is polite, tries not to hurt others’ feelings and calms self when angry	King is rude
  Knows how to make good choices	King invites input, prays, and thinks about decisions	King doesn’t plan anything and makes snap decisions without consulting others, (including God)
  Can resist negative peer pressure	King makes sure advisers are good and says no to bad advice	King has bad advisers but can’t tell them no
  Thinks highly of self	King recognizes God’s gifts to himself/herself and is grateful	King puts self down
  Believes in a positive future	King trusts the future to God and knows God is good	King thinks the future is very bleak

  
  
  If desired, prepare a list of each developmental asset and post it for the audience to consider when deciding which internal characteristic the king exhibits in each scenario.

Materials List

• Bibles
• 2 sheets cardstock
• Puppet Stage
• Pins or tape
• Puppets, at least one dog puppet with a working mouth and a king puppet
• Ball, small enough for the dog puppet to catch, but big enough to write some words on.
  
  **Additionally, you may purchase a small 3" playball for each student to write on and take home. See the Reflection activity for the idea.
• Crown – to pin on puppet king
• cards - Internal characteristic/Building/Stumbling Blocks Cards
• List of characteristics (see above)

Lesson Plan

Open

As an arrival activity, play a game of “Simon Says.”

Close with “Simon Says get your Bible!”

Dig

Read the Bible story from 1 Samuel 16:1-13.  (Your focus discussion will be on the memory verse.)

Hold Up a Puppet and Ask: What are some things we can see on the outside of a person? (eyes, skin, ears, nose, hands, hair ...)

Ask: What is on the inside of this puppet?  (My hand!)

Ask: What does my hand do inside the puppet?  (It controls the puppet)

Ask: What's more important, the inside or the outside of the puppet?  

What's more important on you? Your outside or the inside, --your heart, the thing that controls who you are?

Say: This is why God looks on the inside of people before he anoints them to leaders. This is why God looks on the inside of YOU.  He doesn't care how young or short or tall or pretty you are. He wants there to be good things inside you.

Review the memory verse (1 Samuel 16:7) and practice it with this activity:

This warm up of practicing entrances while repeating the memory verse introduces the importance of what's on the inside of you --your "internal characteristics." 

Main puppet activity: "Guess What’s Inside the King"

Divide the class into puppet teams.

Tell them one team at a time will perform a puppet skit showing how a king with a particular inner characteristic might act.

Students not in the skit will try to guess what the internal trait is.

Show the class the index cards on which the traits, plus the stumbling blocks and the building blocks, have been written. Review the traits, along with examples of how the characteristic plays out in a stumbling block or a building block.

Distribute one card to each team.

Instruct the teams to decide on a setting from the list provided or anything else they select. The internal characteristic of the king will be displayed in this setting.

Ideas for scenarios include:

Have each group choose which puppet and puppeteer will play the king, and other characters that might be in a given setting.

Explain that a king is like Simon in Simon Says, because a king’s subjects have to do whatever the king says. The king is to display one stumbling block/building block so the audience can guess it.

Allow the teams a few minutes to plan their skits in private. Then take turns guessing and acting.

It might work best to start with stumbling blocks since puppets are often very good at misbehaving! But do allow the “king” to have a change of heart and reenact the scenario with a building block.

Finally, excuse the king (allow the puppeteer to join the audience) and interview the other puppets about the king’s behavior.

Teachable moments:

If the audience does NOT guess the internal characteristic:

It is hard for people to see what’s inside another person.
Sometimes we don’t know why people act the way they do.

If the audience DOES guess the internal characteristic:

What is inside really makes a difference on the outside!

"A Man After God's Own Heart" Illustration/Activity

Note:

In this demonstration, a dog puppet will chase after a toy ball. You will be illustrating the idea that being "after" something (like a ball) means to be very persistent, like your dog. The closing activity will give each student a ball of their own to "be after."

Give a dog puppet to one student, and a ball to another.

Tell the student that their dog puppet loves to play fetch. In fact it is his very favorite game in the whole world! Have the one student throw the ball and make the dog puppet chase after it. 

Encourage the dog to move fast. Try different dog puppeteers.

Use comments that include the word "after."

For example:

"That dog's really going after the ball! Look at him chase after that thing. Wow he really watches after the ball every second ... See how he instantly follows after it?"

Ask: How might our dog puppet show actions that indicate an Interest In the ball ? 

Some suggestions:

Panting: Open the puppet's mouth and quiver your hand back and forth.

Eye contact: Puppets eyes stay on the ball.

Head tilt: Tilt head and watch closely.

Voice: Bark or whine with excitement.

Follow up questions:

What does it mean to "be after something?"

What are we supposed to be "after" in our faith?  

What should we be panting for and barking to get more of ??  
(Things like stronger faith, more learning God's Word, finding opportunities to lead or serve....)

Closing:

Give each student a small play ball that you have purchased from a place like Oriental Trading Company (pictured).  

Have them write some answers to your last question on their ball using permanent marker. If you'd like, pass the ball around to another student to add their suggestions for "what we should be pursuing-doing to be a "person after God's own heart?" You may also have them write the verse on the ball to include their name, as in, "Sharon is a woman after God's own heart."

Additional Suggestions

Adaptations - Younger Children:  Adapt “Simon Says” to "The King Says” to help the children understand a king’s power and responsibility to care for subjects.

Reduce the number of characteristic/building block/stumbling block cards offered to the children. Create scenarios as a group, discussing how they could be performed, then have a group perform the scenario. Or have adults perform the scenarios for the children, allowing them to identify the characteristic.

The "Man after God’s Own Heart" dog puppet activity could be extended with the leader being the one to throw the ball. Reinforce the point that David wanted to follow God. Settle students by practicing the memory verse between chases for the ball.

Adaptations - Older Children:  Encourage the children to consider ways that following God encourages building blocks (faith, forgiveness, role models) and discourages stumbling blocks (standards, support, The Holy Spirit) in their own life.

Sources

Written by:  Virginia Colvig, with additional ideas from Luanne Payne and Neil MacQueen.

 
Copyright © 2015 by Rotation.org
Printed from https://www.rotation.org 

Dog sock puppet is offered by Courtney "Coco" Mault, under a Creative Commons License via Flickr.