David – a holiday club / activity session outline using Launchpad

Lucy Moore

A two hour fun session for children on David using Launchpad

On your marks:
Launchpad is a superb resource for anyone wanting a series of child-friendly services. It can also be used as a basis for holiday clubs or one-off fun days. Here we take three of the Launchpad sessions on David onwards) and adapt them for use at a two hour holiday club session

Get set:
You’ll need a copy of Launchpad available from this website at a promotional price of only £7.99 (reduced from £15.99). (Offer available while stocks last)

You’ll also need craft books or ideas. The Bible Make and Do series has many lovely ideas or you can download them from the Web.

To enrich the session with other ideas, Year Round Assemblies also has the theme of David.

You’ll need a strong performer / storyteller to carry the part of Chester (or Esther) the jester and someone else to lead the session, plus your team of helpers. Chester and the leader need to run through the session beforehand.

In this session, there will be times when the whole group comes together, and times when they divide off into smaller groups with their own leaders. Try to keep these small so that everyone feels they have the opportunity to speak if they want to, and so that relationships can be formed and names learned quickly. Between five and eight works well. This is also a good number for the leaders who aren’t confident about working with large groups of children.

Go!
1 Have an activity as children arrive and register, such as designing name badges in the shape of sheep or crowns.

2 Bring the children altogether, welcome everyone and set out any rules for the day. Explain that a special guest is coming and use the introductions to Chester on p64 and p70 as Chester enters. (Chester explains who he works for and is very frightened because he’s been asked to juggle with fire etc).

Don’t tell a story yet: say that the king he serves loves music and could they sing some songs now?

As he’s a jester, he should of course have lots of suitably corny jokes up his sleeve to pepper the session.

3 Worship songs from the selection on p71

4 Instead of telling the sheep story on p64, Chester explains that the king in whose court he works, didn’t start out as a king – he started out as a shepherd. Chester organises the children to play a sheep-related game, such as hunt the sheep (like Hunt the Thimble). Then Chester, still frightened and preoccupied by the fact that he will soon have to juggle with fire, tells the story of David and Goliath as on p70. Leader has a very short chat with Chester about trusting in God like David did, and says that everyone has worries, even the children here, and let’s go off into groups and see if we can work out how Chester can stop worrying.

5 Divide into small groups and talk about the story using the talk outlines on p71. (You won’t be able to put a child on an adult’s shoulders but find a picture of a child on an adult’s shoulder and make sure each group has a copy). Write all the things that worry the children, like the juggling that worries Chester, on slips of card. Talk about Jonathan and the value of friends and the way that Jesus is our friend who wants us to trust him and not be frightened. As a group, each take your worry slip and lay it at the foot of the church cross as a sign that you’re bringing your worry to Jesus and trusting him to help you deal with it.

6 Still in small groups, do craft activities: some may like to make a suit of armour, like Goliath’s; some may like to make sheep in some form, or you may want to work together to make a collage showing David fighting Goliath. You could use the pictures on p64, 70-71 as outlines of different stages of the story

7 Juice and toilet break sometime in here

8 Come back together and the leader looks forward to welcoming Chester back when he’s finished his juggling with fire. While you’re all waiting for him,
do some vigorous aerobic exercises, play a lively game or sing some worship action songs to get the children active again.

9 Chester returns. Now use the scenario on p76 leading into the story on p76-77

10 Follow up with the leader giving the talk outlines on p77. Leave out references to Jonathan and the song and reading and concentrate on the twin messages: don’t take shortcuts and God has good plans for us. Finish with Chester saying that David became one of the greatest kings in history, because he trusted in God’s plan

11 Staying together but working in groups, have a memory verse activity. Have one simple cardboard crown per child. On the front of each crown, have a section of the verse as on p79-81 (or fewer words per crown if you have more children) and challenge the groups to stand in a line, each wearing a crown, so that the verse can be read from left to right as you look at them. Practise saying the memory verse by reading the crowns of another group who are lined up facing your group.

You could simplify this by having just one set of crowns for selected children to wear at the front and everyone learns the verse together from the one line.

12 Finish with a favourite song about God’s plans or about kingship. Summarise what you’ve learned today about David, about God, about yourself.

13 Say good bye, advertise activities and make sure the children are collected from their group leaders safely with all their crafts.

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