Do you crochet?  Is there someone in your congregation who does?  Maybe someone who doesn’t teach a class but would love to help in another way?  These crochet “action figures” are perfect for lots of Bible stories.  The pattern is from Crochet to Play on Etsy.

I took the sheep from the Noah set and the shepherd from the Nativity set to create my own David the shepherd set.

David didn’t stand up well.  When I make another person, I’ll add a weight to the bottom.  Hopefully that will help.  The kids didn’t seem to mind though.  Why?

Although interest was high when I first pulled out the sheep and David, they were definitely overshadowed by the bear and the lion.

I have looked for years for a bear that didn’t look like a teddy bear or that was the right size to seem appropriately daunting to the scene.  The same goes for the lion.  They are either huge, tiny or smiling.  While a smiling, calm lion might be appropriate for the Daniel lesson, it’s not for the David lesson.

I found the lion for $8 at our Ollie’s store.  I looked on the box and saw that there was a bear in the same line of toys.  I scoured the shelves at Ollie’s to see if one had been stuck behind something but came up empty.  I then went online and found one on Ebay.

These toys are from the Jumanji movie. I typically stay away from toys that come from popular movies or TV shows.  For example, Nemo is so obviously Nemo. Most kids will think the lesson is about Nemo and not just an example of a fish God created.  Same for the Lion King toys.  I search far and wide for toys that are realistic looking.  The Jumanji bear and lion passed the test.

After the exciting events of God helping David kill the lion and the bear to protect the sheep, we finish the activity with putting the sheep to bed at night. At the end of the day a good shepherd counts his sheep and keeps them safe in a sheep fold.  Together, we build the sheep fold (from blocks I permanently borrowed from my kids’ block bag), then we count the sheep as we put them inside.

 After “closing the door”, David lies down in front of it always ready to protect his sheep.