Here’s A Quick Lesson Plan For Samson And The Lion (Judges 14) – with video

June 10, 2009

This Samson Had To Fight TWO Lions With His Bare Hands

One of our Bible lessons this week included the story in Judges 14 about Samson’s encounter with a lion on the way to Timnath. I think my kids had a great time with this lesson, even though it was very simple and easy to create.

Here’s what we did:

Talked about it. As usual, I went to my dry erase board first and we sat and talked about the story and read it from the Bible while I drew pictures to go along. Even though my pictures are horrible, the kids really look forward to this part of the lesson.
Made a Lion Mask. One of my favorite craft sites, DLTK’s Crafts for Kids, had a wonderful idea for making a lion mask.
- During my planning session, I cut out long skinny strips of paper in orange and brown for the mane.
- I also cut out brown and yellow triangles for the ears.
- For the stiff circle to glue the lion mane and ears onto, I used a cereal box. I didn’t cut it before-hand because I wasn’t sure exactly how it would fit best on their faces, so I did that as we began the craft time.
- As they glued on the hair pieces, my daughter had a better idea than I did. I told them to put glue on each piece of hair and stick it on. She thought that putting glue all around the cardboard circle and then places the pieces on would be faster – and she was right!
- After they glued the strips on, they curled the ends to make it look a little like hair.
- I had some small useless pieces of elastic in my sewing supplies that worked quite nicely around their heads. I fastened it on the mask using a stapler – just make sure the staple is actually IN the elastic, not around it or it will come springing right out.
Made some Sampson Hair. Once I came across the lion mask, I thought it would be really cute to have some Samson hair to go along with the story.
- During my planning session, I cut a large quantity of black yarn (just what I had on hand, you could use whatever color) into long pieces. (8 to 12 inches would work) Instead of measuring each piece, I wound the uncut yarn from my palm to my elbow, and round and round. You end up with a circle of yarn – I cut it at the top and bottom. In hindsight, I could have just cut at the top and laid the yarn across my son’s head and held it on with a headband.
- Next, I cut two long strips of construction paper and stapled them together. This served as Samson’s headband and a place to attach the yarn.
- I used glue to affix the yarn to the headband. One long thick strip of glue down the length of the paper. Then, I placed the yarn, a few at a time, along the paper. (This was when I thought about just cutting once and laying it across my son’s head instead!)
- I set this aside to dry. By the time we used it, all the glue was dry and the yarn stayed in place very securely.
Acted it out. We reviewed the story once more. And then, they put on their “costumes” and acted it out. They had a blast. I recorded just a few snippets of them playing – they did this for quite a while longer! This lesson was originally directed at my preschoolers, but as you can see in the video, my oldest son just had to get in on part of the action! I took several videos, but this one fit the best. The lions were too afraid of fire ants to lay down and die, so they just ran away!

There is a video. I will sometimes search for any videos that go along with our lessons just to make it a little more interesting for the kids. I found this video, but didn’t use it for my preschool-aged kids. I included it here because I thought maybe it would fit for older children.

Hopefully, this quick and simple lesson plan has given you some ideas for your next “class” with your kids! (If you would like to see the other photos I took of the kids completing the project, I put them on the next page! Just be forewarned, it may take a little while to load.)

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