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Deborah activities for kids

February 5, 2014 Ticia 10 Comments

Deborah is a great Sunday School lesson to teach kids, especially girls, there’s a battle, there’s an unexpected turn, and a strong female character.  The difficulty is there’s not a lot of Deborah activities for kids to do.  Or at least I was drawing a blank this week.

Deborah activities for kids

Last we saw the Israelites had 3 great judges, Othneil, Ehud, and Shamgar.

My thoughts on Deborah

For me, Deborah continues what you see started with the first three Judges (which I’m reworking and haven’t posted yet).  God using an unlikely person to save Israel.  First calling Deborah as a Judge, and ending with a woman being the one to kill the enemy general.

Deborah woman of God

My takeaways about Deborah:

  • She was a strong leader
  • She was wise, people came to her for advice and knew she gave GOOD advice
  • She knew her role, she knew she wasn’t a soldier, but was willing to help
  • She was humble, she didn’t try to take the credit
  • She loved God, her response to the battle was to praise God
  • She’s an awesome role model for my daughter

Deborah activities for kids

The weather took away a couple of the activities I had planned, so instead we acted the story out with peg dolls as our big activity.

Deborah act it out

That’s the story all put together as one cohesive unit, but here’s how it really went as we acted it out.

Deborah judge of the people

Deborah would sit under the palm tree (stop moving the leaves), and tell the people what God said.  One day Deborah summoned Barak and told him God wanted him to lead God’s people into battle.

Deborah and Barak gathering the army

But Barak didn’t want to lead the army all by himself, so Deborah came with him as he gathered the army (get a bunch of guys together, NO VAMPIRES!).  She warned him, he would not get credit for the final victory.

Deborah and Barak on the hill

Barak gathered his army on the hill (okay put the army on the hill)

Boys: No Princess, don’t put the girl there

Princess: But she wants to be part of the army

Me: She can’t be, she’s going to be in another part of the story.

After Barak had the army all gathered on the top of the hill, Deborah told Barak God wanted them at the bottom of the hill on the plains.

“Why?  Here we have the advantage and will slaughter them.” (Side note, excellent chance to talk about tactics here)

Deborah activity bad guy army

(Okay now put together the bad guy army, you can use any guys you want)

boys: Vampires!  Clone troopers!

Deborah activity the great fight

And the Israelite army came down the mountain and God brought a great rain storm turning the field to mud (put the brown cloth down on top).  The Israelite army routed Sisera’s army (knock down all the bad guys).

(Okay clear the field, new scene, Princess we need that girl)

Deborah end of story

Then Sisera

Superman: No, make him be a vampire

Then Sisera demanded Jael hide him in her tent.

Deborah final

Batman: It looks like she’s kissing him! Ewwwwww

When Sisera was asleep Jael went in and killed him.

Deborah praise

At the end of it all Deborah and Barak praised God for an amazing victory.

 

After all of that acting out we had one last activity to do:

Bible activity read the prayer

In Judges 6 Deborah and Barak sing a praise song to God.  I printed out most of the verses (I cut out the ones that would be too hard to classify, and were more narrative) and had the kids classify the verses according to: praise, confession, and request

 

Other materials used for our Deborah activities

  • Buck Denver Asks: What’s in the Bible? Volume Four – Battle for the Promised Land
  • AIO Classics #4: Bible Eyewitness: The Hall of Faith: 12 Stories of the Bible’s Greatest Heroes (Adventures in Odyssey Audio)
  • Deborah lesson plan (the printable storybook I used)

Deborah lesson plan

 

To find more Judges activities, check out my Joshua, Judges, Ruth pinterest board.

For more Bible curriculum, check out my Bible curriculum page up above.

Next up: Gideon, the man who didn’t want to Judge

Bible Judges, Old Testament

Comments

  1. Natalie says

    February 5, 2014 at 4:44 pm

    So I am embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember anything about Deborah except that she was a Judge. I guess I need to reread that part!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      February 6, 2014 at 5:57 pm

      I find her to be rather interesting, especially since she’s the ONLY female judge, and one of the few strong women in the Bible.

  2. maryanne @ mama smiles says

    February 5, 2014 at 5:32 pm

    I don’t remember much about Deborah either. Time to re-read!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      February 6, 2014 at 5:57 pm

      Judges 4 and 5, I think……. or was it 3 and 4? She’s the first Judge who gets more than a few verses.

  3. Sheila says

    February 6, 2014 at 4:01 pm

    Hi Ticia, So nice to seeing you sharing about Deborah! She almost never makes the children’s Bible cut and she’s one of my favorite characters.

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      February 6, 2014 at 5:58 pm

      I know, there’s so many great lessons that rarely make it into children’s Bibles OR stories they’re taught in Sunday School, and I think that’s really a shame.

  4. debbie says

    January 30, 2015 at 5:51 am

    It was a great story… I will share it to the kids tom. at KIDS CLUB. 🙂 by the way my real name is also DEBORAH.. YES! sometimes it was forgotten now it’s time for me to share it. Thanks for the crafts. 🙂

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      January 30, 2015 at 7:33 am

      Now the question is, did your parents choose to name you for Deborah, or were you named Deborah for another reason?

  5. Teri says

    May 7, 2019 at 5:13 pm

    Absolutely loved the ‘way it really went’. I was glad I was alone when I read it cause I was laughing and smiling all the way through. I’d say that went extremely well! We had 6 learning at home much of the time, and they ALWAYS unique ideas. Plan to use some of yours for a Sunday School Lesson now. Thank you. :)t

    Reply

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  1. Book of Judges Activities (Deborah, Gideon, Samson, and More) | The Religion Teacher | Catholic Religious Education says:
    August 16, 2023 at 3:20 pm

    […] Deborah Activities for Kids (Adventures in a Messy Life) […]

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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