Samson’s story is a story of trust, trust laid in the wrong places, trust to keep promises that are repetitively broken, trust to protect the nation. These games either stem from specific events of the story or from that central idea of trust.
Trust tunnel – Have the children make 2 parallel lines to form a tunnel. One child will run along this tunnel and the last people on the line will catch them. Make sure the last people on each line as both sensible and strong enough. To make this a trust tunnel the runner must be blindfolded.
Samson flip cards – Print and play with your Samson cards. Lay out the cards face down and have the youngsters take turns to look for pairs. If using before the story then have the children hold up each card as the person/symbol is mentioned in the story. If using after the story, when a pair is found, have the child say how the character / symbol appeared in the story.
Tower blocks – With Samson destroying the temple having the kids build pillars which are then ‘pushed over’ is a great way to bring discussions round to what Samson did and why destroying the temple was something God permitted.
Ridiculous lies – If you have a group that loves miming this crazy twist on charades may suit them. Instruct the group that they must act out ridiculous ways to defeat Samson’s strength: a bath of jelly, 200 star jumps, cutting his toenails with gold scissors… etc. Words are allowed as long as they don’t use any words that appear in the description.
Who I am – blindfold the chosen child or children and sit them down. Then silently choose the child to be identified. Go round the remaining children and have them say one word that describes the chosen child until the blindfolded child(ren) guess who was chosen. For example, the first person may say ‘kind’, the second ‘red’ (for hair), the third may chose the word ‘smile’…
NOTE :This game can be cruel or really affirming, if you think it’s needed then remind everyone to give positive descriptive’s not negative ones!
