Daniel and the Lions Den

The Fiery Furnace

If you don't have the Adventures with Daniel CD from the Interactive Kids Series (now out of print), take a look at the Charlie Church Mouse #2 CD. It has Daniel in it. The additional activities are not terrific, but the animated storytelling is good.

These two stories are nearly identical in their circumstance and meaning. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego won't worship false gods. And they are condemned to death for it, yet saved. An angel/guardian appears in both, and afterwards, the King rescinds his law. Therefore the following ideas can be used for BOTH stories:

Let's Talk CD:  Teachers or Students use the Lesson Builder module to create their own condensed version of this story, which the computer will speak aloud. You don't have to recreate it word for word!  You could "modernize" the story, putting the heroes in a contemporary setting and creating new dialog. What would be the equivalent to a Fiery Furnace or Lion's Den today in a situation where your school friends were trying to get you to go against the ways of God? The animated character in Let's Talk can give voice to these --whether its through the Lesson Builder, or through the simpler Talk Now feature. With Talk now, you the teacher can pose a question to your kids, who then craft a response through the Talk Now module for all the hear and react to. In this way, Talk Now module becomes a Discussion Prompting gizmo which relaxes and encourages your kids to respond, -rather than the usual blank stares they give away from the computer ;-)   Which module you use will likely depend on your lesson idea, how much time you have, and the age of your students. (And now you know why I created Let's Talk --to encourage discussion and give you a tool that could bail you out on a lot of lessons).

For younger children....You might start off this lesson by using the Daniel story from Charlie Church Mouse #2 if you own it (up to age 9). If you have preschoolers thru 1st grade, you could use Daniel and the Lion's Den story found in the Play and Learn Children's Bible CD. Your call.

In my own lab... the last time I taught Daniel & the Lion's Den, we learned the story using Adventures with Daniel CD, then turned on Let's Talk's Talk Now module to respond to a series of questions I had for the kids. Worked great. Without the Daniel CD, I would have begun the class with a classic book-in-hand Bible study of the story, THEN moved to Let's Talk.  I wanted to use the Conversation Now "instant messaging" module in Let's Talk CD for my 6-8th grade students, but that particular month they didn't come into the lab.

fyi... While Let's Talk presumes some reading and typing skills, I'm always quite surprised how EAGER non-readers are to attempt to use Let's Talk. They think it's fun to make the computer talk, and just need a little help typing the words. Having said this, a Kindergartner in a recent class announced he didn't need any help reading OR typing, and promptly constructed simple sentence responses in the Talk Now module. When I was that age I don't think I could spell my name yet!

Alternatives:  
Kid Pix is a good alternative for your preschoolers and non-readers. They can illustrate parts of the story and put some words to it for the computer to speak aloud, such as the answer to your question, "what does this story teach us?"

The anointing of David

David and Goliath

The Life of David CD from the Interactive Series did a decent job of presenting content on these two stories, but there are other options to consider.

If you have a copy of the iLumina Bible CD-DVD, locate the David and Goliath animation. It's quite good. Use that to illustrate your Bible study. In fact, older children can read the entire story onscreen, view the animation, then jump over to play the quiz game Fall of Jericho -in which you have created 25 questions about the David and Goliath story. 

David and Goliath is also found in Charlie Church Mouse #2.  Like all the rest of the stories in the Charlie CDs, this one does a good job of animating the basic story for the kids, but the follow up activities fall a little short (they are more homeschool oriented --ie academic skill games, rather than the 'on content' Bible study games you're used to from Sunday Software-made CDs. Still good to use if you have them in your software library!

What would you have said to Goliath if you were David? If you were Goliath? Imagine Goliath deciding to NOT fight David. What would he tell his Philistine buddies?  Imagine that conversation...using Let's Talk or Kid Pix to create the dialog (which the computer which speak back out loud).

For "David the King" content, I'm quite partial to the King David presentation in the famous Pathways Through Jerusalem two-CD set. He's quite good, and there's extensive animated info in it. David briefly talks about building the nation, and then takes you on a tour of Solomon's Temple. Remember the Bible verse where God tells David that HE is going to build a house for David, and not the other way around? Interesting questions to pop into the tour as you take it. I've put a bunch of background material and questions like this one into my Pathways Teacher & Tourist's Study Guide.  I mention Pathways and the Guide because they have been around a long time, and many many of my customers already own them.  David's pathway also includes the trouble with Bathsheba. Quite fun.

By the way...if you haven't seen the 1980's "King David" movie starring Richard Gere...see it. It is wonderful, and sticks VERY close to the Biblical story. Love that movie!

How could you use Let's Talk for teaching about King David?
You could use the Lesson Builder to construct a spoken lesson about the meaning of "a man after God's own heart." ...the Bible Verse which informs the anointing of David story. What does that mean? 
If you are working on the stories of David and Jonathan, Let's Talk will be really helpful, because Jonathan appears in no other software at this time (Aug 06). David and Jonathan's pledge of friendship is wonderful. How would that pledge sound today through the Let's Talk Talk Now module?  Have the kids rework it (I love the lesson power of kids reworking the language and explaining vocabulary in their own words. great stuff).