Judges, Kings, and Prophets Game

I've noticed that when studying the Bible people tend to get the periods of the Judges and Kings mixed up.   The main people from the period of Israel's history can be divided into:

• Judges - leaders over Israel before they had any Kings (all in the book of Judges, except Samuel)
• Kings - those who ruled as kings over Israel or Judah (because they split not long after Solomon died)
• Prophets - though some of the judges prophesied (like Deborah and Samuel), these were mostly those who prophesied during the period of the kings

When I was thinking "Judges, Kings, and Prophets" in my head, it reminded me of the game I played in junior church as a child called "Manna, Water, and Quail."  In that game, everyone was put into one of the three groups (manna, water or quail).  Then, we sat in chairs around a circle except one person was without a chair and standing in the middle of the circle.  When that person said "manna", all of the students in the group would switch seats and the person in the middle would try to seat down.  You weren't allowed to return to your own seat.  One student would be left standing.  They would call another group or sometimes they would say "God Provides" and everyone had to change seats.  Obviously, things got pretty wild, but we loved it!

So what does that have to do with "Judges, Kings, and Prophets"?  Well, I was thinking that you could give all the kids name tags with names of different people (listed below) on them.  Then, when the person in the center calls out "Judges," all of the judges would switch seats.

Here is a list of names you could use:

Judges

• Samson
• Gideon
• Deborah
• Samuel
• Ehud

Kings

• David
• Solomon
• Rehoboam
• Hezekiah
• Ahab

Prophets

• Jonah
• Micah
• Elijah
• Elisha
• Hosea

This would be a great way of reviewing a unit on the Old Testament.  I'm definitely a big picture type of person and I believe it helps the kids understand the story better if they know where in the whole timeline of events it happens (or at least in which time period).  As a teacher, we were always taught that it is important to teach the kids the larger framework on which they can "hang" the rest of the information. I also love the free downloadable Bible Timeline Game that was created by Living Water Bible Games for this purpose.