Activities

Hot Topic Debates

To help our young students gain higher-level reasoning skills, they need to do their own thinking and not just listen to their teachers talk. 

To help children think through issues, have a debate in your pre-teen class with topics such as should Harry Potter books be banned, should video games be rated, is there anything wrong with cheating on a test, or should there be a death penalty.  Use current events in your area to come up with topics. 

Assign preteens to either a pro or con side, and challenge them to use the Bible as they prepare their cases.  Help them use a concordance and Bible dictionary to research what the Bible has to say about their topics.

The goal of the activity isn't to determine a position on a controversial issue, but to teach pre-teens that the Bible applies to real-life issues -- even if kids don't agree with the side of the debate they've been assigned.