Starting off the school year by going directly into prep or a debate can definitely be a turn off for a lot of novices (or even varsity!) When the year first kicks off, we’ll use a few games for to ease everyone into the competition season, and do a few throughout the year when we’re at our most stressed. Here’s a couple ideas for games!
Pick a topic (usually something kids are aware of - this can be anything from dress codes to donald trump, but let them choose) The first person holding the ball must give a statement (Dress codes should be banned) and throw the ball at someone else. The person who catches it has to give a statement beginning in either "because", "and", "however", and "but". This naturally encourages debate and discussion without putting one single person in the spotlight.
Get three people to stand in front and randomly decide three topics. As the first person starts to speak on the first topic, randomly ding a bell, and the next person has to pick up the speech from the last word and incorporate the next topic. This can be done with more than three people, but it lets some kids sit back and not feel rushed.
Pick three people to go up to the front of the class (these will be the “experts”) and everyone agrees on one topic. The experts job is to convince everyone they understand the topic, but the twist is that they’re allowed only one word. Ex. the topic is “Hamsters”. The first person goes “Hamsters”, second person “are”, third, “delicious”, first, “ because, second, “they”, third, “are”, first, “tender”. The goal is to stay on topic while still creating a believable sentence.
Great game to getting to know faces, as well as working on memorization for speech events. The first person in the circle says “I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of water”. The next person repeats the item, but adds their own purchase as well. ex. “I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of water and a cat.”. This continues around the circle, until the last person has to repeat everyone's purchase (make sure this is a varsity member or someone with a good memory). The game is a lot funner (and easier) when everyone comes up with wacky purchases.
This requires you to have some way to play a one on one fighting game (smash bros is our choice), such as a tv, projector, etc. Two kids go up and begin playing, and an audience member has a bell and a bunch of random topics. When the bell goes off (randomly), both players drop their controllers and begin speaking on the topic given to them without any prep. The audience gives them a thumbs up when they think they’ve handled the topic well, or a thumbs down and they have a five second penalty where they can’t touch the controller, but their opponent can begin playing. We try to aim for 3-4 speeches per video game round (speeches are usually fifteen seconds). This is probably the most successful game we play as a team.
Hopefully this can help your team out and be adapted to fit you a little better. Happy Competition Season!
