Back to School Bonding:
Top 10 Issues Meeting
Discover from the students what they experienced during summer and to hear their individual
needs and concerns for the upcoming school year. (Also, throughout the discussions, to be
able to tell and show the students that having a relationship with God does make a difference
in our lives and can in theirs.)
Supplies:
- Lined paper and enough pens for everyone
- Any necessary game props
Kids Arrive: about 6:30-6:45
- make them feel welcome
- learn names and interests
- give new people a New Person Form
Bring it together: about 7:15pm
"Hey, glad to see you all here. Welcome to ???????"
Introduce new people: give them a blow-pop, skittles, or snickers bar, etc.
Youth Challenge:
(an up front game/crowdbreaker) Twinkie stuff-Two people, one at a time or simultaneously,
eat as many Twinkies as possible in two minutes or less.
Announcements: upcoming activities, events
Games: Choose games from Game List
Have someone pass a sheet of lined paper around for the students to write out their name,
phone number, e-mail, and a least one of their extra curricular activities. (You can either
do this now, or if your group is large, have the small group leaders ready to do this.)
Discussion Starters: Read the following or make up your own humorous Top Ten list:
40 FUN THINGS TO DO ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS:
[Remember: this is humor, *not* suggestions!]
- Page through the textbook scratching each picture and sniffing it.
- Wear X-Ray specs. Every few minutes ask the professor to focus the overhead projector.
- Sit in the front row and spend the lecture filing your teeth into sharp points.
- Sit in the front and color in your textbook.
- When the professor calls your name in roll, respond, "That's my name, don't wear it out!"
- Introduce yourself to the class as the "master of the pan flute."
- Wear earmuffs. Every few minutes ask the professor to speak louder.
- Leave permanent markers at the dry-erase board.
- Squint thoughtfully while giving the professor strange looks. In the middle of the lecture, tell him he looks familiar and ask whether he was ever in an episode of "Friends."
- Ask whether the first chapter will be on the test. If the professor says no, rip the pages out of your textbook.
- Become entranced with your first physics lecture, and declare your intention to pursue a career in measurements and units.
- Sing your questions.
- Speak only in rhymes and hum the "Speed Racer" theme.
- When the professor calls roll, after each name scream, "THAT'S MEEEEE! Oh, no, sorry."
- Insist in a Southern drawl that your name really is Vladimir Fernandez O'Reilly.
- Hold up a piece of paper that says in large letters "CHECK YOUR FLY."
- Inform the class that you are Belgian royalty, and have a friend bang cymbals together whenever your name is spoken.
- Address the professor as "your excellency."
- Sit in the front, sniff suspiciously, and ask the professor if he's been drinking.
- Shout "WOW!" after every sentence of the lecture.
- Bring a mirror and spend the lecture writing Bible verses on your face.
- Ask whether you have to come to class.
- Present the professor with a large fruit basket.
- Bring a seeing-eye rooster to class.
- Feign an unintelligible accent and repeatedly ask, "Vet ozzle haffen
dee henvay?" Become agitated when the professor can't understand you.
- Relive your junior high days by leaving chalk stuffed in the chalkboard
erasers.
- Watch the professor through binoculars.
- Start a "wave" in a large lecture hall.
- Ask to introduce your "invisible friend" in the empty seat beside you,
and ask for one extra copy of each handout.
- When the professor turns on his laser pointer, scream "AAAGH! MY EYES!"
- Correct the professor at least ten times on the pronunciation of your
name, even it's Smith. Claim that the "i" is silent.
- Sit in the front row reading the professor's graduate thesis and
snickering.
- As soon as the first bell rings, volunteer to put a problem on the
board. Ignore the professor's reply and proceed to do so anyway.
- Claim that you wrote the class textbook.
- Claim to be the teaching assistant. If the real one objects, jump up
and scream "IMPOSTER!"
- Every few minutes, take a sheet of notebook paper, write "Signup Sheet
#5" at the top, and start passing it around the room.
- Stand to ask questions. Bow deeply before taking your seat after the
professor answers.
- Interrupt every few minutes to ask the professor, "Can you spell that?"
- Disassemble your pen. "Accidently" propel pieces across the room while
playing with the spring. Go on furtive expeditions to retrieve the pieces.
Repeat.
- Laugh heartily at everything the professor says. Snort when you laugh.
(Thanks to YOUTH SPECIALTIES' Mikey's Funnies for the list.)
Break up into small groups.
Small Group Discussion:
- Share your name and your favorite thing that happened last summer.
- Share the worst thing that happened last summer.
- I want you to come up with a list of the Top 10 issues or topics that you would like
to discuss in our club (group) during the new school year. Rank each from #1 to #10. Give
me ideas about how you think we can best cover the subjects, whether through small groups,
a guest speaker, video, etc. We will attempt to cover as many as possible. We're going to
share all the Top 10 lists with the rest of the group when we get back together for our
wrap-up.
- (If there's time; you know how long prayer requests can take!) Before we return to the
large group, are there any prayer requests we can agree with right now?
Wrap-up: Have each group share their Top 10 lists and any ideas on how to cover these
issues with the group.
Closing Prayer
Added by Louis J. Chaney, YFC
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