This winter camp will provide three unique lesson plans designed to improve student's critical thinking, listening, and public speaking skills. It will do this by teaching kids the basics of speech and debate by using holiday themed topics. Students will learn how to create a speech, conduct research, take notes, and respond to what their peers are saying. Each day includes a short 5-10 minute lecture followed by two rounds of an activity geared to build upon the lesson for the day. During the first round of the activity students will be grouped by age, while during the second students will be grouped by skill. This will allow students to learn to speak to a diversity of different people in order to learn how to adapt their arguments to the audience they're speaking to. By the end of the week students will have developed their public speaking skills, logical reasoning, as well as their ability to listen to and understand others. A breakdown of the course is as follows...

Day One: Introduction to Note Taking and Argument, Ice Breakers, and Speeches
Day Two: Impacting Out Arguments and Mini-Debates
Day Three: Effective Public Speaking and Teamwork

Topics included for Thanksgiving: There Should be More Thanksgiving Movies, Cranberry Sauce is Better than Glazed Carrots, We Should Stop Killing Turkeys for Food, We Should Give Thanks Every Day, Dressing is Better Than Stuffing, The Bigger the Thanksgiving Gathering the Better, We Should Eliminate Daylight Savings, We Shouldn't Shut Traffic Down for the Macy's Day Parade, We Should Ban Black Friday, We Should Have Another Sport Than Football on Thanksgiving.
Topics included for Columbus / Indigenous People Day: Which Name Should We Call It, Can We Celebrate Something and Still Remain Critical of It, Can Land be Owned, A Day Off From School is Worth It Regardless of Politics, the United States Should Honor all Treaties with Indigenous Americans Immediately, We Shouldn't Build Oil Pipelines, Other Explores Were More Important than Columbus.

Topics included for Martin Luther King Jr: Is Violence Ever an Acceptable Means to Attain Change, Should People be Forgiven for Past Mistakes, Should Freedoms be Absolute, Malcom X was a Better Role Model than MLK, An Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere, It's True that Only Love can Drive Out Hate, Should the Birthday of Any One Individual be a National Holiday, Prisons Should be Abolished.

Topics included for Christmas and Hanukkah: Does Santa Really Like Cookies, Kids Should Donate at Least One of Their Gifts to Charity, One Present for Eight Days is Better Than a lot of Presents on One Day, Hanukkah and Christmas has Become too Commercialized, Plastic Christmas Trees are Better Than Real Ones, Dreidel Teaches Bad Habits Concerning Gambling, Holidays are Better with Large Extended Family Gatherings, There Should be More Hanukkah Movies, December is the Best Month of the Year.

We allow kids to select either the topic or side each round, and assign the topics based upon age. Please let us know if there are any topics on our list you don't want your child to debate or be a part of. We will remove any topic from the session we get a request for.