"Is There Enough for Everyone?" Activity

On Fridays, Bread Blog will highlight an activity, for either adults or children, that can be used by Christian educators. This activity, and others like it, can be found in the Engaging Church section of Bread’s website.

In the "Is There Enough for Everyone?" activity, students are encouraged to work together to share increasingly scarce resources. This activity, which is appropriate for younger students, is designed to foster discussion about sharing and how people treat one another.

The children start by playing a traditional game of musical chairs—one chair and one student are eliminated each time the music is stopped. The children then play a second round of musical chairs, during which a chair is removed each time the music stops, but all students continue playing. As the game progresses, more and more people must find a way to sit on fewer and fewer chairs until, finally, everyone must sit on one remaining chair.

Once the commotion dies down, ask everyone to sit down, and think about how they acted toward one another in each of the games: How did it feel to have enough chairs, and then to slowly lose them until there wasn’t enough room for everyone? What would it be like if this was the amount of food you had to eat, instead of the number of chairs you had to sit on? How would this affect your life?

After the discussion, the activity ends with a prayer about sharing:

Read the entire "Is There Enough for Everyone" lesson plan from Bread for the World's "Making Hunger History" children's curriculum for more details. If you're interested in addressing the same general topic with teenagers or adults, consider a book group discussion of Bread for the World founder Art Simon's How Much Is Enough?