Participants: 13 kids, class one
Trainers:
Sotar, Uut, Mara, Benedetta, Stefania, Nancy
Goal of the exercise:
We will focus on senses, touching and sensation. The goal is to give the children a sense of what is good and feels good and what is inappropriate and doesnt feel good.
The boundaries for each child will be very different and it can be a good idea to divide the children in gender groups.
As always we will start with some warming up exercises. These exercises are more focused on the different senses and using different senses, the goal is also body awareness.
We didn't start with the name song, the session started off a bit chaotic.
Sotar gave an introductory talk first.
He asked the children what they still remembered from the previous sessions.
- They remembered the Golden Rules (don't hurst yourself, don't hurt others, don't break things)
- How to appreciate others
- Slow down
Then we went outside:
Start-up exercise 1:
The children are divided in to two-three groups. We are all facilitators.
A) Each group has to form a shape using only their bodies (can be a star, a triangle, a circle or anything they agree on) using their imagination and teambuilding skills. It is up to the group to agree on what to form with their bodies and what shape they want to show. There is no right or wrong, only rule is that the children have to be ajoined/connected. (some groups might just make a circle while others will try someting more complicated. Observe who takes the lead, who follows and what brings the children to a result. )
We will give the children an example beforehand but also tell them to make a different shape. Please do not give the children too many ideas beforehand. Let them use their own imagination to agree on something)
B) Each group now has to choose a letter from the alfabet and use themselves to form and show this letter. The exercise is done when we, the adults, can guess the letter.
We asked the kids to form groups and name shapes with their bodies. Benedetta, Mara and Mette gave an example. The kids seemed excited to do the exercise. The tricky part was, that we asked them to pick a leader.
They took a while before they decided on a shape. R. was shouting he wanted to make an L-shape. It seemed like f. was a (very reluctant) leader. He gave comments, but didn't seem to want to get involved too much.
Group 1 kids kept making shapes by themselves.
Group 2 finally decided in making a circle. The needed lots of guidance from the adults.
F. was not happy with the way things went.
Sotar proposed to the groups to form letters and then make a sentence that started with that letter.
Group 1 cooperated quoted well. M. asked a lot of attention
Group 2 still needed a lot of help from the grown ups.
Sotar asked if there were leaders and followers. Several called that they were the leaders.
Start-up exercise 2:
The aim of this exercise is to use your hearing to find your match and to focus only on this.
The children are divided in to pairs and given the task to choose a mutual sound.
The pairs are each given one blindfold (or one closes his/her eyes) and the children with blindfoldes are placed in a circle and their ”other half” is scattered around the room. The children with blindfolds are the only ones allowed to move. On the count of 3 every child starts to express the agreed sound. The winners are the ones that find each other first and the game does not end until every pair is seated next to one another.
NB We need scarves for blindfold.
Kids liked this game, but they were very noisy. Also we could tell that some kids still could see through their blindfold, they were running. Some of them couldn't find their counterpart. We decided to make small groups of 3 pairs so that the blindfolded child could hear his/her counterpart more easily.
Touching Exercise:
We will sit in a cirlce and touch our own hands. Sotar will guide the kids telling them to:
* touch your hands
* squeeze
* rub it
* upside/inside
* fingers massage one by one
* tickling
* caressing first the upper part and then the inside of the arm
(10 min)
Debriefing, talking about the exercise, how does it feel? (to massage, tickle, push??)
Kids liked to make the cracking noise with their fingers, rubbing their hands until they got warm, the soft touch made them ticklish.
It was very funny that when Sotar asked them to follow his lead, the kids copied every gesture and words he said.
Knowing to understand boundaries
Divide the kids in couples, girls and boys apart.
IMPORTANT: in every moment the one who gets the massage is allowed to say STOP without any explanation, and the other has to respect.
They will do the same exercise, touching the others hands only.
Let them free to talk, and share what they feel between them two. (10 min)
Same exercise, we will give them: a feather, a sponge, a toothbrush and they will choose what to use on each other hands and forearm. (Nancy will bring the equipment)
Debriefing, talking about the exercise:
What was nice? Why?
What did you not like? Why?
People are different, and touching is understood differently. You must all respect each others bounderies and know your own.
We handed out a feather, a sponge with a soft and a rough side, a cotton ball and a toothbrush to each group.
Most of them liked the feather, I saw also many kids who liked the rough side of the sponge.
(in between the kids got noisy, when that happens, Sotar calls red (merah), the kids clap 1x and know they have to pay attention)
Sotar asked the kids who doesn't like to be touched. They didnt quite understand what he meant, so gave an example with m. (who volunteered).
He didn't like to be hugged closely or grabbed tight by the shoulders or tickling.
When Sotar rubbed m. head, they all said that that was nice.
Touch around the ears and neck, shoulders: the kids said that was ok.
Sotar asked them if they were touched by a strangers: they said not ok.
While we were doing the touch exercises, A. paired with Stefania, he kept very close to her during Sotar's talk. Later on he moved over to Sotar and sat very close to him.
Sotar told the kids, they always have to refuse to be touched if they don't know the person or when they weren't comfortable.
La Musica – song and dance
.........Second workshop.
Participants: 8 kids of class two
Same activities.
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