Every facilitator needs a repertoire of short techniques and activities for special purposes. These are often helpful for motivating the group, for engaging the children in a process, getting their attention, breaking tension or resistance, gaining their confidence and interest, or simply breaking the ice or having a bit of fun! Here are a few proven favourites.
A treasury of others can be found on the Internet.
Icebreakers / Warm-ups / Starters
For getting a group started and building solidarity.
Group Still Life: Ask children to bring an object from home that has special significance to them. Each child explains the object as it is added to a group display.
Me Too! Explain that children must locate others who share the same characteristic. Then call out some categories (e.g. birth month; number of siblings; kind of shoe fastening). Under the right circumstances, use more sensitive categories (e.g. religion, language spoken, skin colour).
Musical Chairs: Arrange chairs in a close circle and ask children to sit down. Stand in the middle of the circle and explain that you are going to state your name and make a statement about yourself. When you do, everyone for whom that statement is also true must change chairs. (e.g. “I am X and am left-handed”, “I am X and I have a cat” or “I am X and I dislike eating ___”). Try to get a chair for yourself. The person left without a chair then makes a similar statement about herself or himself. Continue until most children have had a chance to introduce themselves in this way.
Portraits: Divide children into pairs and give each plain paper and a pen. Explain that each person is to draw a quick sketch of the other and to ask some questions (e.g. name, hobby, a surprising fact) that will be incorporated into the portrait. Allow only a short time for this and encourage everyone to make their portraits and names as large as possible. Then ask each child to show his or her portrait and introduce the “original” to the group. To facilitate learning names, hang the portraits where everyone can see then.
Teamwork: Divide children into small teams and allow them time to discover the characteristics they have in common (e.g. culture, appearance, personal tastes, hobbies). Ask each team to give itself a name based on their shared qualities. Each group then introduces themselves to the others and explains their name.
Energisers
For raising or refocusing the group’s energy.
The Chain: Ask children to stand in a circle with their eyes closed. Move them around, attaching their hands to each other so that they make a knot. Then tell them to open their eyes and try to untangle themselves without letting go of their hands.
Fireworks: Assign small groups to make the sounds and gestures of different fireworks. Some are bombs that hiss and explode. Others are firecrackers imitated by handclaps. Some are “Catherine Wheels” that spin and so on. Call on each group to perform separately, and then the whole group makes a grand display.
Group Sit: Ask children to stand in a circle toe-to-toe. Then ask them to sit down without breaking the connection of their toes. If culturally appropriate, the children could also stand in a circle behind each other with their hands on the shoulders of the child in front. In this way, when they sit down, each one sits on the knees of the child behind them. Of course, neither version is suitable for groups in which any child has physical disabilities.
The Rain Forest: Stand in the centre of children and ask them to mimic you, making different sounds and gestures for aspects of the forest (e.g. birds, insects, leaves rustling, wind blowing, animals calling) by snapping fingers, slapping sides, clapping hands, and imitating animals. The result sounds like a rain forest.
Silent Calendar: Ask the whole group to line up in order of the day and month they were born. However, they cannot use words to accomplish this. You could do the same with shoe sizes, number of hours spent watching TV per week, or any other interesting personal data.
The Storm: Assign different sounds and gestures to small groups of children (e.g. wind, rain, lightning, thunder). Then narrate the soft beginnings of the storm, conducting the various sounds like an orchestra (e.g. “And then the lightning flashes! And the thunder roars!”) to the conclusion of the storm.
Three Circles: Ask the children to stand in a circle, and silently to choose one other child in their mind, without telling anyone whom they chose. Explain that when you say, “Go”, they will have to run three times around the child they chose. The result will be a complete chaos, but very funny, as everyone is running after someone and being run after at the same time.
To the Lifeboats! First demonstrate a ‘lifeboat’: two people hold hands to form the boat; passengers stand inside the circle formed by these two people. Then explain that everyone is going on a voyage: “At first the sea is calm and everyone is enjoying the trip. Then, suddenly, the ship hits a rock. Everyone must get into a lifeboat in groups of three (or one, or four, etc.)”. Children then scramble to form ‘lifeboats’ and take in the proper number of passages. Usually someone ‘drowns’. Then tell children to get back on the ship and take up the narrative again. “Now the ship continues peacefully … but suddenly a hurricane begins. The ship is sinking. Everyone to the lifeboats in groups of two.” Continue like this through several ‘shipwrecks’.
Evaluation and reflection activities
For ending a day or a session:
Ball Toss: Children toss a ball from one to another. Each person who catches the ball states one thing she or he learned or can use from the activity.
Collective Summary: Pose a summarising question (e.g. “What will you especially remember from today’s activity?” or an open-ended statement (e.g. “Try to think of a word or phrase that sums up your feelings at the end of today” or “I still wonder…”). Ask children to respond in turn.
Group Bulletin Board: Each child in turn adds one word or picture to a group display and explains why it represents something important he or she is feeling or has learned.
Releasing the Dove of Peace: The facilitator mimes holding a significant object (e.g. a dove) and invites each child to say something to it as it is passed from one child to another. After the ‘object’ has been passed to everyone, they draw into a tight circle and collectively let it go
Managing conflict
For addressing conflicts within the group and within individual children:
Conflicting feelings and values are inevitable when dealing with a topic such as human rights, especially when engaged in non-formal activities like those in Compasito that intentionally address children’s emotions as well as their intellects. Such conflict, which may arise between children but also within an individual child, is not necessarily negative and with skilled facilitation can even be transformed into a constructive experience. Learning to deal with conflict is one of the most important life skills children can acquire and an essential one for developing a culture of human rights in the world around them. Here are some ideas:
Anticipate conflict: When preparing an activity, think about possible conflicts it might evoke in the group or in individual children. Is the topic, the rules or terminology too sensitive for some or all of the children?
Do not provoke conflicts but also do not step aside when they arise.
Don’t assume conflicts are your fault – or anyone’s fault. They are normal and inevitable within every group. Help children accept that fact and avoid blaming. Focus on managing conflict, not fault finding.
Do not ignore bad feelings in the group. Acknowledge their reality and help children address them.
Take plenty of time for debriefing and discussions after each activity so that children have a chance to express how they are feeling, both about the activity and each other. This is perhaps your most important opportunity for modelling conflict management.
Talk to children individually: Often a child’s feelings are too personal or painful to be discussed within the group. When you sense this, make an opportunity to speak privately about what may be causing this distress. Let the child know you are ready to listen whenever he or she is ready to discuss the problem.
