This activity turned out to be a favourite.
It
is basically a self-esteem building activity I found inspiration from dove
self-esteem activity book. I simplified it to fit our girls.They had specified to use plastic bottles or cardboard ie 4 boxes of cardboard each for a child. We made origami boxes from old newspaper and decorated them.
We also fetched an old Filmfare to tear pictures from. Can use any old magazine with some decent pictures.
The 1st one should be
named HOPES & FEARS This box could be used to catch their hopes and fears about their current life written in the slips of paper.
The 2nd one would be
named SELF IMAGE ; This
box could be used to put pictures of famous people, models and words like
‘perfect’, ‘beauty’ or ‘cosmetic surgery’
The 3rd one would be
named FEELINGS ; This box
will have images of faces, tears and smiles, with words like ‘love’, ‘fear’ and
‘guilt’
The 4th one should be
named MY BODY ; This
box can have pictures of lips, feet,
noses, hair, skin, teeth and eyes beside words like ‘smooth’, ‘hairy’ and
‘healthy’
About 25 SLIPS of papers each for
the child to write anything they want to put in these boxes.
Keep some white
papers aside to make slips of papers if your girl turns out to be as active in
writing as mine.
First explain that building your
self-esteem is all about building on your hopes and finding ways to address
your fears in a constructive way.
I gave the boxes to the girls and
let them decorate them as they want. Give them the necessary supplies and let
them make those boxes their own. Give each girl a couple of books and some
(about 25) slips of papers. let them go about tearing/cutting from the magazine and
putting the appropriate pictures in to the boxes. And with the slips of paper
they have to write whatever thoughts that come to their mind when they hear
BODY, FEELINGS, HOPE, FEARDS and SELF IMAGE. I explained the boxes to them and
demonstrated with a picture to show what is to be done. Then let them do their
thing. I was amazed at the words they put in the boxes.
After everything is done they presented their slips and pictures one by one. We had a small discussion around it and it was great fun to discover some of the thoughts especially their hope and fears.
