Hello,
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break (and Christmas to come)!
I have started creating the activities book, with feedback and tips from many people. I would especially like to thank Dr. Lopez-Morales, a counselor at my school, who has a degree in and extensive knowledge of child psychology. She has given me a lot of ideas on how to make the activities more engaging and thought provoking to raise the children's self-esteem levels.
For example, one activity for the kids could be collaging. However, instead of just allowing the kids to create aesthetically pleasing pieces, volunteers should ask the children to create a self-portrait collage of who they think they are and what they like. Then, they can ask the kids why they chose to incorporate a soccer ball or a puppy into their pieces. In this manner, the child will get an idea, even if it's subconscious, of who he or she truly is and what he or she enjoys. This self-awareness will ultimately aid them in developing more confidence.
Another concept Dr. Lopez-Morales mentioned which I will look up is "House-Tree-Person." According to Wikipedia, it is a "projective test designed to measure aspects of a person’s personality." I will look into it more, but my understanding is that we can ask the children to draw a house, tree and person and be able to recognize personality traits from the drawings. Not sure if we should implement this because volunteers aren't clinical psychologists, but maybe we can adapt it.
