Emoticons Dice by Youthscape discussion/ice breaker tool for kids/youth
This is a small but hugely useful resource for every youth, kids and family ministry toolkit and they can be used in a mulitude of ways! What is it – its a little bag of wooden dice featuring many different emoji/emoticon faces showing different emotions, these come in a little yellow drawstring fabric bag and it also comes with a little booklet giving ideas of how to use them.
I have used these in 1-2-1’s with young people and in emotional wellbeing groups but you could also use them as a tool at your standard kids or youth group to check in and find out how everyone is feeling.
I don’t know about you but I’ve found talking to children or youth about emotions can just make some of them clam up, others don’t know how to describe or articulate how they are feeling and many don’t know where to begin or don’t feel confident enough to share their honest emotions for fear of being the only one. Emotions are not meant to be kept in for no one to know – an emotion shared can be a chance to bond together as a group and realise not everyone feels fine all the time and that is ok!
Remember those ‘Blob trees’ or ‘Blob scenes’ that have been around for years!? I was shown them as a young person 25 years ago – and i’ve used them in ministry as a tool – you choose the blob person you most relate to and why to help describe how you feel about a situation or in general. These dice are the new blob scene for the next generation! Basically you can ask young people to pick a dice that represents their current mood and then use that a starting point for them to unpack why. This kind of depth is vital for kids and youth groups – we shouldn’t want to just scratch the surface and glaze over how children and youth feel but sometimes directly ask them in a way that asking ‘how are you?’ doesn’t just give us – ‘yeah – i’m fine!’. You can also use these to ask how young people feel about certain events or in specific scenarios. Avoid shallow answers and dig deeper into how they actually feel, in a fun engaging way, and encourage honest sharing and enable kids and youth to learn to articulate how they really feel – giving them permission to come as they are and open up about their feelings and emotions. These dice have the ability to help you as a leader and the kids and youth you work with to be more emotionally literate and to make time to listen to how people feel, showing you care.
Heres what Youthscape the creators of the resource have to say about it…
“We use them in text messages and social media so much that they’ve become part of our every day language – the simplest way to communicate a feeling or response. Emoticons are everywhere. So we made them into dice. These dice are a resource for emotional literacy and wellbeing, as well as a way to help young people learn how to express their own stories and experiences. There are loads of games you could play with these. We’ve given you five for starters, but you’ll come up with more every time you use them.
The dice come in a handy drawstring bag, designed to fit in your pocket, bag or the glovebox of your car (because we know that’s where most youth workers keep their resources!) That way you’ve got them handy whenever you might need them.
Use them as an ice breaker to get a group chatting, a fun game to help a group explore a story or a way of helping the group express their feelings to one another. Or take them into a one-to-one mentoring situation as a tool to help a teenager open up about a situation that they might not otherwise have words for.”
You can get yourself a set for £9.49 including postage at Youthscape’s online shop here https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/product/dice