We’re often trying to teach something to our youth with our session plans. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, time with your youth can also be ‘just for fun’.
You’ll still have opportunities for teachable moments, but sometimes just spending time ‘in play’ with your youth can help you get to know them and allows them structured time to do something they don’t often do.
‘In play’ is awkward I know, but do you know how hard it is to talk about ‘playing’ and ‘youth’ without concern that you’re going to end up on the wrong side of Google searches?! I know they play video games and maybe sports, but how often do you just ‘play’ anymore?
Especially with playdough!? Unless they’re in art class and working on sculpture, probably not very often.
So here are some fun things you can do:
1. Buy or make playdough – Playdough doesn’t have to cost much. If you live in a country that doesn’t sell playdough, you can still make it with very basic ingredients.
- 1/4 cup salt
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup water
- Have your young people mix the flour and salt in a bowl then add water. Knead and squeeze the dough to make a clay consistency. You may need to add more water.
2. Make a non-Newtonian fluid – You can create some serious fun with just water and cornstarch. Here is a great article on how to make and experiment with your non-Newtonian fluid. One idea they left off is to place it near some pumping bass and watch it jump to the music! (You might want to do a risk assessment and provide some earplugs for this one)
3. Make Salt Dough – this one is great because you can let it harden in a shape and paint it later. This works great if you’re really focused on having a ‘point’ with your session. You can combine it with a world awareness session and make maps out of the dough and then paint them according to their topography – for example, forests can be dark green, plains can be light green or yellow, mountains can be brown, rivers can be blue, etc.
- 1 cup salt
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup lukewarm water
If you’d like to make a point with your dough activities consider some of the following thoughts:
- You can have the youth make a shape out of dough, then discuss how unkind words and name-calling can ‘crush’ someone’s spirit. Go around and crush their shapes with your fist during the discussion or have them crush their own/each others as a visual
- If you’re a faith-based organization, you can talk about how God is the Potter and we are the clay from Isaiah 64:8
- You can use non-Newtonian fluids to show how when we are under pressure we can get ‘hard’ – maybe hard to deal with or unwilling to listen to others – and look at the importance of staying soft and pliable, willing to learn and listen to others, no matter how tough life is
Question: How would you use a playdough day in your youth work? Would you have a point – if so, what would you share with your youth?
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