Hello! I'm looking for some advice on designing mental health activity packs for primary school children (7-11yrs).
Since early intervention in mental health education is becoming increasingly important, the aim of the activities will be to gently introduce healthy conversation around body image and self-worth. This could include colouring sheets and stickers featuring positive affirmations. If anyone has experience in designing/ illustrating children's activity packs, or mental health resources in general, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks :)
Replies17
- @Nic Pearce Fab! I really appreciate your insight :)
- @Elnaz Soltan No, but I work partly in a secondary school so I understand children very well!
- @Raafaye Ali Hi Raafaye, this is really great insight - thanks so much for sharing. Would love to dicuss these projects further :)
- @Nic Pearce Hi Nic, thanks for your advice - I completely agree. Have you worked on a similar project before?
- @Stephen Killick Hi Stephen, thanks so much for sharing this! Great project :)
- I used to work for a creative educational start up, I just made my work engaging relatable and broke down terminology through visual representations.I did this kind of activity for 7 and under Tried to make as many activities that were interesting and retain their attention span through colour and playful illustrations. I made sure I didn’t overwhelm them with concepts and allow them to utilise their creativity. mental health was one of the topics I selected, i utilised a mat to make faces, through playdough and icons and illustrations of examples of different mood at the top for children to see the transition in emotion and then have a plane pvc plastic mat of the face I designed as a space for them to express themselves
- I really recommend not dumbing down as kids roll their eyes at anything that they deem to be ‘too childish’. Children are incredibly visual and very aware of current trends, so anything that’s really up to the minute is a winner. I think that it shouldn’t be too austere as that can be seen as boring or intimidating.
- @Elnaz Soltan Here's a link to one of the animations we produced with @Dan Turner https://youtu.be/zfVeB4s8WWk
- @Elnaz Soltan We developed a learning platform for pre-teens related to weather and climate monitoring, and deliberately used older teens in the materials. We even went as far as hiring a youth theater for the photos so they wouldn't come across as staged/fake. Some of the original materials can still be found on the site: https://l-zone.info/
- @Mark Oliver Hi Mark, thanks so much for sharing these! Your creative care packages such a lovely initiative. Would love to hear more about the project you're currently working on! Thanks :)
- @Stephen Killick Hi Stephen, this is a really useful insight - thanks so much! I'd love to hear about any examples of work you have done in this space :)
- @Pip Jamieson Hi Pip, thanks so much for sharing these examples - they've been really helpful!
- Hi Elnaz, i have been making some activity packs you can check out if you are interested: https://the-dots.com/projects/creative-care-package-404095Also this organisation are doing great work and they have some resources that speak to your goals with this project:https://www.yesfutures.org/resources-for-parentsHope that is helpful! I'm working on something similar myself, I'll let you know if and when I get it together...
- Normally for kids in this age design something a little bit more mature than you may originally think. This age group look up to older kids (12-14 yrs). If the messages appear to be delivered by older kids they may be more likely to take it in.
- Hi @Elnaz Soltan - The lovely @Ronny Wieckardt asked our lovely community for tips of activities for children here:https://the-dots.com/asks/hi-creative-parents-please-reply-with-tips-tricks-and-hacks-you-can-do-with-your-kids-during-this-crisis-5560Then built a website around those tipshttps://the-dots.com/asks/it-s-here-still-very-wip-https-www-stay-at-home-kids-com-5746There might be some brilliant ideas on there - I hope that helps :-)
- @Luke Freeman Haha! Genius :)
- Don’t use Comic Sans ;)
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