The Emotion Indicator

• If you are working with an advanced group, you can make a written list of emotions and let the players draw the face/emoticon of each feeling.
• During a longer activities, let the players reflect on how they are feeling and move their clothes pin to other emoticons if needed.

This game is part of the toolkit ‘Facing trauma - A toolkit on trauma-informed support for children and youth’. This toolkit is a cooperation between StreetSmart, Minor-Ndako, Save the Children Romania & SolidarityNow, cofinanced by the European Union. It provides simple tools to explore important topics like trauma, stress, self-care and emotions in a way that’s easy to use with different target groups.

Use the emotion indicator you created with the children to play the game ‘Mime the emotion’:

1. 1. Divide the players into two groups.
2. 2. Group ‘A’ decides who from their group starts imitating. This person is called the ‘Actor’.
3. 3. Group ‘B’ chooses an emotion from the emotion indicator, without being heard. Group ‘B’ whispers the emotion to group A's ‘Actor’.
4. 4. The ‘Actor’ has to show this emotion to the other members of Group A without words, only with movements and expressions. If group 'A' guesses the emotion correctly, they earn a point. To increase the difficulty of the game, you can ask the ‘Actor’ each time to reenact a story related to the emotion he/she has to imitate.
5. 5. Now it is Group B's turn to choose their ‘Actor’.
6. 6. The game continues in turns.