Little Divas girls program - January 11th & 18th
When the girls came back for their first Little Divas session of 2019 after the holiday break, we wanted to make sure we did a bit of a refresher about some of the concepts we introduced and explored in December before our time off.
We asked the girls first to talk about their favourite things that they did or that happened over the holiday break. After we all got to recount the fun and memorable moments we had over the break, we played an ice breaker game called Teeth. In Teeth, we sat in a circle and each person is given an object to hold. We played with fake plastic fruit. On their turn, each person has to say the name of their fruit, and the fruits of the people to their left and right. The game gets its name from the fact that nobody can show their teeth at any point in the game, either during your turn when saying the fruit names, or if you might be laughing when anybody else is taking their turn. We had a great time with this game and laughed a lot - it was a really good ice breaker activity!
After we got nice and loosened up with the ice breaker discussion and activity, we did a bit of a review of the concepts we were exploring before we parted ways for the holiday break. The first concept we reviewed was the idea of "normal" - what you're expected to be/do, what people commonly do, which is different for everyone and societally constructed. We talked about what would be considered the opposite of "normal" - being "weird" or different. We also reiterated the main point we brought up about the concept of "normal", and that was that it's okay to not be "normal", as long as it's not hurting anyone!
We then moved on to reviewing the concepts/identities that are a part of the LGBTQ+ acronym. We reviewed what each letter of the acronym stands for, and some basic explanations of the terms themselves.
We then moved on to our activity for the week, which continued our focus on LGBTQ+ issues, and also looked into some history of LGBTQ+ movements and events. During one of our sessions prior to the holiday break, we had the girls anonymously write down some questions they had about LGBTQ+ identities and issues, and submit them to a question box. We went over some of their questions before the break, but the activity we were doing this week used some of their questions and also some other questions that asked them to explore LGBTQ+ history as well. The girls all paired up and were given one question per pair. To answer the question they were given, we gave them various artistic resources such as magazine articles, songs, and videos, that would give them the information they needed to answer the question. Once the girls had time to review their resources and felt they had the necessary information to answer their questions, they were given art supplies to create puppets and set/background pieces to build a puppet show that would present their questions and the answers to the rest of the group next week.
The next week when we came back together again, we started the session with an interesting circle discussion that acted as an ice breaker. The question we all had to answer for the group was if we could be alive to witness any event in the world, what would it be?
Since the girls didn't have all that much time in the previous week to work on their puppets and sets after they reviewed the resources for the information to answer their questions, we gave them more time to continue that work and practice their puppet performance before they would all present to each other at the end of the session. Some of the questions that the groups were answering for their puppet show performances were:
-"Is it a choice to be LGBTQ+? Can you be LGBTQ+ at a young age?"
-"What is a Pride parade? Why do we still have them today?"
-"How long have there been LGBTQ+ people? Are there LGBTQ+ people in other parts of the world?"
-"What is homophobia? How can we help stop homophobia?"
The girls finished the construction of their puppets and sets for their puppet shows, and each pair presented their LGBTQ+ question and the information they learned to answer the question with their puppet show performances. The performances were wonderful, and the girls mentioned that they really enjoyed learning about these topics, as they have not learned anything about LGBTQ+ issues in school. It really emphasized that the topics we are exploring in the Little Divas program are important and relevant for our participants.
We asked the girls first to talk about their favourite things that they did or that happened over the holiday break. After we all got to recount the fun and memorable moments we had over the break, we played an ice breaker game called Teeth. In Teeth, we sat in a circle and each person is given an object to hold. We played with fake plastic fruit. On their turn, each person has to say the name of their fruit, and the fruits of the people to their left and right. The game gets its name from the fact that nobody can show their teeth at any point in the game, either during your turn when saying the fruit names, or if you might be laughing when anybody else is taking their turn. We had a great time with this game and laughed a lot - it was a really good ice breaker activity!
After we got nice and loosened up with the ice breaker discussion and activity, we did a bit of a review of the concepts we were exploring before we parted ways for the holiday break. The first concept we reviewed was the idea of "normal" - what you're expected to be/do, what people commonly do, which is different for everyone and societally constructed. We talked about what would be considered the opposite of "normal" - being "weird" or different. We also reiterated the main point we brought up about the concept of "normal", and that was that it's okay to not be "normal", as long as it's not hurting anyone!
We then moved on to reviewing the concepts/identities that are a part of the LGBTQ+ acronym. We reviewed what each letter of the acronym stands for, and some basic explanations of the terms themselves.
We then moved on to our activity for the week, which continued our focus on LGBTQ+ issues, and also looked into some history of LGBTQ+ movements and events. During one of our sessions prior to the holiday break, we had the girls anonymously write down some questions they had about LGBTQ+ identities and issues, and submit them to a question box. We went over some of their questions before the break, but the activity we were doing this week used some of their questions and also some other questions that asked them to explore LGBTQ+ history as well. The girls all paired up and were given one question per pair. To answer the question they were given, we gave them various artistic resources such as magazine articles, songs, and videos, that would give them the information they needed to answer the question. Once the girls had time to review their resources and felt they had the necessary information to answer their questions, they were given art supplies to create puppets and set/background pieces to build a puppet show that would present their questions and the answers to the rest of the group next week.
The next week when we came back together again, we started the session with an interesting circle discussion that acted as an ice breaker. The question we all had to answer for the group was if we could be alive to witness any event in the world, what would it be?
Since the girls didn't have all that much time in the previous week to work on their puppets and sets after they reviewed the resources for the information to answer their questions, we gave them more time to continue that work and practice their puppet performance before they would all present to each other at the end of the session. Some of the questions that the groups were answering for their puppet show performances were:
-"Is it a choice to be LGBTQ+? Can you be LGBTQ+ at a young age?"
-"What is a Pride parade? Why do we still have them today?"
-"How long have there been LGBTQ+ people? Are there LGBTQ+ people in other parts of the world?"
-"What is homophobia? How can we help stop homophobia?"
The girls finished the construction of their puppets and sets for their puppet shows, and each pair presented their LGBTQ+ question and the information they learned to answer the question with their puppet show performances. The performances were wonderful, and the girls mentioned that they really enjoyed learning about these topics, as they have not learned anything about LGBTQ+ issues in school. It really emphasized that the topics we are exploring in the Little Divas program are important and relevant for our participants.
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