LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN INDIA 7•
Adaptation
For Younger Children:
Make groups of three or four children. Give each group a colored slip of the rainbow: violet, indigo,
red, orange, yellow, green, blue. You should have seven groups, one group for each color. Give each
group an arch of the rainbow of this color. Each group writes all the emotions and feelings they
think of when they see this color. The facilitator must move among the groups and help them in
case they do not have the appropriate language skills to express the feeling in the proper words.
Once all the arches are ready, place them as in a rainbow and discuss what the children have
written.Review- Ask for a few volunteers to share their feelings. Remind the children that no feelings are
good or bad and that it is okay to express them. The facilitator or the children should not
make any comments on the drawings; only words to support should be spoken, and the
children should be encouraged to speak. - You can put up t7he charts on the walls so that the children can visit each chart and talk to
the different groups if they so wish.
(For the facilitator: Before learning to express feelings in safe and healthy ways, children must first
learn to identify and express their feelings)
Experience from the field
“We found that all children have different thoughts and feelings.”
“We felt really good after drawing and colouring our feelings.”
Some children were too interested in coloring the clouds rather than drawing their rainbows. One child
(who had been affected by AIDS) expressed that he had only two emotions, anger and depression, which
he painted as red and blue. Most of the children went for dark colors and could only depict two colors in
the rainbow. (Positive Living Project, Namakkal).Tips for the facilitatorTips for the facilitatorTips for the facilitatorTips for the facilitatorTips for the facilitator
Lead the children gently into meditation. Facilitator must take care that the children are not jerked
suddenly out of their reverie. Keep the counselor ready for this session. For children who cannot read/
write, they can draw symbols or use cut-outs from magazines, or get an assistant to help them write.