Tips
Great Book Suggestions for Middle School Girls
- The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer - this is the book I used!
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
- East by Edith Pattou
- Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Materials
You can provide these, or ask each girl to bring their own
- Copies of the book you are using
- Journals
- Pens
- Coloring pages
Activities
- Mindful meditation: Sit up straight and quietly, pay attention to your thoughts, sounds, body, and breathing.
- Breathing exercises: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds. Repeat.
- Memory game: The grocery list game. The first person says "I went to the store and bought (food/drink)." The next person says the same thing, but adds on an item of their own. The game continues, adding on an item each turn, making it difficult to remember. Concentration is very important in this game.
- Visualization: Close your eyes and picture yourself succeeding in your desired goals.
- Guessing game: Very similar to 20 questions. Split into two teams, have one person from each team leave while the teams individually discuss what thing they will have their team member guess. When the guessers from each team return, have each guesser ask yes or no questions until they figure out the thing their team decided on. Whichever team figures it out first wins. Go over which communication styles worked best afterwords.
- Telephone: Have everyone sit in a circle. The first person whispers a sentence to the person next to them once. The person then repeats the phrase to the next person next to them. This continues until the last person says what they heard out loud to the group. See how it matches up with the original sentence.
- Tennis ball/ positive affirmation activity: Everyone pairs up, passes a tennis ball back and forth, affirming each other each time they get the tennis ball.