Purpose

This exercise is suitable for children as it allows them to express themselves artistically and reveal significant character traits which are important in team building. They will get to analyse their T-Shirt designs and also come up with new designs that best capture the message they like to convey or the way they see themselves.

Objective

Identify a message or design that you think is suitable to appear on your t-shirt and then complete this design using feedback from others and the trainer.

What You Need

• Papers
• Colour markers, paints and suitable materials to draw on paper
• One blank light-coloured T-shirt for each child.
• T-Shirt printing service (There are many suppliers available)

Setup

• Before the exercise, ask children to wear their favourite T-Shirt before attending the session. You may also ask them to bring a blank T-Shirts with them.
• Start the exercise by encouraging a discussion on designs of T-Shirts. Ask each child one at a time to stand up and showcase his or her T-Shirt to others. They should then explain what they like about their T-Shirts. Provide encouragement and support as they explain.
• Once everyone has expressed themselves. Ask them to design their own T-Shirts.
• First, ask them to identify what message they want to place on their T-Shirts.
• For Round 1, ask them to draw this on paper using the drawing tools.
• Allocate 15 minutes for this.
• Ask children to go around and share their designs with each other. This helps them to comment on each other’s designs, ask about parts that are not clear and so on.
• As a trainer, you should also provide feedback and help in the process.
• Allocate about 15 minutes for this part.
• In Round 2, ask children to update their designs based on the feedback they received or inspiration by other designs.
• Allocate 15 minutes for this part and expect everyone to produce one final design on paper.
• Collect the T-Shirts and then after the class, scan the images and send them off to a T-Shirt printing supplier along with the corresponding blank T-Shirts. Hand over the printed T-Shirts to the children.
• Optionally, you can hand over the T-Shirts ceremonially by inviting the parents to come over and follow up with a party.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes

Activity: 10 min discussion + 15 min Round 1 + 15 min feedback + 15 min Round 2 = 55 minutes

Group Feedback: 10 minutes (After printed T-Shirts are collected)

Discussion

How did you feel when you wore your new T-Shirt? Did it make you feel special? What did you think of others? Do you have an idea on how you may design another one in the future?