If there is a theme that the kids will never forget, it’s definitely this one – the FEAR FACTOR week! We had this theme about two months ago and we still have kids saying it was the best activity ever. Alhamdulillah.
We created some kids-friendly “fear factor” games and activities, focusing on some common fears kids have, like spiders, darkness, creepy crawlies, etc. Well, actually, more like sensory stimuli put to a test – giving the kids a chance to face their fears and phobias and have a ton of fun while doing it.
Mind you, it was messy, mysterious but awesomely fright-filled fun!
Here are twelve kid-friendly Fear Factor challenges that we did:
Frozen Toes.
That’s a bucket filled with ice! So cold!
Spooky Sensory Experience.
What’s in this box? Is it slimy? Is it spiky? Is it soft or hard?
It’s squishy and ewwww, I don’t like this teacher!!
Slimy spaghetti
Would you eat a plate of colourful worms?
What is blood made of?
It seems that red blood is not much fear to freak-out about, but when we add some ice in the bucket… here comes the oohhh, ahhhh, ewwww, nooooo!
Sticky fingers.
Different type of flour mixed with some water to make different textures. Some kids just don’t like their fingers to get sticky.
Bowl of fear.
Not everybody favours the smell of durian, right?
Drawing using foot.
Controlling your foot to create some masterpiece is definitely a challenge.
Don’t jiggle that spider!
Or that cockroach. or even that tiny Ratatouille. They are not my friend!
I am not afraid of the dark!
In fact, I love to play in the dark! I just don’t like to be blindfolded. Is it not the same?
Monster egg smash.
Smash them all before the monsters hatch! Ha ha ha!
Fact: Walking barefooted on the grass is a big NO for some kids, especially girls. Geli katanya 😉
Creepy box.
That creepy crawlies look so real! I don’t want to get my fingers in there!
Worm Pie Challenge.
They already know that there are a lot of yummy gummy worms in that cream. Hence the smiling cheeky happy faces 😉 Oh well, kasi chance lah!
We did more than 12 challenges actually (will continue this in Episode 2). Did it really help the kids to face their fears? Yes to all these:
- Exposing kids to use their five senses to explore new information about many things
- Encouraging kids to openly talk about things that they dislike and why
- To help them to understand that different people may have different fears
- To instill the believe that in any difficult situation, although being brave is not easy, they have to keep trying and do not easily give up.
And at anytime when we feel fear or scared, as long as we turn to Allah Al-Qadir, the Most Powerful, we will be all right.
