Lift the lid

This unusual activity has great appeal to children of all ages. It's creative, requires the children to reflect on their lives, and to think about their aspirations for the future. The children are unlikely to have done anything like it before, so why not give it a try?

Ya-ya boxes are American in origin, and were made traditionally by people who sold their wooden, decorative crafts for a living. These were sometimes hard to part with after their creation, and so they began to make special furniture to keep for themselves.

They decorated wooden storage chests with their life stories. On the outside they recorded the main events and people in their lives, by painting their families and friends, and occasions such as starting school, work or getting married. The inside of the box was reserved for a very special picture that represented the person's own hopes and dreams for the future.

You can adapt this idea for use in your club, by replacing the wooden chest with the more accessible cardboard box with a lid! Children can decorate their own small boxes by working individually on an empty chocolate or tea bag box. Although the children can work on their own, making ya-ya boxes can also be a very social activity, as the children often chat about themselves as they work, and are inspired by one another to include THEIR favourite past experiences on their boxes.

You may decide to work as a group and make a much larger scale box, depicting the life of the club. You could even use this method for evaluating and planning at the end of a holiday - the children could record their favourite activities from the period on the outside of the box, and depict the things they would like to do in the future on the inside. Maybe you could even obtain a giant-sized box from a local business - the type fridges come in for instance. It would look great on display and would certainly capture the attention of visitors!

You will need:

* Suitable boxes with lids

* Lining paper (you could use any blank scrap paper)

* Scissors

* Double sided tape/sticky tape

* PVA glue and glue brushes

* Felt tip pens (child-friendly thick pens, which are also easily removeable from fabrics, are called washable broad markers) or poster paints and brushes.

What to do:

1 Make sure there aren't any dangerous pins or staples in large boxes and then ask the children to select a box to work on.

2 Line the inside of the box with paper cut to size, then cover the outside and the lid. Fold the corners as you would if wrapping a gift, and stick double-sided sticky tape (or a loop of ordinary sticky tape) underneath the corners to seal them down. Do not stick the tape on the top of the paper, as it will be difficult to cover with decoration. Any raised edges will be flattened down later and sealed by the varnish.

3 The children need to draw their designs on the inside and outside of the box. Some may like to do this in pencil and then colour them in with felt tips, others may prefer to work with felt tips straight away. If working on a large box, it is advisable to use poster paints to cover the areas. If children find it difficult to draw on the inside of the box, they could do their picture on paper and then stick it inside.

4 In keeping with the American tradition, the children may like to put their names on the lid of the box and record the date on the bottom.

5 When the felt tip drawings are completely dry, the children can varnish their box. This will protect it, giving a slightly shiny, toughened finish.

Mix PVA glue in equal parts with water, and brush on lightly and sparingly so that the pen colour or paint does not bleed. Begin with the inside first, starting at the bottom and working up to the top. Glitter can be added for some extra special sparkle.