Click here for a refresh on our 6 C’s and trainings. 
Connection 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Try activities that require awareness of safety best practices like rock climbing and sailing. Trust and effective communication are fostered through these activities.
  • Build trust through your commitment to the match guidelines — especially keeping a healthy communication pattern and outing schedule.
  • Create a culture of “safe sharing.” Give permission to a Little to openly talk about positives and negatives from their life.  Be clear that sharing will not be judged.

Activity suggestion: Quiz your Big/Little! Write trivia questions on note cards and then hold them up for the other person to answer. If you are a new match, you can use this activity to get to know each other! Ask questions about favorite colors, books, foods, heroes, or hobbies. It could help you plan future outings by seeing what you have in common and what you might like to try together. If you have been matched for a while you can use this same activity but see how well you know each other; instead of asking their favorite food, see if they know yours! This can be a good way to reminisce as well by asking about favorite outings and memories. You can find ideas for trivia questions HERE.

Reflection Questions:

  •  Did you learn something new?
  • Did any answers surprise you?
  • What did you have in common?
  • Could you learn anything from your differences?
Curiosity 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Talk about things that you’re passionate about or topics you’ve chosen to explore in your free time.
  • Listen and ask questions when your Little opens up to you about struggles at school, instead of trying to fix the situation.
  • Work with your Little to create a longer-term project that builds skills around an area of interest. (ex. co-managed fantasy football league.) Give your Little ownership over the process while also providing structure and support.

Activity suggestion: Dream Vacation. Bigs and Littles each pick their top 3 countries or places they would want to go on their ultimate dream vacation! It can be anywhere in the world, near or far!

Directions: 

  • Bigs and Littles, List out your top three choices!
  • Go online and explore this place together! Some things you’ll want to find out might be:
    A kind of food this place might be known for? The most common form of transportation?
    Something that this country might be known for? What is a famous landmark found here?
  • Share your findings with one another!

Reflection Questions 

  • What did you learn about this country and its culture?
  • What is something similar to your country? What’s different?
  • What would you do if you had the chance to go to this country for one day?
  • Why is it important to explore differences in cultures and places?
Emotional Competence 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Talk through how you feel, especially when sad, disappointed or angry.  Explain how you process emotions in a healthy way.
  • Create a safe space for your Little to share how they are feeling and let them know you’re there if they want to talk, but let them decide when that will be.
  • Plan cathartic outings aimed at releasing tension / stress or positively expressing emotion (boxing class or painting).

Activity suggestion: Draw what emotions look like using this emotions wheel. Remind your Little that all emotions are ok, normal, and even helpful. Look at the emotions and reflect on what that emotion is. How does our body feel when we have those emotions? What is an example of when you felt that? Save your emotions wheel and use it in the future! Here is a site with a couple other examples of emotion wheels and some helpful questions to go along with it.

Social Competence 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Praise or thank your Little when you observe positive social interactions.
  • Introduce your Little to other kids their age in a safe venue (BBBS event is perfect).  Practice social interactions together.
  • Explore different communities and cultural experiences and create space to talk about what you and your Little learned.

Activity suggestion: Let’s play Charades! Act out your assigned list of words (using a random word generator below) and try to have your partner guess the word you’re acting out. Try to refrain from talking; you can only “act out” the words on your list and you can talk once your round is done. This game not only builds connection, but it also explores how crucial nonverbal communication is when socializing.

Directions:  
Play Rock, paper, scissors and shoot to determine who goes first.
Open a random word generator or a list of charade ideas 
Give your partner a minute to guess while you ACT out the words on your list.
Set a timer for each round, when the timer is finished you can tell your partner. If they get it right before the time is over, move onto the next word.
Reflection Questions:

  • Did you enjoy the game?
  • What was the best and most challenging part of the game?
  • Did you learn something new about your match?
Character 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Follow through on the commitments and promises you make with your Little.
  • Seek to learn about your Little and their family’s values and belief system. Withhold judgment if your Little presents a belief that you disagree with. Explore the reasons behind their beliefs.
  • Take advantage of moments when they arise, to question and talk about stereotypes and preconceived beliefs about people, places, gender or social class.  Ask questions and let your Little explain their attitudes and beliefs.  Ask permission to share your beliefs too.

Activity suggestion- Personality Test Take a personality test with your partner! This quiz allows you both to positively explore and reflect on your personality traits together. You can disagree or agree with the test, this just allows you to self-reflect and think about yourself.
Directions: Take this personality quiz and read the results. Discuss the quiz together throughout and at the end of each of your quizzes.
BIGS– Go first, model; while answering questions, discuss the questions as you go and converse about things you think you need to work on or love about yourself. Model positive self-talk and positive self-reflection
When it’s Little’s turn restart the test and go through questions with them and get their answers. When you both receive the results; Digest the information and determine if you agree with the results or not.
Reflection Questions: 

  • Do you agree or disagree?
  • What was your favorite thing about this quiz?
Caring 

Real Life Situations:  

  • Apologize to other match parties if you don’t fulfill program guidelines or if you unintentionally upset them.
  • Acknowledge the unique ways your Little expresses caring.
  • Provide opportunities to demonstrate caring that align with your Little’s interests (volunteer, write a card, adopt a cause together, complete a road race or walk for charity, etc.)

Activity: Presentation 
Activity suggestion: Work as a team to create a presentation about something you both care about (Ex. Games, animals, people, etc). Explore/search for information about the (thing) you both care about; gather facts, experiences/stories, and explain why you all chose this to together. Please feel free to make this creative and choose any presentation forums you wish; ex. google slides, Microsoft presentation, poster board or keynote (Apple)
Reflection Questions: 

  • Share why is this topic important to you?
  • Share your presentation with friends and family!
Confidence 

Real Life situations:  

  • Accept setbacks by pushing onward with a positive attitude.  Demonstrate that you are not afraid to fail.
  • Affirm that your belief in your Little will not change, regardless of their actions, setbacks, or opinions of others.
  • Ask your Little to teach you how to do something they are good at or knowledgeable of.

Activity suggestion: Let’s make a Vision board
Directions: Lets create a vision board, you could use google doc, magazines, or paper and pen; Get as creative as possible! Let’s get to know each other more through this exercise, providing you with some future things to do and talk about together!
Ideas to post on your Vision Board: 

  • Short and long-term goals
  • Places we would love to explore/travel to
  • Our dreams and what we aspire to be
  • Our inspirations/motivations

Reflection Questions:

  • How can we achieve this goal? Do you know what steps to take to get there?
  • What is the biggest goal for you?
  • What was your favorite part about this activity?
  • Is there anything on this board that you can start working on to achieve?
  • Looking for more activities to build on the 6 C’s with your Little?  Check out this page for more ideas! 

Visit below for a list of all activities and resources ideas!

ALL ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES