Sometimes it’s hard to get kids to open up about their feelings. Soccer Ball Questions if a great conversation starter and a way to get kids talking. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A soccer ball. You can find cheaper ones at places like Five Below. I would suggest a white and black one and one that isn’t overly decorated as it will leave more space for your questions. A volley ball works fine too and allows you to include some longer questions but has fewer spots for different questions.
• Permanent markers that will show up on your soccer ball. We used a regular black magic marker and a Sharpie white paint marker for the black spaces.
• Write a question on each spot on the ball. The questions we used are listed below, but feel free to pick your favorites and add your own. Based on experience, I suggest writing questions on about a quarter of the ball at a time and letting the marker dry completely before doing the next section (this helps to avoid smudging and gives you a way to hold the ball while you’re working).

Once your ball is done, the exercise itself is pretty simple. Pass the ball around the room or the table. As a child catches the ball, have them answer the question in the section under their right thumb. You’ll be surprised how well this activity brings even shy kids out of their shell.

Here are the questions we put on this ball (you could do a separate ball with questions for an individual emotion like anger, sadness or grief). You will notice that we used a mixture of emotion-specific questions and questions designed to get kids talking about things that might spark conversations about emotions:

• What is the hardest thing about being a kid?
• What emotion is strongest in your life?
• What would you do if you were never afraid?
• When do you get angry?
• How did you overcome your biggest challenge?
• What color describes your mood?
• What would you do if you had a “magic wand?”
• What makes you cry?
• What stresses you out?
• What is your favorite memory?
• Give 3 words to describe how you feel right now.
• Share something you fear.
• Describe a happy family.
• What is the greatest thing about being you?
• What is the best advice you ever received?
• Do you ever feel lonely? When?
• What do you look like when you get angry?
• Tell about a time when you hurt someone’s feelings.
• What is your biggest worry?
• If you could change anything in the world, what would it be?
• If you could have any superpower, what would you pick?
• Share one of the happiest days of your life.
• Talk about a time when you were very irritated.
• How do you feel when someone laughs at you?
• When do you feel sad?
• What is the best advice you ever received?