Skip to main content

Putting the Pieces Back Together

Suggested Group(s): Young/Middle/Teen

Purpose: To encourage participants to share grief experiences with one another; to build the group identity

Task/need: Group building, group structuring, acknowledging the reality of the loss

Activity Setup Ideas:

  • Ask the children to close their eyes for a minute and think of what grief looks like.
  • What are some of the feelings you had with grief?
  • What words would you use to describe the experience?
  • Are there any colors that represent your grief better than others?
  • Does grief look like two pictures, one before and one after the death of your person?

Materials:

  • Pre-cut puzzle pieces (approximately 10"x10" on white poster board)
  • Markers, Pencils, Crayons
  • Magazines
  • Miscellaneous art supplies

Description: Create large puzzle pieces of approximately the same size for each of the group members. (Be sure to mark the back of the puzzle piece so that all children are creating their pictures on the proper side of the puzzle to facilitate matching when trying to put the puzzle pieces back together.)

Give each participant a blank puzzle piece. Have them draw or write about their personal grief experience. Give the children wide latitude in how to “draw their grief.” They may want to use single words, sentences, magazine pictures, or freehand drawing. Suggest things that they may want to consider, but allow each child to decide how he/she wants to represent his/her grief. In introducing the activity, and during the creation process, you may want to pose some questions to stimulate ideas for each child. Use the questions above to stimulate the process when group members appear to be stuck.

During the creation process, volunteers should try to be in contact with each child to allow him/her to discuss the process and ask for assistance in locating materials that would be helpful in expressing their grief picture.

Activity Wrap Up Ideas:

  • Once each child has finished, instruct the participants to piece the puzzle together. Allow them to share their puzzle pieces with the entire group, as they are comfortable. You may want to use the camera to take a picture of each child with his/her puzzle piece or of the entire puzzle to take home.

Suggestions: Once the puzzle is put back together, compare the whole puzzle to the individual pieces. Comment on how a puzzle is incomplete if one piece is missing and how each group member contributed to putting the pieces back together. You may also want to point out the fact that no two pieces of the puzzle are shaped exactly alike, just as no two group members grieve in exactly the same way.

If a child is absent, or the group is uneven in number, take a piece from the center and have this piece decorated by a volunteer with the Caring Place logo or name to signify the role of the group in the grief experience.

Adapted from a Fernside Grieving Center Activity

Press| FAQs| Careers