Mood mosaics

Duration: 25 to 50 minutes
Things you need: Coloured squares of paper (origami paper is a good choice), or oversized sticky notes. Coloured pens, pencils and other art supplies. Scissors and glue sticks. Pre-printed sheets of emojis and words (optional).

Instructions: LIke the 5-minute Mind Sweep, this is another good icebreaker activity that can help students share their thoughts and feelings with you.

Ask your students to decorate one of the paper squares to reflex their mood when studying. Let them use whatever methods they like to do this. In the past, we've found it useful to provide students with sheets of emojis and prompt words that they can cut out and stick to the square. This will help a student who struggles to draw, making the task less intimidating.

The "mood mosaic" each student creates then acts as a conversation starter. Why do they feel this way? Why do they feel lonely or unsupported? To facilitate the discussion, we recommend you have 3 to 5 students seated at a table with a member of staff who acts as a note-taker.

The big benefit of asking students to visualise their thoughts and feelings is that they can see that they're not alone. Often, other students will create surprisingly similar mood mosaics. Externalising your emotions can also prove therapeutic. We've found that some of the least talkative students create the most creative, interesting and insightful mood mosaics.

Please do not dismiss this activity as too childish; we have used it successfully with children, teenagers and adults alike. The playful nature of the activity appeals to any age. During a design thinking workshop for the NIHR and the School of Health and Social Care, we used this short task to kick start a full day of design thinking activities. Photographs of the mood mosaics being constructed, along with the final "mood board" we created, can be seen in the video above. The activity proved to be an excellent way to help participants talk about a very sensitive topic: the mental health and wellbeing of young people.

Finally, it is important to stress that we're not asking students to produce a work of art. Some people will spend less than five minutes on the task, while others might take much longer.