,
Rita van Haren
In this learning module, year 1 and 2 (ages 6-8) students explore emotions and managing emotions through games, role plays and stories. They learn about growth mindset and also about accepting difference.
Social Skills, Emotions, Gestures, Role Plays, Diversity
Theme 1: Social and emotional learning
Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults understand and
manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions
Topic 1. 1 Self-awareness (See Activities 1, 2 and 3)
The ability to accurately recognize one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behaviour. The ability to accurately assess one's strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a growth mindset.
Goal 1: to identify and label basic and complex emotions
Goal 2: to develop self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-esteem
Goal 3: to understand the relationship between emotions, thoughts and behaviours
Topic 1.2 Self-management (See Activities 3 and 5)
The ability to successfully manage one's emotions, thoughts and behaviours in different situations effectively motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic goals.
Goal 1: to improve effective strategies to manage emotions
Goal 2: to develop persistence, motivation and commitment toward personal and academic goals
Topic 1.3 Social awareness (see Activities 4 and 6)
The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behaviour.
Goal 1: to develop perspective taking and empathy
Goal 2: to appreciate and value individual, social and cultural diversity
Learning Intention: To identify emotions
Success Criteria:
Activity
Singing and Reading with Attitude
Let's sing some songs you know such as nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty. We are going to sing it many times! You can sing/recite them with different voices - happy, sad, excited, fast, slow, angrily, stop/start. Have fun!
Inner-Outer Circle: What are some facial expressions to show happiness? Sadness? Surprise? Anger? Boredom? Excitement? Add some gestures to excitement.
Now let's form a circle to perform some role plays.
Your teacher will demonstrate a role play with a student.
In pairs or small groups act out the following role plays for your classmates. Make sure you add facial expressions and gestures. You can act them out twice - in a negative way and then in a positive way.
Reflection: What were some of the emotions you felt as you observed the role plays? Let's record them on a T-Chart.
| Positive Emotions | Negative Emotions |
Purpose: This update focuses on body language and facial expressions to communicate emotions.
Teaching Tips:
Role Play - modelling: Give the student a pencil and explain to them that this is their favourite pencil.
Complete a circle time with the students following the role plays. Get them to analyse how the role plays made them feel. Complete a positives and negatives T-chart.
Learning Intention: To describe emotions and what we do to manage them.
Success Criteria:
Firstly, let's play a game of tag.
Think-Pair-Shares: Talk about what happened in the game of tag.
Writing Activity
Look at the picture below and discuss what is happening. Write a story about the children playing a game of tag and describe how they are feeling as they play. Then something goes wrong in the game. What is it? How are people feeling now? What do they do to make sure there is a happy ending to the story?
Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to focus on managing emotions and identify how they can be managed.
Teaching Tips
Writing Activity
To scaffold the writing task prompt students to discuss the image of children playing tag with questions. Use a Think Pair Share strategy. Start with a character then ask:
Share some responses with the whole class. Move to another character and repeat the questions. Ask how are these two characters linked? What might they think or feel about each other?
Ask students to think about the other characters in the same way before writing a story. Explain they have the option of writing about one of the characters, some of the characters and how they are linked, or write about what they think is happening in the picture.
Learning Intention: To understand that not giving up when things are hard can help my learning.
Success Criteria
Setting goals and achieving them can be hard sometimes. If you wanted to become better at throwing a ball or roller skate, but found it too hard, would you give up? Watch this video to see what happens on Sesame Street.
Then with a partner, discuss:
The Learning Pit
Whole class discussion: When you are facing a hard problem, it's like you are in a learning pit. Look at the picture of the learning pit and talk about the words you think should go in the speech bubbles.
Then think about something that you find hard. Write that as the heading. Draw your own learning pit and add your speech bubbles. Write down things you can do to get out of the learning pit.
Now watch The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires.
Draw a picture of a learning pit. Cut out the sentence strips and paste them on your learning pit drawing.
Show your drawing to a partner. How are they the same? How are they different? Give the person positive feedback about one thing you like in their drawing.
Creative Activity
If you could make your most magnificent thing, what would it be?
Write down three steps you would take to create it.
| What I would do | |
| Step 1 | |
| Step 2 | |
| Step 3 |
Draw a picture of your most magnificent thing.
Think-Pair Share: What would you do if something went wrong?
Whole class reflection: Not giving up and trying hard is called "growth mindset". Why do you think having a growth mindset is important to have?
Purpose: In this update students explore "mindsets" and link it to the notion of a learning pit where challenges are faced and overcome.
Teaching Tips
There are lots of resources and images of learning pits - also see Pinterest. Select one to display in your classroom.
Support students to come up with strategies such as collaborating, asking for help, trying again etc when they draw their individual learning pits.
Use the attached learning pit template as a model for students to create their own pictures.
Learning Intention: To understand that all people are different.
Success Criteria:
Activities
Let's make a class display of everyone in our class. Draw a picture of yourself and write your name under it. Then glue it to the class display. At the top, write "We all belong to .............. (insert name of class)".
Rolling Ball Game
Sit on floor and a ball is rolled from child to child. The child rolling the ball has to give a compliment to the person they are rolling the ball to. The one who receives the compliment says, "Thanks, ........." That child pays a compliment to another child and rolls the ball to them.
Being Friendly Game
Start with each child passing a gentle friendly hand shake around the circle, one at a time, accompanied by a smile and eye contact.
Reflection at the end of the activities in Circle Time
Watch as your teacher cuts up a red and a green apple. What is the same and what is different about these two apples? Record this on a Venn diagram.
Think about the red and green apples. Some kids prefer red apples and others green but eating a red apple is just as good for you as eating a green one. Both kinds are ok. People are a bit like apples; we can look different and we can think differently but we are just as good as each other.
Now let's read "Not Too Big, Not Too Small...Just Right For Me" by Jimmy and Darlene Korpai.
Circle Time and Think-Pair-Share:
Share your connections in an Inner-Outer Circle.
Write about two ways you are the same as others in the class and one way you are different to others. Illustrate your writing.
Purpose: To introduce ideas of acknowledging and accepting difference.
Resources:
1. Text: "Not Too Big, Not Too Small...Just Right For Me" by Jimmy and Darlene Korpai. The text is available to share on your IWB on the Understanding Dwarfism website.
For follow-up activities to this text, click here to go to the Workshop section of this great website.
Teaching Tips:
Red and green apples activity:
As you cut each apple open, ask students to identify what is the same and what is different about each apple. With students, co-construct a Venn Diagram to compare apples. Make sure that the shared component of the diagram has more than the two things.
Explain that some kids prefer red apples and others green but eating a red apple is just as good for you as eating a green one. Both kinds are ok. Use this to define what being tolerant means. Some ideas to include:
Reading the Text
Use the text 'Not Too Big, Not Too Small...Just Right For Me' to stress the point that being different in some way is really one thing we have in common, so it is not good to use other people's differences to exclude them, tease them or treat them as though they are less important or valuable.
Literacy Activity
After the discussion, students write and draw two things they would do to ensure Sam felt included. Have students share their work with a partner or the class.
Check-out
Cooperative Learning structure: Stand up - Hand up - Pair up (to music): Respond to the Circle Time and text. What is one thing you learned about being different?
Learning Intention: To understand how accepting difference looks and feels like.
Success Criteria:
Storytime:
Watch and listen to "This is Our House" by Michael Rosen.
Story discussion:
Role Play Activity
Inner-Outer Circle: Let's revise what we already know. What are some facial expressions to show happiness? Sadness? Surprise? Anger? Boredom? Excitement? Add some gestures to show excitement.
Now what facial expressions and gestures can you use to when you are not accepted? Show them.
What facial expressions and gestures can you use when you feel accepted? Show them.
Now let's form a circle to perform some role plays.
Watch your teacher and some students as they do a role play.
In pairs or small groups act out the following role plays. First act out the role play showing no acceptance. Use facial expressions, gesture and voice in your role play. Then act out again showing acceptance for your classmates:
Reflection: How did it feel to be excluded? How did it feel to be included?
Now let's create a class T-Chart.
| + How you feel when you are accepted and included. | - How you feel when you are not accepted or included. |
Purpose: To deepen understanding of the value of being tolerant and explicitly teach students what tolerance looks and feels like in our school unit and at home.
Resources
"This is Our House" by Michael Rosen
The Being Friendly cards offer suggestions for role plays and mimes that show acceptance.
Teaching Tips:
When introducing the text "This is Our House", ask students to predict the story and share predictions with a partner (this ensures all students participate). Pause a couple of times in the story and ask students to comment on how the characters might be feeling using a Think-Pair-Share.
Role Plays
Use the Being Friendly cards for suggestions of other role plays.
Choose a few students to "play" handball with you. Choose some who are in year 2 and one student who is in year 1 (who will be able to articulate their feelings to the class following the role play).
You may wish to replace the suggested scenario with others that are pertinent for your class. Use the following vocabulary consistently and explain or define as necessary: