School Activity Sheet Building Emotional intelligence and self-Awareness through Mindful practices (2020-2022) Ref. no. 2020-1-RO01-KA229-079848_1 (KA2 - Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, KA229 - School Exchange Partnerships)
The European Commission'ssupport for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Activity Title: My Personal Engine School: Școala Gimnazială TituMaiorescu Iași School subject: Language and communication & ITC Suitable age of children: 6-12
Activity objectives:
To be able to identify and express their current emotional state
To identify emotional regulation strategies
To recognize emotional dysregulation state in others
Materials needed for the activity: sheets of paper, colouring pencils, marker, magnets / sticky tape, a place to display students’ work, internet connection to access https://www.canva.com/create/bookmarks
Activity stages:
Teacher tells students they are going to create their personal speed meter for their inner engines. Children are shown a drawing like in the picture below, but blank, with no text added (the text shall be added in the next steps of the lesson)
Teacher asks students to think of a speeding meter in a car, but used for showing their emotional state. Then teacher asks them to identify what feeling is the pointer indicating for blue? How about for green and red? (it could be blue for sadness / low energy, green for a positive state / energized, red for anger / emotionally hyper).
Teacher asks students to draw their own emotional speed meters and use the colors they like and associate with the 3 main different states that we experience: sadness, a balanced state / joy, anger. Colours may vary, the point is to allow pupils to draw using the colors they feel comfortable and identify with.
Teacher asks students to associate some feelings or physical or emotional states with the situations when they feel drained or run down. Then, students write them on the left side of the speed meter similar to the picture above. The same for the next two segments.
Students are then encouraged to find calming / coping strategies for the sadness / low-energy and emotionally-hyper states. At the end it should look similar to this:
: it should be actively pointed to students that all emotions are human and these coping strategies should not be used to avoid or run from feeling sad or angry. These are feelings that all of us have and are healthy responses to the lives we live. The main point of the activity is to give students some emotional regulation tools handy for moments when the situation seems unbearable or out of control.
Students take photos of their drawings, crop them with their phone editors and upload them on https://www.canva.com/create/bookmarks, which is a free bookmark creator. The software allows them to enhance the photo, play with the format, to add symbols or text. They could add inspirational quotes below the picture of their emotional speed meters. The final results may look like the one attached.
Print the bookmarks and have students use them daily for school textbooks.
Ask students to write a short story describing a situation when one of their characters was having trouble with emotions and remembered to use a calming strategy. This is to get them ponder a bit on the actual uses of learnt strategies.
Evaluation criteria: The lesson is effective if during this activity:
Students are involved in creating their personal engine
Students create their personal engine bookmarks
Students are able to identify at least 3 strategies for coping with sadness and fury
Students use the learnt strategies in real-life situations
Activity results:
Individualized emotional engines
Custom bookmarks
Students skilled in applying coping strategies for emotional dysregulation in real-life situations