A Magical Journey to the Wonderland of our Emotions

This project kit aims to promote emotional awareness, empathy and collaboration among young pupils from different schools around Europe.

This project kit aims to promote emotional awareness, empathy and collaboration among young pupils from different schools around Europe. Through engaging and interactive activities related to emotions and well-being, young learners will connect with peers, express their feelings, and work together in a supportive and inclusive environment.

Objectives

foster social-emotional development in pre-school pupils;
promote self-awareness and emotional literacy;
develop empathy and positive relationships with others;
enhance well-being and emotional resilience.

Introduction of partners

My Well-being Treasure Box: During a discussion in the class, pupils talk about items that make them feel calm, happy or excited. Each pupil decorates their own shoebox using art supplies like crayons, markers and stickers, and is encouraged to make it unique and reflect their own personality.

With the help of their parents or caregivers, have each child gather a few small items that bring them joy and promote their well-being. These could include a favourite toy, a family photo, a small trinket with sentimental value, a special drawing or anything else that holds positive emotional significance for them. Then, the teacher records a short video of the children who introduce themselves and their ‘Well-being Treasure Box’. The children can hold up each item, talk about why it is important to them and explain how it makes them feel. The teachers share the videos with a transcript in the TwinSpace and they encourage the children to watch the introduction videos of their peers and their treasure boxes. As they view the videos asynchronously, they will learn about each other
’s interests and what makes them happy and content as well as realise how many things they have in common.

Orientation

Emotion Charades Warm-up: Prior to starting the project, teachers conduct an emotion charades warm-up activity with their own class. Pupils take turns acting out simple emotions, such as happiness, sadness or excitement, while others guess the emotion being portrayed. This activity helps familiarise pupils with basic emotions and prepares them for the upcoming collaboration.

Communication

Emotion Puppets: Teachers organise an online meeting to meet each other. Pupils have created simple emotion puppets using craft materials. Each child introduces their puppet to their peers and explains what emotion the puppet is expressing and why they chose it, or the child introduces the puppet and the pupils from the other school must guess what emotion the puppet is expressing.

Collaboration

Emotion Art Gallery: Pupils collaborate to create an ‘Emotion Art Gallery’ with paintings or drawings that represent various emotions. Each partner school selects two emotions (e.g. happiness, sadness, excitement etc.) that they want to portray through art. However, they intentionally leave the artwork incomplete. Once the initial part of the drawing is finished, the artwork is sent by post to another partner school. The receiving school then takes on the task of completing the drawing by adding their artistic touch to the emotions represented. This process continues until each artwork has been circulated and added to by all the partner schools. As a result, every artwork has contributions from multiple schools, reflecting a collaborative effort. After all the drawings have completed their rotation, the teachers take charge of creating an online art gallery. They can use tools like artsteps or any other suitable platform to display the finished artworks.

The activity can also be done online using tools like colorillo.

Expressing our emotions: Pupils engage in discussions about various situations that have triggered negative emotions such as sadness, anger and jealousy. Through open dialogue, they describe these experiences and express their emotions by creating colourful drawings. The drawings and descriptions are received by their peers who propose thoughtful solutions through their own artistic expressions. Each child crafts a drawing that portrays a positive way to handle these situations, promoting empathy and problem-solving. Teachers compile all the drawings with their short descriptions in the e-book: Little Artists, Big Emotions: Our Feelings and Solutions.

Evaluation & Assessment

Emotions interviews: The young students reflect on their feelings and experiences during the implementation of various activities within the project. Teachers pair up the pupils and prepare them on what kind of questions they can ask e.g. ‘How did you feel during the art activity we did yesterday?’ or

‘Did you feel happy when we played the teamwork game together?’ During this activity, pupils learn to identify and express their feelings, and they develop empathy towards their peers’ emotions and experiences.

Follow up

Treasure Box Workshop: Exploring Emotions Together: Teachers organise the workshop in a central location within the school or a community space. Before the event, the 5-year-old pupils receive guidance from their teachers on how to conduct the workshop. They become the ‘workshop guides’ for the parents, other teachers or students who will be participating.

Pupils create flyers with their peers from other countries, and they distribute them to parents, teachers and other students, inviting them to workshop. Teachers promote the event through school newsletters, social media and other communication channels.

On the day of the event, the pupils welcome the participants and introduce themselves as the workshop guides. They explain the purpose of the workshop and the idea of the emotions treasure box. The pupils help the participants explore different emotions by discussing what makes them feel happy, calm, excited or any other emotion. This interaction helps the participants connect emotionally with the activity.

With the assistance of the pupils, the participants decorate their own treasure boxes using art supplies. Participants are encouraged to bring small items, pictures or trinkets that hold positive emotional significance for them. After decorating and filling their boxes, the participants assemble the emotions treasure boxes with the help of the pupils.

At the end of the workshop, everyone gathers in a circle, including the pupils, to share their experiences and emotions during the activity.

After the workshop, the emotions treasure boxes are displayed in an open exhibition for the wider school community to explore.

Additional information

Age from:

up to 3
Age to:

6
Difficulty:

Intermediate
Education type:

Early Childhood Education and Care
Target audience:

Head Teacher / Principal

Student Teacher

Teacher

Teacher Educator
Target audience ISCED:

Early childhood education (ISCED 0)

A Magical Journey to the Wonderland of our Emotions

Additional information

School subjects

Key competences