How emotions vary

Learning level/s: Years 3 and 4

Focus area/s: Mental health and wellbeing, Relationships and sexuality

Description: Students investigated how emotional responses vary and how to interact positively with others in a variety of situations. They created a whole-class book with characters in different situations. Each character faces a particular situation (posed by teacher) and has two different or varying reactions to that situation (illustrated and labelled by student pairs). On the back of each reaction page students described possible reasons, consequences and management strategies. They also created individual emotion masks.

Measures of success: Students will demonstrate a wider vocabulary of emotions when exploring real-life scenarios and the emotions which can arise when faced with different situations. They will identify the consequence of different reactions and strategies for managing these reactions (mindfulness practices or resources to use). They will be able to recognise their own emotional responses and levels of their response in different situations. They will understand that emotional responses vary across cultures and differ between people and different situations and describe strategies they can use to identify and manage their emotions before making a decision to act.