Lesson suggestion 2 - Emotions ages 10-12
Here are ideas on how to form a lesson for the in-between ages in the compulsory school. The lesson example is followed by a video where you can see elements of the actual lesson. I held this lesson as part of a workshop with university students from Berlin and Stockholm at the LTT week in Stockholm, May 2022. You also have my ”emotions” paper slips and my music suggestions as pdf files
Expressing emotions could be hard sometimes, especially in words. Doing it in movement could maybe be easier but not if you feel that moving your body feels awkward or uncomfortable. I often begin by creating a bank of different kinds of moves with the pupils. When I work with the matter of feeling uncomfortable, one way of getting around that is by using tools of various kinds as you can see in the video. I also like to create some kind of expectation. It’s exciting to draw something out of a jar so I print the emotions that we will be working with on slips of paper and the groups will then draw their emotion.
It’s good to have classmates to be creative with. I also find it good to switch couples all the time in the preparation exercises. Then they have been moving in front of many different persons and they are more likely to feel more comfortable that way. If you have the time, it’s really nice to ask them to follow the emotions in the opposite music example and see how the movement changes depending on the music.
Sometimes I have this lesson but instead of movement compositions the children are supposed to create a brief scene showing the emotion that they got on the slip of paper.
Video: Emotions
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