Lesson Plans & Learning Experiences
ALL OF THE LESSONS HERE HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY curriculum experts who understand the potential of the arts to draw students back to learning after crisis. They have been written specifically to support children’s return to the classroom through the arts. Children are not asked to talk directly or openly about their own experiences related to the crisis or distressing experience. Instead, we use fiction and/or abstraction to guide children toward reimagining their changed world. We know and support teachers adapting and changing plans to meet the strengths of the children they teach.
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:
- ADAPTABLE: We have provided a high level of detail in the following learning experiences and lesson plans to assist you. However, these lessons and experiences are meant to be adapted to your children, context, community and culture. Please consider them as ideas rather than scripts to follow word-for-word.
- ACCESSIBLE: We have endeavoured to create arts-based experiences that require little to no materials. However, some - such as the visual arts lessons - encourage the use of more materials than others.
- PARENTS & TEACHERS: Although these lessons and experiences were designed with primary and intermediate schools and early childhood centres in mind, they can also be facilitated by parents, community members, or other adults working with children at home or in the community.
- FOR ONGOING & RESPONSIVE USE: These lessons and experiences were designed to be facilitated preventatively to support children well-being, as well as in response to distressing experiences, crises, or disasters. Some learning experiences, such as Settling Stones, are specifically designed for regular use to help strengthen children’s healthy coping skills.
- SHARE YOUR STORY: We would love to see pictures of you using this resource and showcase them in the Te Rito Toi online gallery. You can view the gallery and find out how to share your work with us here.
TIPS: Use the filters on the right-hand side of your screen (or at the bottom if you're on a smartphone) to explore lesson plans and learning experiences by Age, Theme, and/or Art Form.
Alone together
Students return to school after a crisis with different experiences. Dance can help students share their stories while seemingly focusing…
Dictionary of Emotions
This activity supports children through a variety of mediums to connect and explore as they build their emotional literacy in…
Finding Something You Lost
This activity explores what it feels like to lose something precious to you. In this activity, the facilitator acts as…
Hā Ora
In Hā Ora, you will find three units of work, which are all connected thematically under the concept of Hā…
Hello Again!
This dance work uses dance as a way of creating new forms of greetings. Due to physical distancing imposed during…
Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tāngata
When the land is well, the people will be well. This learning experience offers opportunities for tamariki (children) to explore…
Ku Kulu Pilina (Building Connections)
Students have the opportunity to connect with self and also a partner to cultivate a relationship with emotions of self…
Making a Kahoa Kakala
OVERARCHING VALUES: VALUING PASIFIKA WAYS OF BEING AND KNOWING – WITH AND FOR ALL PEOPLE Experiencing this learning should be…
Matariki for Tamariki
In this activity, the teacher provides provocations to prompt the children’s curiosity in exploring the influence of Matariki within their…
My Many Coloured Days
This dance unit explores the relationship between feelings and colours. Using a picture book as a starting place, students create…
Navigating the Waves
This activity offers a space where students can contemplate emotional and physical responses to help navigate the circumstances they are…
Playing with Anger
This is the first learning experience in the unit: Playing with Anger. This learning experience uses the picture book, Anger…
Re-Membering The Branch
This learning experience explores themes of losing something precious to you. It uses the teacher in role convention where the…
Regulating Robot
A drama about social rules, morals and creativity This drama gives students the opportunity to explore the necessity for social…
Scared Stuffy
This learning experience is designed to support children to understand what being scared is and how to help someone who…
Settling Stones
Children will be introduced to a practice of settling themselves through selecting a stone with their teacher who guides them…
Superpower Poetry Fun
Seeing ourselves as powerful again after a crisis is an important part of imagining our way out of the trauma…
Teaspoon of Light
This unit of work centres on the story of a little girl who finds that her cloth of dreams has…
The Emperor and the Magic Goose
A drama about loneliness and togetherness This drama takes as its starting point the traditional Red Lantern Festival, held in…
The Giant Who Threw Tantrums
A drama about facing our fears From within the protection of a fantasy about a make-believe village threatened by a…
The Green Children
A drama about community fear of the unknown This drama is designed to stimulate critical thinking about culture, multi-culturalism, assimilation,…
The Home Within Me
This activity offers opportunities for children to rediscover their sense of place by connecting to self and community. This lesson…
The Long and Short Of It
This lesson sequence uses the visual arts to support students in re-connecting with people in their class and starting to…
The Magic Seashell
OVERARCHING VALUES: VALUING PASIFIKA WAYS OF BEING AND KNOWING – WITH AND FOR ALL PEOPLE Experiencing this learning should be…
Two Stars and a Wish
This dance work is a way for students to express their thinking about having been in isolation. This is a…
Visiting the Star Family
This learning experience takes the children on an imaginary trip to Space where they meet with a Star Family, exploring…
Worries Are Like Clouds
This unit works with the picture book: Worries Are Like Clouds and supports children to explore what worry is, how…