Navigating the Waves
This activity offers a space where students can contemplate emotional and physical responses to help navigate the circumstances they are experiencing. They do this while creating imagery that encourages them to identify what will help them cultivate a sense of resilience and self regulation as they move forward. Students will create a collage (collaborative or…
Read MoreThe 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 explore emotions post a traumatic/crisis event. The approach outlined also encourages the development of creative dispositional qualities that support positive mental wellbeing. In this unit, students will explore and experiment with using the visual arts…
Read MoreAlone together
Students return to school after a crisis with different experiences. Dance can help students share their stories while seemingly focusing on something else. This dance work helps students focus on their own time away from school in the crisis and see that others will have experienced similar and different things. This unit of work was…
Read MoreThe Magic Seashell
OVERARCHING VALUES: VALUING PASIFIKA WAYS OF BEING AND KNOWING – WITH AND FOR ALL PEOPLE Experiencing this learning should be savoured by all, so allow good time for each part. Remember that this is about relationships – so really encourage the talanoa. Make alongside the students where you can. In your talk and making, share…
Read MoreTwo Stars and a Wish
This dance work is a way for students to express their thinking about having been in isolation. This is a physical way of thinking about the good and possibly hard things about having been in isolation. While this lesson plan was initially created and used for returning to education post COVID-19 lockdowns, it can be…
Read MoreThe 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 Auckland since 2000, and cancelled in 2020 because of Coronavirus, both in Auckland and throughout China. The drama uses a traditional Chinese folk tale of the Festival’s origins, to explore: 1. Loneliness, what it makes…
Read MoreHello Again!
This dance work uses dance as a way of creating new forms of greetings. Due to physical distancing imposed during some crises, we sometimes have to find other ways of creating both formal and informal ways of saying hello. There is opportunity for students to have fun creating together while discussing the ways life may…
Read MoreThe Green Children
A drama about community fear of the unknown This drama is designed to stimulate critical thinking about culture, multi-culturalism, assimilation, religion, and racism, but it is also useful for considering how communities respond in a crisis or when something strange and unusual happens to disrupt day to day life. It uses an old tale about…
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