“Sitting facing each other in a trustworthy space at the beginning

of the day, students engage in and build effective communication skills, including empathic listening.”  (Jonathan Cohen, Director of

the program for Social and Emotional Learning)

 

Morning circles are a common tool to inclusively start they day together. The setting of sitting in a circle makes sure that everyone is being seen and heard. Within the “beEmpathy” framework the morning circles also serve the purpose to carefully establish emotional literacy. During circle time each student is asked: “How are you?” By repeating this task regularly the students will feel more and more comfortable to talk about their emotional well-being. They practise to identify their feelings. Furthermore they get to know about different courses of action. The students will realise that they have the ability to react both to their own and to others’ emotions.

 

IMPORTANT:

It is important to establish some common rules that create a safe space where the students feel comfortable talking about their well-being. What do your students needs? E.g. no judgement, no laughing or ranting at others.

 

"morningcircle1” starts the workshop with a creative and welcoming task. Each student is asked to answer the questions: “Who are you?” and “How are you today?”. Instead of words, the students draw individual shapes to answer the questions. Each student draws two shapes on the poster that express their personality and their well-being. Afterwards the students add their names. They don’t have to explain their drawings. Only if they want to they can tell something about it. In any case, the other students shouldn’t comment the drawings. In the end, the class will have created a colourful poster that represents both their individual and their common identity.