The Empathy Exploratorium activities are designed to encourage empathy between children in a facilitated educational environment. In such an environment, children have the opportunity to learn empathic skills with each other, supervised by a trained professional, the teacher.
Each activity focuses on a different aspect of empathy. The first on relationship skills, the second on self-awareness, and the last on social awareness. Through a playful and exploratory process they expand their understanding of human interaction and the impact of their behaviour.
RELATIONSHIP SKILLS
Listening + Cooperation
This is an activity for two children. One child is blind folded, this child is the follower. The other child is the guide. The guide has to direct the follower to place balls on the board to create a picture together. Only when they listen to each other they can achieve the goal.
SELF-AWARENESS
Emotional Perception
This activity gives children the space to reflect and discover their own, and another’s emotional language. They have to express emotions to each other through facial expressions and then choose eye brows, eyes and mouths to fit the emotion.
SOCIAL AWARENESS
Perspective Taking
Activity cards show different scenarios with a character. The children have to guess how the character might feel in this situation and then place an Emostone on the board. If they chose the correct Emostone they are allowed to play their piece forward by the number illustrated on the card.