Resilient individuals are more likely to experience more positive emotional responses, including such things as happiness, serenity, optimism and joy, than negative emotional responses such as anger. As a result, they achieve high life satisfaction and an enduring positive mood.

Year level

7-10

Duration

5 minutes

Type

In class activity

SEL Competencies

Self-awareness

Self-management

Learning intention

Students realise that focusing on positive emotions lessens the opportunity for negative emotions such as anger to dominate their thoughts.

Key outcomes

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

  • enhance our sense of wellbeing

  • foster positive relationships with others

  • lead to self-acceptance.

Materials needed

  • Post-it Notes

  • Pens

Mapped to

Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities

  • Personal and Social Capability:

    • Self-awareness

    • Self-management

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Activity 1

Instructions

5 minutes

Hand out Post-it Notes.

  1. Place in a box cards on which the names of different positive emotions have been written. Examples: happiness, optimism, joy, gratitude, pride, surprise, enthusiasm.

  2. A student draws the name of an emotion (e.g. ‘Happiness’). The other students have 30 seconds to write down on their Post-it Note how ‘happiness’ tastes, smells, looks, feels and sounds to them, which they then share with the other students. For example, happiness:

    • tastes like an ice cream

    • smells like a fragrant rose

    • looks like a sunrise over the ocean

    • feels like a giant hug

    • sounds like birds singing.

Variation: To speed up the process, allocate one sensory response per student per round, changing after each round.

Variation: Instead of using sensory cues, students free write what they associate with that emotion.

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