Emotional intelligence - five complete activities

These activities start off with a look at what emotional intelligence is.

Then there is a starter activity where each pupil is given a hypothetical $200 and asked what they will do with it. They list three different things that they could do with it and they say what the good points and the bad points for each one are.

This is followed by a discussion where the pupils’ choices are ranked according to whether they were thinking only of themselves, or they sometimes thought of others or they thought about themselves in the future.

The children then have to think of other ways that they can prepare themselves for the future.

There are follow on activities looking at developing self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and motivation.

Self-awareness activity - The pupils are posed some questions to make them think about themselves in different situations. The pupils pick questions to answer in detail, suggesting how they could be even better in the future.

Self-regulation activity - Pupils think about a time when they lost self-control. they explore the feelings that they felt, the triggers that started the episode and the actions that they can take to stop this occurring again.

Empathy activity - Pupils are given two dilemmas and work in pairs to discuss what would be the most suitable course of action.

Motivation activity - Pupils are given ten strategies to use when helping themselves or others through difficult times. They are also given ten phrases and they have to match the phrase to the strategy.