This year’s theatre in education project was entitled ‘The Ocean of Emotions’ and it took children on an exciting adventure to a fantasy world where they could learn about their emotions.
Working in conjunction with the drama facilitator Tony Horitz, the school developed the idea of a fantasy world called ‘Sentimoo’ (an anagram of ‘emotions’), in which the inhabitants were troubled by disregulated emotions. This concept was presented through an initial drama stimulus, where the children initially met two siblings from the modern world who were facing a range of everyday emotional challenges. Upon entering the garden and discovering a mysterious portal, one of the siblings enters Sentimoo and learns about ‘The Ocean of Emotions’, which had become imbalanced and was causing the inhabitants to experience a range of problems with their emotions. At this point, the children stepped into the story to help, drawing upon their knowledge and learning about the emotions to restore The Ocean of Emotions.
As the project continued, there were further dramatic inputs from the actors at the midpoint and endpoint, which built upon the children’s ideas and extended the story. The children engaged with a range of characters, supporting them with their emotional challenges, for example, in Year 1, the children met the troll character of ‘What’shisname’, who they helped to deal with his anxiety, whilst in Year 2 the children gave advice to ‘Huffalot’ about how she could manage her anger. During the finale of the project, the children had to confront an octopus character to persuade her to stop meddling with The Ocean of Emotions, including supporting the character with learning about their own self-worth and ways of dealing with her emotions. By the end of the Learning Adventure, the children had successfully restored The Ocean of Emotions to balance, including helping the people of Sentimoo to manage their own emotions. In doing so, the children had also engaged in valuable learning about their own emotions, equipping them with the skills and understanding to apply within their own lived experiences.
Above left: The character of Grandad arrives in Sentimoo where he meets the children. Above centre: The children go into role alongside one of the actors. Above right: The children practise demonstrating their different emotions.