Empathy Exploration

Overview

Unit: Fostering Positive Connections
Lesson: 2 of 8
Duration: 30 minutes
Class size: 20 Year 5 students (ages 9-10)
Learning Area: Health (Health and Physical Education)
Lesson Title: Empathy Exploration
WALT: We Are Learning To develop empathy for others’ feelings.
Success Criteria: Show understanding by sharing personal experiences and demonstrating empathy through role play and storytelling.

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Curriculum Alignment

New Zealand Curriculum Refresh (Health and Physical Education)

Strand:

• Relationships and sexuality (developing understanding of feelings, personal and social skills to interact positively).
• Personal growth and development (developing emotional literacy and empathy).

Learning Objectives - Year 5:

• Develop an understanding of their own and others’ feelings and emotions.
• Demonstrate empathy by recognising and respecting different viewpoints and feelings.
• Use communication skills such as active listening, sharing, and role-taking.
• Engage in collaborative activities that build social responsiveness.

Key Competencies Addressed:

• Relating to others: Cooperate, listen actively, recognise and respect diverse perspectives.
• Using language, symbols, and texts: Express ideas clearly in storytelling and role play.
• Managing self: Show confidence to express feelings safely and appropriately.

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Lesson Plan Breakdown

1. Introduction (5 minutes)

• Teacher introduces the WALT: "Today, we are learning to develop empathy for others’ feelings."
• Explain what empathy means in simple terms: "Empathy is when we try to understand how someone else feels, even if we haven’t felt the same way ourselves."
• Relate empathy to students’ everyday experiences briefly (e.g., thinking about a time they felt sad or happy and how someone else might have felt then).

Teaching strategy: Use clear, age-appropriate language with frequent checks for understanding; use visual aid showing facial expressions for different emotions.
Differentiation: Provide key emotion words on a poster or cards for students who benefit from vocabulary support (including dyslexia-friendly font and layout).

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2. Storytelling Activity (10 minutes)

• Share a short scripted story or scenario aloud illustrating a character experiencing a strong emotion (happy, sad, frustrated, etc.).
• Ask open-ended questions as guided reflection:
  • "How do you think the character felt and why?"
  • "Have you ever felt like this? What happened?"
• Invite students to share their own brief personal experiences related to the story, connecting to the emotion.

Support: Use a story map visual with labelled parts (beginning, feelings, event, resolution) for clarity and scaffold narrative comprehension.
Dyslexia-friendly reading: Teachers may pre-read or audio-play story text; provide printed story in large, spaced font with key words highlighted.

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3. Role Play Activity (12 minutes)

• Divide students into groups of 4-5. Assign each group a scenario involving showing empathy (e.g., a friend feeling left out at playtime, someone hurt, sibling upset about a loss).
• Each group role-plays the situation focusing on recognising feelings and responding with care and understanding.
• Teacher circulates, prompts with sentence stems connecting to empathy (e.g., "I can see you feel... because...", "It sounds like you are feeling... Is that right?").
• Optionally, include a role with a ‘listener’ to practice active listening skills.

Differentiation:

• Pair students with peers to support those who need extra confidence.
• Use simple sentence stems and prompt cards for students needing language scaffolds.
• For advanced learners, encourage creative elaboration or role reversal where they articulate very different perspectives and feelings.

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4. Whole-class Reflection and Sharing (3 minutes)

• Invite 2-3 volunteers to share what they learned about empathy or a moment in role play where they felt connected to others' feelings.
• Reinforce the success criteria: "You show empathy when you understand another person’s feelings and share your own stories to connect."

Assessment:

• Observe students’ contributions in sharing and role play (e.g., ability to articulate feelings, use of empathy language).
• Use a simple checklist aligned with success criteria for monitoring understanding and participation.

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Extension Activities

• Empathy Journals: Students write or draw a short entry describing someone’s feelings they noticed outside class and how they responded or wished to respond.
• Books and Videos: Provide access to age-appropriate stories and videos that explore feelings and empathy for home or classroom reading.

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Differentiation Summary

Learner Need	Strategy
Language/Communication	Sentence stems, role play prompts, visual story maps, key vocab cards
Learning Support (incl. dyslexia)	Dyslexia-friendly fonts; audio versions of stories; scaffold discussion
Advanced Learners	Role reversal in role play; deepen storytelling complexity
Social-Emotional Needs	Supportive peer groups; focus on positive encouragement and modelling
Cultural Responsiveness	Validate diverse cultural expressions of emotions and communication

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Materials and Resources

• Emotion cards with facial expressions
• Short empathy story (scripted) with visuals
• Scenario cards for role play
• Story maps and sentence stems posters
• Empathy journal templates (for extension)

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This detailed lesson plan integrates key Health competencies and learning objectives from the New Zealand Curriculum Refresh, using evidence-based instructional strategies including storytelling and role-play to develop empathy in Year 5 students. There is careful attention to language scaffolding, cultural sensitivity, and diversified learning needs. Mirrors real NZ classrooms’ commitment to social emotional development and inclusive practices .