What Am I?

This is a game about cultivating empathy in early years and primary-aged children using an experiential learning approach, which involves recognizing, enacting and conceptualizing emotions, as well as creating and narrating stories focusing on their emotional aspects.

The game is provided in two designs to better address the needs and skills of the respective age categories: Design A for children P1-P3 / ages 4-7 using jigsaws and Design B for children P4-P6 / ages 7-11 using a card deck and game board.

This game’s purpose is to develop empathy in the primary years, falling under the ACT priority area “Communication and building relationships” and is aligned with UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions.

It fits into the ACT change model Step 4 – Enactment.

Full instructions for the game and all needed assets are here:

Instructional design

The primary desired change is to foster empathy in children as well as develop their emotional literacy. This is especially important, as “showing empathy and looking outwards is an important aspect of global citizenship”.  For many teachers, teaching empathy is an area in which they feel less confident and therefore the game aims to support teachers with a resource which they can use within the classroom to develop empathy and promote global citizenship.

This game’s instructional design is based on experiential learning of empathy in children by involving procedures such as roleplaying and storytelling.

Intended Learning Outcome

• Primary-aged children show signs of increased empathy

Desired Learning Behaviours

• To listen and observe others’ behaviours
• To identify others’ feelings
• To relate situations and circumstance with feelings that may arise from them

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All of the other ACT games can be accessed (when ready) from this page: ACT Minigames