USING THE ACTIVITIES ON THESE PAGES

Most of the activities on this website can be carried out on their own. There are activities under each category that take anything from ten minutes to two school hours. Instructions for each activity, how long it takes and what (if any) equipment is needed are written on the page.

The activities can also be easily used in connection to theme-days or –weeks, like International Week etc. If there is time, we recommend for the exercises to be put together in a workshop.

Building a Good Workshop:

Peace education contains many heavy topics. It can be useful to break up the education with some games and more activity-based exercises that stimulates energy in the group.
(the picture on the left show the exercise "bunny-bunny" which is good for sharpening concentration).

Once the theme for the workshop is chosen then the workshop will consist of three to four parts.

The introduction/warming up stage is important: the participants must feel secure in each others' company and conquer their own inhibitions so that they can participate actively. They should also be given a chance to reflect over their own expectations, motivation and interpretation of the theme to be addressed. Even if the participants know each other already, it is still a good idea to carry out several warming up and introductory exercises.

The teaching stage of the workshop invites the participants to deeper reflection. This may involve brainstorming, group work, roleplay and other types of exercises. If you want to use roleplay it is a good idea to break down inhibitions gradually by small "warming up games" before you start on the main role play. If there are sections with emotional, complex or difficult themes then it is often a good idea to use energy creators ("light and livelies") or relaxing exercises in between. It may also be necessary to use "teachers tricks" to increase concentration, or break up a group that distract each other.

Evaluation/conclusion. This stage of the workshop is the summarising: here the participants can reflect over what they have learnt, and find out how they can follow up later. This section also includes evaluation of the workshop, a look back at where one was when one came into the room, and comparison with where one stands now. At the end we recommend a "rounding off" excercise to finalise the workshop.

You will find the ingredients for all these stages on this website, together with activities related to set themes. We invite you to start building your own workshop! Good luck!