Art-Based Program for Social and Emotional Development of Children

For eight weeks, we ran an art-based program for social and emotional development in Grade 5 of primary school for children aged 11-12. We met once a week for 45 minutes and worked with 25 children on improving their skills in communication, cooperation, manifestation, and recognition of emotions and identity enforcement. Each skill was covered by two lessons, with the first and last lessons including a class climate evaluation using the CES (classrooom environment scale) (Moos & Tricket, 1987) and B-3 (Braun, 2006) methods. Our goal was to improve the class climate by drawing attention to the feelings of children towards their class and classmates, to their ability to cooperate in the class setting and to communicate with each other without fear, shame, or aggression. The use of art-based methods appeared as the most useful way because of the general inability of the children to express their thoughts and feelings in words because of the fear of being laughed at and misunderstood. Particular activities were based on art-therapy in the broader sense and on art education, helping children to express themselves and communicate with others by using drawings, music, or movement. The final evaluation revealed that after the whole program, children were more confident in expressing their identity, more content with the class climate and they thought of their class as more safe, intimate, and cooperative environment