Welcome to
the Playful Learning Material

For teachers

The playful learning material for teachers is organised in 6 parts.

EU & UN Integration

The first part that we have called “EU and UN Integration” gives you a general introduction to the subject area that the playful learning material has been built around, thus 3 of the SDGs and the importance of co-operation in the European Union.

Playful Academy

In the “Playful Learning Academy”, which is the second part of the playful learning material, you can find an introduction to the different theoretical concepts and approaches that have been used to build up the entire PLACES Academy. You can for example read about the principles behind playful learning, the art of storytelling and the whole school approach.

One of the reasons we initially developed the PLACES project was a desire to make knowledge and concrete materials available to European school teachers that research and experience shows create engagement and participation among school students, thereby helping to increase social inclusion and equality in schools.

In the “Playful Learning Academy” we provide knowledge about this coherence, by illustrating why these approaches are important and how they are intertwined. We also give concrete tips and tricks on how you can apply the concept and approaches in a concrete manner in your playful teaching.

On page 20, you can find an overview of the 8 stories and how we think they are related to the SDG’s and the European Union.

Remember NOT to show this to your pupils. Knowing this in advance risk removing the spontaneity and naturalness of children’s approach to playful learning activities.

Playful Story Material

The fourth part of the playful learning material is the “Playful Story Material”, which is a collection of activity cards that you can use together with the stories to activate and engage your pupils in a playful way.

Within this collection, you also find concrete cards that relate to each of the 8 stories. These cards are called “Story Bones” and present in a few lines the theme of the story, proposals to concrete activities that you can organise when you use the story as teaching material. We have also developed a concrete card to each story with concrete questions that you can use to help the pupils to reflect on the story and relate it to their own experiences and context.

Reflections for Teachers

Once you have used the stories and the playful learning material in your teaching, we propose that you, as teacher, reflect upon your own teaching and evaluate whether and how you think that you have succeeded in teaching the SDGs and have applied Playful Learning and Storytelling.

The fifth part of the playful learning material is thus two short lists of questions; one related to storytelling and the other to playful learning, that assist you to make self-reflection as a way to stimulate continuous learning and motivation.

References - If You Want To Know More

The last part of the playful learning material is a list of external references if you want to know more about storytelling, playful learning, the health promoting school, the SDG, the European Union or other issues…..

We hope that you will enjoy working with the playful learning material in your teaching and wish you lots of fun on your journey!

Welcome to the Playful Learning Material