Exercise 1.1. – Matching cards

Living Democracy » Textbooks » Teaching Democracy » Chapter 1 – Building up classroom atmosphere » Exercise 1.1. – Matching cards

Educational objective	This exercise enables students to make contactwith others in a non-threatening way.
Note on use	Teachers can use this exercise to assess the learning needs and expectations of their student group
Resources	A set of cards that form pairs.

Procedure

The teacher gives out the cards randomly and asks the students to find their other half.
When they have found each other, the students spend 5-10 minutes finding out some basic Information about each other:
- their name
- their family
- where they live
- their favourite animal or pop group or football team or colour, etc.
The students return to the plenary. Each student has the opportunity to briefly introduce their partner to the rest of the group.¹
The students are seated in a circle of chairs. In order to generate some feedback, the teacher encourages the students to comment on what was new to them or what struck them in particular.

Extension

This activity can be developed further by asking, at primary school level for example, all those students whose favourite colour is red to get together, so that small discussion groups can be formed.

Variation

The students explore different ways of presenting their Information, for instance through mime, by making a poster “advertising” their partner or by writing a poem.

Materials

A set of cards on which is written and drawn an object which has a partner on another card.

The cards should show writing and pictures which will enable younger students and those with learning difficulties to take füll part in the exercise.

rose – thorn	day – night	knife – fork	shoe – sock
light – dark	salt – pepper	pen – paper	table – chair
hot – cold	high – low	strong – weak	up – down
on – off	open – closed	big – small	fast – slow
clean – dirty	rough – smooth	stop – go	start – finish
good – bad	yes – no	friend – enemy	fat – thin
sun – moon	brother – sister	boy – girl

1. This needs to be explained when introducing the exercise so that students can choose how much they want to disclose about themselves.

Chapter 1 - Building up classroom atmosphere

Exercise 1.2. - Rights, responsibilities and rules in the classroom

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