← All programs العربية Ages 4–5 Our Little Town I belong to a town, and my town needs me.
A community studio where children discover that a town is people who need one another — trying on helper roles, caring for neighbours, building a town together, and working out what is fair for all.
👨👩👧 For parents: Your child discovers that they belong to a community of people who need one another — trying helper roles, caring for neighbours, building a town together, and working out what is fair. This is the soil of citizenship: belonging, empathy, and a fair heart.
Social & Civic Emotional Intelligence Language Acquisition Role-play Project-based Play-based Storytelling
8 · 3 · 30 — weeks · sessions/week · min/session
Learning objectives Name three community helpers and what each does for others. Social & Civic · understand Notice when someone needs help and offer a kind action. Emotional Intelligence · apply Decide a fair way to share or take turns, and say why it is fair. Social & Civic · evaluate Modules 🚌 🌳 🧑🚒 Big idea: Each person’s work helps the whole town.
🔬 Why this works: Sociodramatic role-play grows perspective-taking and a sense of a community of people who depend on one another (Vygotsky). Trying on a helper’s role turns an abstract "town" into felt interdependence.
☾ Cooperation (Ta'awun)
Who Can Help? Role-play · 16m
Children match a town helper to the person who needs them.
▶ Show me how 🎭 Role-play Someone’s cat is stuck up a tree — who in our town can help?↳ Facilitator cue: Ask "what if this helper disappeared?" to surface how we need each other.
↳ Support: Offer two helpers and let them choose who fits.
↳ Stretch: Name two different helpers who could both help.
💬 Discuss What helper job would you like to do for our town? Why?↳ Facilitator cue: Honour every job as important — the town needs all of them.
↳ Support: Remind them of helpers they have met this week.
↳ Stretch: What would your helper do on a very busy day?
The Baker's Morning Role-play · 15m
Children order the steps of a helper’s job, then act it out.
▶ Show me how ❓ Question What does the baker do first, next, and last?↳ Facilitator cue: Ask "could the bread be sold before it is baked?" to test the order.
↳ Support: Lay the first step down for them, then ask for the next.
↳ Stretch: Who helps the baker so the work gets done?
🎭 Role-play Act out the helper’s day in the right order.↳ Facilitator cue: Acting the sequence fixes it in memory better than telling.
↳ Support: Do the first two steps together before they continue.
↳ Stretch: Show what happens if one step is skipped.
😊 🤝 🕊️ Big idea: I can notice when someone needs me.
🔬 Why this works: Empathy grows through guided perspective-taking — reading another’s feeling and choosing a kind response (Hoffman). Naming the feeling first (RULER) makes the helping deliberate, not just nice.
How Do They Feel? Storytelling · 15m
Children read a neighbour’s feeling and offer a kind action.
▶ Show me how 🌙 Reflect Our neighbour dropped her shopping. How does she feel? What could we do?↳ Facilitator cue: Name the feeling first, then the kind action — feeling guides helping.
↳ Support: Offer two feeling words to choose between.
↳ Stretch: Think of two different ways to help her.
🎭 Role-play Show me your kind action — and the kind words that go with it.↳ Facilitator cue: Let them practise the words aloud; kindness has a script worth rehearsing.
↳ Support: Give a sentence to borrow: "Can I help you carry that?"
↳ Stretch: How would you help if you could not lift it yourself?
Kind or Unkind? Play-based · 14m
Children sort actions into kind or unkind, then turn an unkind one kind.
▶ Show me how 🎯 Challenge Is this kind or unkind? Put it in the right basket — and why?↳ Facilitator cue: Ask "how would the other person feel?" — empathy is the rule here.
↳ Support: Start with two clear ones: a hug and a shove.
↳ Stretch: Find one that could be either — and explain.
🌙 Reflect Take an unkind action — how could we make it kind instead?↳ Facilitator cue: Repair, not blame; show that unkind moments can be mended.
↳ Support: Offer a kinder option and let them pick it.
↳ Stretch: Act out the kind version with kind words.
🚌 🌳 🧑🚒 Big idea: Together we build something bigger than one of us.
🔬 Why this works: Working toward a shared creation builds positive interdependence and belonging — "we succeed together" (Johnson & Johnson). A town the whole class builds makes membership visible and real.
Make Our Town Project-based · 22m
Children build a shared town scene, each adding a place that helps others.
▶ Show me how 🎨 Create Add one place to our town that helps people. What is it?↳ Facilitator cue: Point out how each new place connects to the others — a town is a web.
↳ Support: Suggest a few places if they are stuck: shop, clinic, garden.
↳ Stretch: Who works at your place, and who does it help?
💬 Discuss Our town has many places now. How do they all help each other?↳ Facilitator cue: Draw the links out loud: the farm feeds the baker who feeds us all.
↳ Support: Trace one link together, slowly, with your finger.
↳ Stretch: What is missing that our town still needs?
Who Works Here? Play-based · 14m
Children match each helper to the place they work in our town.
▶ Show me how 🎯 Challenge Match the helper to their place — where does the doctor work?↳ Facilitator cue: Talk about how the places connect — the farm feeds the bakery.
↳ Support: Offer two places and let them choose which fits.
↳ Stretch: Name a helper who works in more than one place.
💬 Discuss What if this place closed for a day? Who would miss it?↳ Facilitator cue: Surface interdependence — a town is people needing each other.
↳ Support: Pick one place and name one person who needs it.
↳ Stretch: Which place helps the most other places? Why?
⚙️ 💡 🤖 ✨ Big idea: A good town is fair to everyone in it.
🔬 Why this works: Young children have a strong, early sense of fairness (Damon): given a real dilemma, they reason about sharing and turns. Inventing the fair rule themselves builds ownership and moral agency.
☾ Justice ('Adl)
Fair or Unfair? Play-based · 16m
Children sort actions into fair or unfair, then invent a fair rule.
▶ Show me how 🎯 Challenge Is this fair or unfair? Put it in the right basket — and say why.↳ Facilitator cue: The reason matters most; accept any well-argued answer.
↳ Support: Ask "how would you feel if that happened to you?"
↳ Stretch: Could a fair action ever look unfair at first?
🌙 Reflect There is one swing and three friends. What is a fair rule?↳ Facilitator cue: Let them invent the rule (turns, timer, sharing). Don’t hand them the answer.
↳ Support: Offer two fair ideas and let them pick one to try.
↳ Stretch: What if a fourth friend arrives? Fix your rule.
Everyone Gets a Turn Role-play · 14m
Children practise turn-taking as the "turn-keeper" who includes all.
▶ Show me how 🎭 Role-play Be the turn-keeper — make sure every friend gets a fair go.↳ Facilitator cue: Coach including the quiet one, not just keeping order.
↳ Support: Use the timer so each turn is clearly the same length.
↳ Stretch: What if someone does not want a turn? What is fair then?
🌙 Reflect How did it feel to wait? How did it feel to be included?↳ Facilitator cue: Hold a calm silence after asking; reflection needs room.
↳ Support: Offer feeling words: patient, proud, happy for a friend.
↳ Stretch: When is waiting for others the strong, kind thing to do?
Leadership we plant 🌱 Notices who is left out and includes them. 🌱 Does a job that helps the whole group. 🌱 Shares fairly and takes turns. Research foundations Cooperative Learning — David & Roger Johnson
Positive interdependence — we succeed together — builds belonging and social skill.
In practice: A class-built town and shared helper roles where each child’s part matters.
Early Fairness & Moral Development — William Damon
Young children reason about fairness and sharing when given real, concrete dilemmas.
In practice: Sort fair/unfair actions and invent their own fair rules for sharing.
🏡 Try at home Family Job Chart · 8 min Give your child one real job that helps the family and name how it helps everyone. Thank them as a fellow helper, not just a child.
Help a Neighbour · 15 min Together, do one small kind thing for a neighbour this week — a greeting, a gift, a hand. Afterwards, ask your child how it felt.
Standards alignment CASEL — Social & Emotional Learning
Social Awareness & Relationship Skills
Perspective-taking, empathy, cooperation, and fair conflict resolution.
UNESCO — Global Citizenship Education
Belonging to a shared community
Understanding interdependence and acting for the common good.
Head Start — Early Learning Outcomes Framework
Social & Emotional Development
Relationships, prosocial behaviour, and group participation.
Value anchors Cooperation (Ta'awun) Justice ('Adl) Everything you’ll need (home or school) Helper cards & props, feeling-face cards, big paper/blocks, action cards Helper cards/props (firefighter, doctor, baker, farmer) Job-step cards (mix flour → bake → sell the bread) Feeling-face cards and short neighbour stories Action cards (shared a toy; pushed in line; said thank you) Big paper or blocks, clean recycling, markers Helper cards and place cards (clinic, bakery, school, farm) Action cards (took all the blocks; shared the swing; waited a turn) One shared toy or job and a simple timer 🖨 Printable checklist Assessment — observation emerging: Joins group play with support.developing: Helps a neighbour and takes turns.confident: Includes others and proposes a fair rule.Future skills Collaboration Empathy Cultural fluency Metacognition