Margret Stöckler
Ideas and projects are collected and presented here! Just open the treasure chest, read and be amazed...
Heartfelt project of VS Leonding
"Oups and Oupsinchen have been with us since our very first day of school together. They were already in the classroom, on my desk, waiting for the little first graders. When we worked with name tags in the first few days, they, of course, also received their name tags. They were simply part of our classroom community from the very beginning. The book "Who are you?" was our first read-aloud in school."
Oups and Oupsinchen supported children who had sad thoughts at the beginning of school and wanted to go to their mom. Then, of course, the two were allowed to sit on the children's table.
They were also included during free work phases. In addition, two children were always allowed to take one of them home for the weekend. Sometimes, even now in fourth grade, the children ask if they can take Oups or Oupsinchen with them.
In our project, we dealt with various aspects of happiness: self-image, different forms of happiness (anticipation/post-joy, small moments of happiness in everyday life), the perception of joy in the body, finding peace and happiness through relaxation (fantasy journeys), pink/grey glasses (positive/negative view of situations), ...
The topic of "friendship" was particularly important to me - when is someone a friend? Why do I need friends? What do I appreciate about my friends? In one lesson, we placed an empty sheet with our names on the desks and then walked around the classroom. Each child wrote on the sheet what they liked, appreciated, etc. about the named child. The children's eyes lit up as they read their sheets.
At the parents' evening at the beginning of school, I had the parents craft "strength suns" for their children. The child's name went in the middle of the sun, and the rays contained what the parents particularly loved about them, what their strengths were, what they were particularly good at, etc. When I presented the suns to the children the next day, their joy and pride were almost palpable.
The suns hung on the wall throughout the school year, and again and again, the children went to read what was written about them there. At the end of the school year, these sheets became the cover sheets for our "happiness folders", in which we had collected our happiness sheets throughout the school year."
We would like to express our sincere thanks to primary school teacher Simone Weigl, MA, for this wonderful insight.
Heartwarming project from Tyrol
We are a 3rd grade class and this year we got a new class member - it's OUPS. When we first saw OUPS sitting on the treasure chest at the beginning of school, we were soooo curious and couldn't wait to learn more about him. Our teacher beamed with the sun as she introduced us to OUPS. We immediately liked the lovingly drawn pictures of OUPS. So we quickly took OUPS to our hearts.
From now on, OUPS is always with us and also supports us with a lot of LOVE in our project of "non-violent communication". Thanks to or with OUPS, we are getting better and better at finding the right words even in an argument - that's clear, because OUPS comes from the planet of hearts. Our teacher loves PEACE and not just in our classroom. We have a big goal, to leave school every day with a smile on our faces, and thanks to OUPS, we are even better at it.
We absolutely wanted to say THANK YOU for OUPS and for providing us with such great materials that make our classroom even more OUPS-like.
Now we would like to tell you briefly about our "messages of the heart" in the retirement home. What could be more beautiful than seeing older people smile? A smile that comes from the deepest heart and is filled with pure happiness. As often as possible, we visit the loving people in the retirement home. Sometimes we sing together with them or invite them to a celebration at our school. This year we have a special MISSION. We have chosen the theme EASTER and want to make people happy with a homemade wooden Easter bunny.
Dear educator, dear children!
It's wonderful that you and Oups are spreading love into the world! It must be wonderful for the people in the retirement home to be visited by you! And - isn't it also heartwarming to bring joy to other people?
Thank you for helping to make the world more lovable and many more happy hours with your Oups!
Best regards from the Oups team
Happiness has landed in St. Marein Primary School...
Together with her first-graders, Ms. Ingrid Schöttel carried out a wonderful heart project on the topic of "happiness".
We thank you for the great report and the photos! 
Starting from the body and feelings, the topic was discussed with the children: "What makes me happy? How do I feel when I'm happy? What is a positive, what is a negative feeling? How can I express this with my body? How can I make others happy?" The students' statements were collected and each child could design their heart with text and drawing... The small white hearts were then glued onto a large red heart. To illustrate that happiness can also be shared, we wrote "It's nice that you exist" on small hearts in different colors, glued a candy to them, and distributed these hearts in all classes of our school. It was a very successful action, as all students, teachers, and the caretaker were very happy about it. The fourth grade with their class teacher Ms. Daniela Stoxreiter surprised us the next day with very personally designed suns and the song "You are my sunshine."
The second grade also came with Ms. Dir. Sylvia Gölly with lovingly crafted shamrocks, and the students gave them to the children of the first grade. Further self-made shamrocks with the phrase "I love/like you." were given by the children of the second grade to their parents. The children of the third grade with their class teacher Ms. Christine Pichler designed a poster that they gave to us. Furthermore, they wrote nice reports and collected them in a folder. So happiness returned to us and the joy of the first graders was very great. Together we sang the song "It's nice that you exist". The happiness project was then continued with the "Oups" hand puppet. We listened to Oups stories, looked at Oups pictures and drew a very personal OUPS in art class...
Every day, the hand puppet gets to sit at a different child's table... Since mutual appreciation and mindfulness are very important for harmonious coexistence, we regularly do exercises with a chime that they pass on to others with positive and encouraging words. Furthermore, a fantasy journey to a place that makes them or made them particularly happy was carried out, followed by a conversation and a drawing. The drawings were bound together to form a "book of happiness."
Since the topic "Germination and Sowing" was currently being covered in science class, we sowed a heart with cress seeds on cotton wool and observed the progress of our cress heart daily. When the cress was high enough, there was a delicious snack! As another activity, a heart tree made of sheep's wool was created in a special workshop with some parents. Each child could felt their own heart tree from colorful wool.
Thank you for this wonderful insight! It makes you want to be a school child again!!!
We regularly receive emails with touching lines about the special Oups magic that has spread in the classroom, and sometimes also reports about big heartfelt projects. We are very grateful for this! We love this mail and are happy to be inspired to new ideas and start the upcoming projects with even more enthusiasm! You can find out more here.
Please tell us about your Oups activities, your Oups rituals, tell us how you like our workbooks and accompanying booklets and the heart songs... We look forward to ideas, suggestions and all forms of feedback!!!
Please take your time and send your lines – whether short or long – to my address: m.stoeckler@werteart.com.
I hope a lot of mail flutters into my "mailbox" and I look forward to seeing you again on facebook!
