Elemental: How to deal with anger

February 8, 2024 by Ethos Team

Assembly Objective:

What should we do when we feel angry? This assembly explores ideas of good and bad anger from a biblical perspective, and helps students develop strategies for managing their feelings.

Film:

Elemental (Disney Pixar, 2023) certificate PG, click here to buy the DVD online.

Bible:

Proverbs 16:32 (New International Reader’s Version)

Supporting Values Education:

The values of Respect and Tolerance mean that people have to temper their emotional responses in order to accommodate others. They also mean that when people disappoint us, it’s important to resolve conflict where possible, and treat the person who has offended us with kindness and respect.

OPENING ACTIVITY

Emoji whispers (game)

In advance of the assembly, print off the Feelings worksheet or source a set of emojis online. On the worksheet there are eight emojis:

Smiley face

Crying with laughter

Wink

Sad (with a tear)

Puzzled/Curious (hand to chin)

Liar (long nose)

Yum (salivating)

Angry (red face)

Invite two volunteers to come to the front. Give one child a piece of paper and a pen or pencil (or let them use the smart board) and explain that their team-mate has to help them draw an emoji (picture) correctly. All the emojis will be of faces. When you show the emoji to the team-mate, they must describe it using words to their partner, who will draw what is described. The rest of the assembly must try and guess the emoji from the drawing.

With an older group you could make this competitive by having a number of pairs competing to complete the list.

Once all the emojis have been drawn and guessed (or after a reasonable length of time!) make the point that in today’s assembly you are going to be talking about one of the feelings on the sheet – anger.

FILM CLIP

From Elemental (Disney Pixar, 2023) certificate PG.
- Start time: 00:12:38 (Ember finds her dad asleep in the shop)
- End time: 00:17:24 (Ember chases Wade up the pipe)
- Clip length: 4 minutes, 46 seconds

If you cannot play this clip from the DVD instead say: Bernie tells Ember that if she can run the shop on Red Dot sale day – the most important day of the year – then he will put her in charge. She tells him she won’t let him down and works hard to make the shop perfect before opening. Before she opens the door, she takes a deep breath and whispers the phrase ‘Take a breath, calm as a candle’ to herself. However, things quickly go wrong when customers stampede into the shop making a mess, asking difficult questions and breaking things. She tries saying the phrase, ‘Take breath, make connection’ but realises she is about to blow up. She runs to the basement and yells loudly. Her outburst causes a water pipe to burst and flood the basement. The flood brings another element into the room – Wade – a water element. He is a city inspector and condemns all the pipes and building work, threatening to shut down the shop. Ember is furious and starts to turn purple. As Wade leaves, she chases him out into the city shouting, ‘Get back here!’

TALK

Scripted Talk

Download the Elemental PowerPoint for use with this talk.

[PowerPoint slide 1]
- Welcome to our assembly. How are you feeling today? Would anyone like to tell me? [Take answers]. I hope that some of us are feeling happy. Put your hand up if you feel happy today. I wonder if some of us are feeling worried today. Would you like to put your hand up if you feel worried today? What about sad – does anyone feel sad? Or confused – is anyone feeling confused? Is anyone angry today?
- Human beings have lots of feelings all the time. Sometimes we feel happy or cheerful or peaceful. Sometimes we feel sad or confused or worried. In today’s assembly we’re going to think about a feeling that all of us feel at some point. I wonder if we can work out what that feeling is.
[PowerPoint slide 2]
- Have you guessed the feeling? It’s anger! Today we are going to think about what it feels like to be angry. Has anyone here ever felt angry about something? What sort of things make us angry? [Take suggestions and draw out some examples – when we’re not allowed to do something, when our brother or sister annoys us, when other people are mean to us or to our friends, when we make mistakes, when we see people or animals being treated badly etc.]
[PowerPoint slide 3]
- In our assembly today we are going to watch a clip from the film Elemental. In the film there are four different types of creatures, made from four different substances. They are called the Elements. There are Fire Elements, Water Elements, Earth Elements and Air Elements. Let’s have a look at four of the different characters and work out which of the Elements they are.
[PowerPoint slide 4]
- Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Can you guess which of these Elements gets angry easily? It’s the Fire Element.
[PowerPoint slide 5]
- This is Ember. She has a bad temper and she gets very angry at times. When Ember gets angry she turns purple in colour and she can cause a lot of damage because she is made of fire and sets things alight.
[PowerPoint slide 6]
- Ember’s dad is Bernie. Bernie plans that Ember will one day take over running his shop so that he can retire, but he can’t let Ember do that until he knows that she is able to control her temper. Bernie has been letting Ember try different jobs in the shop, but there is one job she hasn’t done yet. Every year the shop has a Red Dot sale – it’s the busiest day of the year – and Bernie knows that if Ember can be trusted to run the shop without losing her temper, then she can be trusted to run it all the time. Let’s watch a clip from the film and find out what happens when Ember is left in charge.
- Play film clip from Elemental (Disney Pixar, 2023) certificate PG.
  - Start time: 00:12:38 (Ember finds her dad asleep in the shop)
  - End time: 00:17:24 (Ember chases Wade up the pipe)
  - Clip length: 4 minutes, 46 seconds
- If you cannot play this clip from the DVD, instead say;
  - Bernie tells Ember that if she can run the shop on Red Dot sale day – the most important day of the year – then he will put her in charge. She tells him she won’t let him down and works hard to make the shop perfect before opening. Before she opens the door, she takes a deep breath and whispers the phrase ‘Take a breath, calm as a candle’ to herself. However, things quickly go wrong when customers stampede into the shop making a mess, asking difficult questions and breaking things. She tries saying the phrase, ‘Take breath, make connection’ but realises she is about to blow up. She runs to the basement and yells loudly. Her outburst causes a water pipe to burst and flood the basement. The flood brings another element into the room – Wade – a water element. He is a city inspector and condemns all the pipes and building work, threatening to shut down the shop. Ember is furious and starts to turn purple. As Wade leaves, she chases him out into the city shouting, ‘Get back here!’
- [PowerPoint slide 7]
  - Poor Ember tried very hard not to get angry, but in the end she ended up causing a flood in the basement and almost getting the shop closed down. That wasn’t how she wanted the day to go, was it? Did you notice what she said before she opened the door of the shop?
- [PowerPoint slide 8]
  - `Take a breath, calm as a candle.’ It’s a funny phrase, isn’t it? But it was good advice to start the day. When we feel angry staying calm is very important, and taking a lovely deep breath can help us stay calm. Sadly it didn’t work for Ember! What were some of the things that made Ember lose her calm and get angry? [Take suggestions – people rushing into the shop, someone removing all the red dot stickers, people asking her questions]. Why do you think Ember went into the basement? [Take suggestions – to get away from all the people, to have some space, to calm down, to stop herself from losing her temper with someone, to have a big yell]. Ember tried hard to not to lose her temper but unfortunately, she ended up in a big mess.
- [PowerPoint slide 9]
  - In the Bible there are some words that remind us what to do when we feel angry.
  - Proverbs 16:32: It is better to be patient than to fight. It is better to control your temper than to take a city.
  - The Bible says that it’s better to be patient than to fight. Do you think that’s a good idea? Why do you think that is? [Take suggestions – if you get into a fight you can end up hurting yourself and other people, fighting doesn’t solve the problem, fighting can make the problem worse].
  - What about the other part of the verse – what do you think it means to say that it’s better to control your temper than to take a city? [Take suggestions] Perhaps it means that it’s better to control your anger than it is to win an argument. Do you agree?
- [PowerPoint slide 10]
  - Anger is a feeling like any other feeling. Everyone feels angry sometimes, and sometimes anger is good. It’s good to feel angry when someone is treated badly or if we see a person or an animal in pain. That sort of anger might give us the courage to speak to someone about the problem or to do something to make it better.
  - Anger can become bad, though, if we lose control of ourselves like Ember did. Bad anger leads us to do things to other people that hurt them or to destroy things around us.
- [PowerPoint slide 11]
  - Ember wasn’t very good at controlling her anger, but she had some good tricks to help her stay calm as a candle. Here are some ideas of things we can do when we feel as though our anger is turning bad.
  - Take a breath.
  - Walk away.
  - Find a place to have a silent scream.
  - Find a friend and tell them how you’re feeling.
  - Turn your anger into something good by doing something to help.
  - Let’s all try to be patient and to control our tempers today. Let’s be calm as candles.

Headings and bullets

Download the Elemental PowerPoint for use with this talk.

[PowerPoint slide 1]
- Welcome.
- How are you feeling today? [Take answers].
- Today’s assembly is about one feeling in particular.
[PowerPoint slide 2]
- Anger.
- Has anyone here ever felt angry about something?
- What sort of things make us angry?
[PowerPoint slide 3]
- Introduce the film clip.
- Four different types of creatures, made from four different substances.
- Fire Elements, Water Elements, Earth Elements and Air Elements.
[PowerPoint slide 4]
- Can you guess which of these Elements gets angry easily?
- Fire Element.
[PowerPoint slide 5]
- Ember.
- She gets very angry at times.
- Turns purple and causes a lot of damage.
[PowerPoint slide 6]
- Bernie.
- Bernie has been letting Ember try different jobs in the shop.
- Every year the shop has a Red Dot sale.
- If Ember can be trusted to run the shop without losing her temper then she can be trusted to run it all the time.
- Play film clip from Elemental (Disney Pixar, 2023) certificate PG.
  - Start time: 00:12:38 (Ember finds her dad asleep in the shop)
  - End time: 00:17:24 (Ember chases Wade up the pipe)
  - Clip length: 4 minutes, 46 seconds
[PowerPoint slide 7]
- Poor Ember.
- She ended up causing a flood in the basement and almost getting the shop closed down.
- Not how she wanted the day to go.
[PowerPoint slide 8]
- `Take a breath, calm as a candle.’
- Good advice to start the day.
- When we feel angry staying calm is very important.
- Taking a lovely deep breath can help us stay calm.
- Sadly it didn’t work for Ember!
- What were some of the things she did to stay calm?
- Ember tried hard to not to lose her temper but unfortunately she ended up in a big mess.
[PowerPoint slide 9]
- Introduce the Bible verse.
- Proverbs 16:32.
- It is better to be patient than to fight. It is better to control your temper than to take a city.
- The Bible says that it’s better to be patient than to fight.
- Do you think that’s a good idea?
- What do you think it means to say that it’s better to control your temper than to take a city? Perhaps it means that it’s better to control your anger than it is to win an argument.
- Do you agree?
[PowerPoint slide 10]
- Anger is a feeling.
- Everyone feels angry sometimes.
- Sometimes anger is good.
- It’s good to feel angry when someone is treated badly or if we see a person or an animal in pain.
- Gives us courage to take action.
- Anger can become bad, though, if we lose control of ourselves like Ember did.
- Bad anger leads us to do things to other people that hurt them or to destroy things around us.
[PowerPoint slide 11]
- Ember had some good tricks to help her stay calm as a candle.
- Take a breath.
- Walk away.
- Find a place to have a silent scream.
- Find a friend and tell them how you’re feeling.
- Turn your anger into something good by doing something to help.
- Let’s all try to be patient and to control our tempers today.

Photo copyright for Elemental PowerPoint: Slide 1 Disney / Slide 2 created from keyboard shortcut / Slide 3 Disney / Slide 4 Water Disney Wind Disney Fire Disney Earth Disney / Slide 5 Disney / Slide 6 Disney / Slide 7 Disney / Slide 8 Pixabay.com / Slide 9 Pixabay.com / Slide 10 Pixabay.com / Slide 11 Pixabay.com / Slide 12 Jahobr Wikimedia Commons

RESPOND

Reflection

[PowerPoint slide 12]
- Calm as candles. [Show the slide of the candle and play some reflective music as you say the following]:
- I wonder what you’ll do when you next feel angry. Can you take a deep breath? Try taking a deep breath in and out.
- Can you walk away? Imagine yourself walking away from a fight or an argument.
- Can you have a silent scream? Without making any noise open your mouth as wide as you can and then close it.
- Do you have a friend you can talk to? Think of the name of a friend you can talk to.
- Will there be something good you can do to help?
- Think of what you can do to help someone else today.

Prayer

Father God, thank you for our feelings. When we feel angry help us to know what to do. We’re sorry when we feel angry and hurt other people or ourselves. Help us to be patient and to control our tempers. Amen.

YOU WILL NEED:

Elemental PowerPoint.
Elemental (Disney Pixar, 2023) certificate PG, click here to buy the DVD online.
Paper and pens or Flipchart for Emoji Whispers Opening Activity.
Feelings worksheet (or downloaded emojis) for Emoji Whispers Opening Activity.

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