Children need to know what rights they have, but they should also learn how to appreciate and use them. To achieve this, schools must allow for a wide range of learning experiences in a setting that is governed by the spirit of democracy and human rights.

This manual has been designed for teachers who are looking for tools to teach children's rights to students at primary schools.

The features of this manual include:

- Nine small projects of four lessons each, for students in their first nine years of school.
- Detailed lesson instructions that can be followed by beginners or used in teacher training.
- A lesson plan including the key questions and key tasks in each at the beginning of each project description.
- An approach of task-based learning, focusing on problem solving and learning by example, which supports the pupils in conceptual learning, skills training and the development of values and attitudes.
- Following the key principles of Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC), methods and setting of open and co-operative learning support the message of content and principles in children's rights learning. (Learning through, about and for children's rights.)
- A tool to support reflection and discussion in class (see below).
- A section on materials for teaching and further studies in children's rights.

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This is Volume V out of a series of 6 manuals. The other parts are:

• EDC / HRE Volume I: Educating for democracy - Background materials on democratic citizenship and human rights education for teachers (To be published end of 2009)
• EDC / HRE Volume II: Growing up in democracy - Lesson plans for primary level on democratic citizenship and human rights (To be published mid 2009)
• EDC / HRE Volume III: Living in democracy - Lesson plans for lower secondary level on democratic citizenship and human rights (April, 2008)
• EDC / HRE Volume IV: Taking part in democracy - Lesson plans for upper secondary level on democratic citizenship and human rights (To be published mid 2009)
• EDC / HRE Volume VI: Teaching democracy - A collection of models for democratic citizenship and human rights education (March, 2009)

In the past years there has been an ongoing discussion in the Council of Europe about how civil society could be strengthened and supported in the domain of formal and non-formal education. This approach has become known as EDC – Education for Democratic Citizenship. The series of six manuals presented here is part of this approach and is meant to help teachers and principals to introduce citizenship and human rights in schools in a fun and interactive way.