Emotions to teach kids
Lessons and Activities to Build Self-Awareness – Proud to be Primary
Teaching emotions for kids is easy with these social-emotional learning ideas and activities for the classroom.
Social-emotional learning is a key component in teaching young children. You’ll find that a good part of your day is spent educating your students about how to recognize, manage and express feelings. Because of this, below are engaging ways to teach emotions for kids in your classroom.
Everything You Must Know to Teach Emotions to Kids
Why do students need help learning how to express healthy emotions and feelings?
Students learn healthy emotional habits and ways of expressing their feelings in several ways. They learn at home as well as in their interactions with their family and friends. Children tend to pick these things up naturally. They learn by watching how others respond and mimicking their behavior. Many kids are active in their churches, community centers, sports, and hobbies. In those places, they learn how to interact with friends and neighbors as well.
But, what about the students who don’t have such opportunities?
It’s up to us, as educators, to model, teach, and encourage them to practice healthy emotional responses to everyday situations and events! Helping children to express their feelings and handle difficult situations with calm is our ultimate goal.
1. Helping Kids Identify Different Emotions
Children should be taught the language necessary to label and identify the different emotions they may experience. The reason is, we need to let them know that feeling different emotion is normal. By giving them the vocabulary needed to describe how they’re feeling, you are encouraging them to express themselves productively.
- Recognizing Facial Expressions and Body Language: Children need to learn how to identify their own emotions, as well as others. One way to do this is by learning to pay attention to their own body signals, such as a frown and queasy stomach when nervous, or balled fists and tight shoulders when angry.
Once they can recognize it in themselves, they can pick up on facial expressions and body language of others and then learn to react accordingly. In your morning meetings, perhaps spend five minutes modeling and discussing different emotional states. - Clip Chart: One way to encourage recognition of feelings is to provide a visual reference for them to use. A clip chart helps students to recognize and identify how they are feeling. They simply place a clip on the chart in the space that shows how they are feeling.
- Play Games: One fun way to introduce, teach, and practice the names of emotions is to play an engaging game with students, such as these emoji card games, matching games, and board game.
2. Teaching Kids Healthy Expression of Emotions
We all feel the full range of emotions. Wherever they are on the happy or sad, engaged or bored, proud or embarrassed, ends of the spectrum, we can help them express those emotions in a safe and healthy way.
The classroom is a great place to learn and practice!
- “I Feel…” Statements: To learn how to express their feelings appropriately, students need to be taught how to use “I feel…” statements. Instead of screaming insults at another child who broke his crayon, little Johnny can say “I feel sad that you broke my crayon”, opening up the communication between the two students. This allows for healthy conflict resolution.
- Coping with Extreme Emotions: Sometimes we must step in and help kids deal with the emotional roller coasters they sometimes find themselves on. Their extreme emotions get out of control and they need help finding their way back to calmness. We must realize that addressing the whole brain is key to understanding how to help them best.
- Teaching Emotional Rights: It’s important for children to understand and assert their rights when it comes to emotions. This helps them maintain healthy boundaries with their friends and peers, and be respectful to teachers and adults.
3. Connecting Kids to Experiences with Emotions
Children learn to embrace their emotional state by realizing that it is normal and ok to feel the way they do. It’s our job to give them opportunities to label their feelings correctly. Emotional memory is strong! We can harness that power by helping students connect their experiences in the classroom with their emotions. By recognizing and acknowledging their feelings during a learning activity or classroom event, we can increase the chances of it sticking in our students’ long-term memory. You see, that’s why emotions for kids is so important!
- Journaling: Encouraging students to journal about their feelings is helpful. They express their feelings by writing about learning tasks, field trips, or school events. For one, we often use this learning method in our classrooms for improving handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and of course writing skills.
- Emotion Sort: Have students sort pictures of children with experiencing different emotions.
By doing so, they will gain practice recognizing facial expressions and body language and therefore, feel more confident understanding their own and others feelings.
4. Teaching Kids about Brain Biology and Emotions
The human brain is a fascinating subject, even for the youngest learners. Teach them what the parts of the brain are called, and talk about how different parts of the brain control their emotions and feelings.
- Brain Craftivity: Try this fun craft activity that teaches children about the parts of the brain that control the emotions.
- Upstairs and Downstairs: To try to explain how the parts of our brain work together, and how the emotions part can sometimes take over, try explaining it in terms they can understand, such as the “upstairs and downstairs.”
5. Encouraging Kids to Have a Positive Mindset
Additionally, add in self-talk and self-motivation skills. Positive and encouraging self-talk will help your students succeed, and create a more positive classroom environment overall.
For example, you can teach them ways to feel good and focus on positivity. Here are ways to influence them to have a good attitude at school and teach emotions for kids.
- Create a Vision Board: Vision boards are used in all types of professions, from business to graphic design. They can be used in the classroom too! Help children visualize what they desire and what makes them happy. Precisely, when they have an image in their mind of what makes them thrive, they are more likely to reach their own goals, and ultimately succeed in the classroom.
- My Heart Map: This creative activity encourages children to thoughtfully consider what makes them happy and depict it on paper. It’s a great way to help them own and recognize their emotions and focus more on having a positive outlook.
- Teach Growth Mindset: Any lesson about emotions and feelings can easily be integrated into a growth mindset curriculum plan.
The two go together like peas and carrots!
Resources for Teaching Emotions with Kids
Emotions Self-Awareness Unit
The Emotions: Social Emotional Learning Unit includes 5 detailed, research-based lessons to teach emotions for kids. It is filled with hands-on and mindful activities. The curriculum teaches children about how their brain controls their emotions. It also teaches how to identify and express how they are feeling, and ways to encourage a positive mindset.
Emotions Book Companions
This emotional awareness resource includes 5 book companions on popular children’s books that relate to feelings and emotions (The Color Monster; The Feelings Book; Glad Monster, Sad Monster; F is for Feelings; In My Heart).
Children will participate in classroom discussions and book chats, share their feelings in written form, and participate in fun, engaging activities that build emotional awareness and social skills.
This emotions book companion resource includes a detailed lesson plan, guided questions, anchor chart, writing response, and follow-up activities (printable and digital included) for all 5 books.
Great for distance learning and remote teaching of social-emotional skills!
FREE Emotions Lesson & Feelings Journal
Help students learn to identify and process their feelings in an emotions journal.
Download a free lesson and activities on identifying and labeling emotions from the Emotions unit by clicking the image below and signing up.
Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum
The mind + heart Social Emotional Learning Curriculum includes 8 units with 5+ detailed, character education, research-based LESSONS filled with TONS of hands-on and mindful ACTIVITIES that encourage children to express themselves and build important emotional and social skills. It includes emotions for kids!
More About Teaching Emotions
Emotional Skills Books and Videos
Self Regulation Strategies, Books & Videos
Empathy Skills Books & Videos
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I often tell my children to use their words when they are upset. I assume they know what they are feeling and can verbalize it to me. Wrong! It’s difficult for children to say what they are feeling because many times they don’t know what to name the feeling they are experiencing. Instead, they show us how they are feeling by throwing temper tantrums and having meltdowns. We first need to teach children the words to express their feelings before we require them to “use their words.
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Young children can be taught basic emotions such as happy, mad, sad, and scared as early as two years old. As they get older, you can explain emotions such as feeling frustrated, nervous, shy, etc. to them.
Here are some ways you can help your child learn the language they need to express their feelings:
1. Sing songs to help young children learn how to express their feelings. I came across this version of a preschool classic, If you are happy and you know it at Sunflowersstorytime.com. It goes:
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.
If you’re surprised and you know it say “Oh my!”
If you’re sad and you know it rub your eyes “Boo hoo”
If you’re scared and you know it shiver and shake.
If you’re sleepy and you know it close your eyes.
If you’re angry and you know it stomp your feet.
And always make sure end up with “happy” again.
They suggest having pictures of each emotion to show the kids as they sing the song.
2. Use games and activities to teach children about feelings.
Children like learning through playing and having fun. A fun game to help kids learn about feelings is Feelings Charades.
For this game you will need to make a feelings cube. Paste pictures of feeling faces on a tissue box. Have kids roll the box and whatever feeling face it lands on they have to act out.
You can find free feeling picture cards here.
You can also use the cards to play Memory. Simply print out two sets of Feeling Cards, shuffle them and then have your child find the matching Feelings Card.
3. Watch kid-friendly videos about feelings. Kids respond well to visual stimulation. Here are two videos I like to show kids to help them learn about feelings:
- Elf Feelings Video
- The Feeling Song
4. Get into the habit of labeling the feelings you believe your child is experiencing. For example, if your child runs up to you and hugs you as you walk through the door, you can say something like “someone is excited to see me” or “someone is happy I’m home.
” Labeling your child’s feelings as they happen helps them to build their feelings vocabulary.
5. When you read to your child, discuss how the characters in the story are feeling.
Point out any clues that lets you know what they are feeling such as facial expressions or behaviors. Then explain to your child why the characters feel the way they do. If your child is able to, let them take a turn identifying how the characters are feeling and why.
I like to read The Way I Feelto young children because it uses beautiful images to describe a range of feelings.
6. When your child does something that upsets someone else, let them know how their behavior might make others feel. For example, “When you called your sister names, she felt sad and her feelings were hurt. “ This will help your child be mindful of what they say and do to others. You can follow up by asking how they would feel if someone did the same thing to them.
Encouraging your child to put themselves in someone else’s shoe teaches them how to be empathetic. Empathy is an important life skill that will allow your child to maintain positive relationships with other people.
7. Model appropriate ways to express feelings to your child. Children are always watching us and like sponges they soak everything up. Good and bad. If your child sees you expressing your feelings in a positive way, over time they learn to do the same. However, if they see you yelling and throwing things when you get upset, they are more likely to mimic this behavior.
8. Teach your child appropriate ways to express their emotions.
It’s important that children learn that it is OK to have their feelings. What matters is how they express them. When your child is calm, discuss with them ways they can calm down when they are upset. The ABC’s of Calming Down is a great resource that contains 26 alphabetized calm down strategies to help children calm down.
9. Praise your child when they use words to express their feelings. Having the self-control to express your feelings appropriately is no easy feat. There are many adults who are unable to do this. When your child tells you how they are feeling instead of having a complete melt down, praise them for doing so. Be very specific. For example, “I like how you told your sister that you were sad when she called you names. That was very mature of you.” Praising your child for practicing good behavior makes them more likely to do it again in the future. It also lets them know that you are watching them and notice when they do good things.
It is important that children learn how to identify and express their feelings in an appropriate manner. Kids who are able to express their feelings are less likely to have meltdowns and temper tantrums. They also have an easier time making friends and getting along with others. For additional resources on teaching children about feelings, check out these Feelings Task Cards.
In what ways do you foster your child’s emotional intelligence?
If you like this article you might also like these articles. (Click on images)
5 ways to teach your child to manage emotions
Understanding yourself and others, learning with pleasure, making friends and building trusting relationships - this is just an incomplete list of what high emotional intelligence is needed for. It is better to engage in its development already in childhood, when the psyche and brain are plastic, and learning is at its best. Together with Marina Kateeva, a psychologist and specialist in the development of emotional intelligence, we figured out how parents can help a child with this.
1. Learn to understand your own emotions
In our culture, it is not customary to share feelings and experiences, to pronounce everything with loved ones, which is a common cause of misunderstanding and difficulties in relationships.
To help your child build happier relationships in the future, you need to start with yourself. The first step is to get into the habit of listening to yourself, to your feelings and identifying them. What's going on inside there? How can it be called?
It is very important to distinguish one emotional state from another, to understand how mood changes during the day, to be a kind of observer, noticing and realizing the causes of certain emotional reactions.
The next step is to name the feelings. It’s good if your dictionary has a lot of words denoting emotional states, but if you can’t find the right word, pick up a metaphor or come up with your own name, as in Viktor Lunin’s poem “Dad’s mood for breakfast is reading, mom’s mood is napapuobezhalnoe…”.
Fortunately, today it is not necessary to use the old-fashioned "Dear Diary" to keep track of your condition. The easiest way is to set reminders on your phone for every two hours and, according to the reminder, devote literally five minutes to understanding emotions.
What's happening? What I feel? What caused my condition? There are many applications that will send notifications themselves, ask leading questions and help you reflect.
- Zenify is a collection of exercises to help develop mindfulness. Set up a schedule, how often the application needs to remind you of yourself, and complete simple but very useful tasks. For example, listen to a short piece of music and analyze how it makes you feel.
- Jour is an electronic diary with a stock of leading questions. You can simply conduct it regularly, set up notifications, and complete tasks for introspection and reflection developed by psychologists.
- Stoic is a smart diary. He not only reminds that it is time to write a couple of lines about your own well-being, but also suggests several topics. Over time, the program learns, analyzes the mood and habits of the user, on the basis of which it produces statistics and offers personalized questions.
The trap of the classic diary is that people write in it only when they are in a certain mood.
The result can be very monotonous records, as if we are always in the same state. When a person clenches his fists or grits his teeth in anger, he is unlikely to think about what he feels and run to write it down in a diary. But the phone rang - and immediately reminded: what is this happening to you?
2. Talk about your feelings (it's not scary at all)
So, you know how to define your emotions, you have a rich "emotional" vocabulary. But how to express them? And if the emotion is not very (or very) unpleasant? Is it worth it? It is worth it, because the emotion will still manifest itself in your actions, words, reactions, and any attempt to hide it will give the child an extra reason to doubt his ability to understand and feel the other, and also to trust his feelings. And do not imitate feelings and emotions that are not there. The deceit will be exposed.
A typical situation: the child comes home from school, and the parents ask how things are going, because you have to ask.
Are they really interested in it? Does the child want to talk about it? When we lose sight of the emotional component, the result is not a very pleasant situation. Children immediately feel a double bottom: they seem to be asking, but somehow impersonally, as if there is nothing to do with these school affairs. In this case, the child will drop “Everything is fine” and go to his room.
It is much better to speak sincerely:
- “Here you came from school so ruddy, disheveled, I am very curious what happened to you during the day.”
- “I see that you are seriously puzzled by something. I am concerned about your condition. Would you like to tell me what happened?"
- “Listen, you are so inspired today! I can’t help but ask: what was it like at school?
If for some reason you are not ready for a conversation - it happens, it is more honest to say about it and postpone all questions for later.
“Van, I see you want to share with me, but now I’m in such a state (I’m excited, depressed, puzzled, and so on) that I can hardly be a good conversationalist. Let's talk in a couple of hours." Telling a child about himself, about his feelings is very important, through this he learns to be attentive to the emotional state of another, and also to talk about feelings.
3. Minimize value judgments
There are plenty of reasons for concern in both adults and children today, but the main stress factor is, perhaps, an external assessment that can be encountered anywhere. And it's not just about the negative. Even the seemingly positive “Well done” or “What a good girl you are” only exacerbate the situation, because they form an addiction. Every time the child does something, he will be in suspense waiting for this assessment.
Of course, we can't completely get rid of it. But it is in our power to form an understanding in the child that any judgment is the subjective opinion of another person.
Everyone has their own vision, their own perception of the world and others.
It is important that the child has his own position on all issues: this way he will be less dependent on other people.
The role of parents here is to ask leading and clarifying questions, not to speak in dogmas, to give an opportunity to reason.
You don't have to agree with your child on everything. Do you have a different opinion? So you say! “You know, I heard your point of view, but I don’t think so. I have these arguments…” But at the same time, do not press or insist, just share your position.
4. Help your child deal with strong emotions
Breathing exercises and other emotion management tactics are commonly spoken of in the context of intense anxiety, fear, and other negative experiences. But it is also important to be able to cope with intense joy. For example, a child has a birthday. In the morning he received a gift from his parents, which he dreamed of for a long time, then classmates should congratulate him, and in the evening the whole family should go to a pizzeria.
Well, how can you sit still in a math class? He is filled with emotions. As in a situation of strong anger, there is a sea of \u200b\u200benergy in it, which is important to direct in a constructive way.
Sit down and breathe, count to three - time-tested techniques. They work. To find the use of overflowing energy, you can go for a run, throw out the trash, do push-ups. Physical activity is a great way out.
5. Draw, dance, sing, write and play with your child
Emotions give energy to creativity, serve as a kind of fuel and inspiration. And creativity, in turn, develops emotional intelligence, as it makes us look for and find adequate means of expression, thanks to which we eventually understand the language of art without words.
In Creative Connection, American psychologist Natalie Rogers describes in detail how the expressive arts not only help develop emotional intelligence, but also help you better understand yourself.
It contains many exercises and practical tips that will be useful to both teachers and parents.
Creativity is a powerful tool for self-expression and can be great to use with children. Sometimes it is much easier to describe the emotional state not in words, but by some other expressive means. For example, draw, and then discuss, explain what these colors mean, these shapes, and so on. In the same way, you can move, sing, dance. All means are good, the main thing is to be attentive to your feelings and those of those around you.
This material is part of a large project dedicated to the development of children's personal potential and key competencies of the 21st century. What is the project about? We talk about the child and his development as a person, not an object of the educational process. We explain how the world is changing and show what skills will help a child live harmoniously in a changing reality. Other materials of the project cover the topics of development of social-emotional intelligence, financial and digital literacy, cognitive development, inclusion in school, etc.
The project was prepared in collaboration with the website about education and upbringing of children Mel.
Illustrations: Shutterstock (Natasha_Chetkova)
author of the material
Kirill Matyupatenko
#development of personal potential #social and emotional intelligence #emotions #practices of openness for parents #socio-emotional development
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What can the inability to express emotions lead to If you learn to recognize your emotions and manage them, you can achieve great success in the social aspect. The ability to communicate with people is very important for building relationships and developing a harmonious personality, but intelligence does not play a fundamental role here. If you do not develop emotional abilities, it will be difficult for a person in adulthood to evaluate various situations and make the right decision for himself. It’s hard for such people to give up “I want” in favor of “necessary”. Those who have not learned to control their emotions and manage them since childhood find it hard to do routine, monotonous work. They do not know how to control themselves in stressful situations, often splash out negativity and aggression on others. There may be problems with expressing one's own desires, it will be difficult to find a common language with others. The formation of personality and character begins in early childhood, so parents should teach children to recognize their emotions and control them. Ways to develop emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence develops through co-creation. Sculpt, draw, do various crafts together with your baby, involving emotions in the process: a plasticine hedgehog smiles because he found an apple, a drawn girl cries because she lost a ball, etc. Let the child pretend to be an angry cat. The next step may be to study the shades of emotion: an angry cat, angry, indignant. Reading books together helps in recognizing emotions. Discuss what you have read, ask leading questions, listen carefully to your child's answers, clarify what your son or daughter thinks the protagonist of the book feels. Pay attention to the work of V. Shimansky "What are emotions and how to be friends with them." The main characters of the book are funny Monsics, funny creatures that will teach children how to deal with various emotions: anger, anger, disappointment, immense joy, excitement, rage, resentment, fear, etc. A child must be able to articulate his emotions so that adults can hear and understand him. The kid turns to the closest people, his parents, when he experiences strong life situations. Perhaps he is afraid of the upcoming exam, is afraid of the offender, is afraid of the dark. It is important to teach a little person to pronounce what he feels so that in the future he does not have to use physical force in an incomprehensible situation. As long as the boy or girl speaks out their emotion, listens to the opinion of adults, finds a solution to the problem together, they will cool down and be able to calmly find a way out of the situation. You can wait and do nothing or make some decision. But the child must clearly understand that he has time to recognize his feelings and think about what to do in this situation. At the same time, parents should be nearby, experience the baby’s emotions together and just sympathize - for small and large children this is very important. Praise your sons and daughters more often, say how great they are, how proud you are of them. Criticize not the child, but his behavior. And do not forget to take care of yourself, because if adults are dissatisfied with their lives, the child will definitely copy your behavior. Teach children to enjoy every minute, smile more often, get positive emotions from every little thing. Everything that happens around should bring joy, not disappointment. Games for the study of emotional expression
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