Feelings activity for kids

10 Activities for Teaching Young Children About Emotions

Having the vocabulary to talk about emotions is an important part of healthy social-emotional development—and as all of us continue to navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 era together, helping kids talk about their feelings is more important than ever.

In today’s post, we’re sharing a few simple games and activities you can use to teach young children about emotions: how to recognize and name them, how to talk about them, and how to pick up on the feelings of others. Adapted from some new and classic Brookes resources on social-emotional development, these activities are ideal for use in early childhood programs (and parents can easily adapt them for home, too!).

What’s your favorite way to get young children talking about emotions? Add your idea in the comments below!

Feelings ID

This activity is a great starting point for teaching young children about emotions. Here’s what to do:

Generate a list of feelings. Start with a basic feeling, such as happy or sad, and explain that this is a feeling. Give a second example, using a more complex feeling such as excited or surprised. Ask students to generate other feelings, add them to the list, and display the list for students on chart paper or with a projector.
Identify feelings as good or not so good. Go back to the start of your feelings list, and have the students give you a thumbs-up for feelings that make people feel good on the inside and a thumbs-down for feelings that make people feel not so good on the inside.
Conduct a follow-up discussion. Ask students if they have ever had any feelings where it was hard to decide if the feeling made them feel good or not so good on the inside. Give an example.

Feeling Dice Game

Create “feeling dice” using clear acrylic photo cubes—slide drawings of faces depicting different emotions on each side. (You could also use photos or cutouts from magazines instead of drawings.) In a small group, give each child a chance to roll the dice. When the dice lands, ask the child to identify the feeling and describe a time when they felt that way.

How Would You Feel If…

Brainstorm some common scenarios that might elicit different feelings. A few examples:

“Your grandma picked you up after school and took you get to ice cream.”
“Your classmate spilled paint on your drawing.”
“Your mom yelled at you.”
“Your brother wouldn’t let you have a turn on the swings.”

Put the scenarios in a hat and pass the hat around the circle or small group while you play music. When you stop the music, the child left holding the hat should pick out a scenario (you can help read it for the child if they can’t yet read). Then ask the child to describe how they would feel if the scenario happened to them.

Read & Learn

Choose a book about feelings to share with students, or read a book from the following list of examples: Feelings by Aliki, The Way I Feel by Janan Cain, Feelings by Joanne Brisson Murphy, The Feelings Book by Todd Parr, and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Be sure to point out all the actions or ways in which the characters behave when they’re acting on their feelings. Use the following questions to guide your class discussion about emotions:

What was one of the feelings the character had?
Do you think it was a good or not so good feeling?
What did the character do when he or she was feeling that way?
Was it an okay or not okay way of showing the feeling?
Can you think of a time when you felt that way? What kind of face can you make to show that feeling?

Feeling Wheel Game

Create a spinning wheel that features different feeling faces. (Need tips on making one? This blog post shows you how to make spinners for games using items you probably have easy access to.) Give each child a chance to spin the feeling wheel. When the spinner lands on a feeling face, ask the child to identify the feeling and talk about an incident that made them feel that emotion.

Emotion Charades

Form small groups of students. Using laminated cards with illustrations of feelings on them, a large die, or a beach ball with each stripe of color preassigned to represent a feeling, have students act out the face and body clues that show the feeling they drew or rolled. Ask the other students to take turns guessing which feeling is being acted out.

Feeling Face Bingo

Create feeling face bingo boards for your students, each with 12 squares that feature various feeling faces (you can add more squares for older children). Have children draw a feeling name from a bag and then cover the matching feeling face with the paper that was drawn from the bag. When they cover a face, they can talk about events or memories that made them feel that emotion.

Puppet Play

Puppet play is a good activity to try one-on-one or in small groups to help children explore and express their feelings, ideas, and concerns. Many children find it easier to talk about feelings during puppet play, because it can give them some distance from scary or upsetting issues.

Encourage children to pick up a puppet and be its voice while you or another child or adult adopts the character of another puppet. You can discuss the children’s feelings indirectly and offer another point of view through your puppet. Reversing the characters so that children play another role can also promote empathy by helping kids experience how others feel.

Feelings Collage

For this activity, you’ll need old magazines and some basic art supplies: posterboard or construction paper, scissors, and glue sticks. Invite your students to cut pictures from the magazines of people expressing any kind of feeling, and instruct them to use these images to build a “feelings collage.” Hand out markers and ask students to label each picture in their collage with a feeling word; then, have them take turns explaining their collages and feeling labels to the group. Encourage your students to elaborate on the details of what they noted regarding the person’s facial expression, their body language, or the context of the photo or illustration. When the activity is over, let your students take the collages home and post them in a prominent place so they can practice identifying and labeling their own feelings.

Feeling Face Memory Game

Make 12 pairs of matching feeling faces—you can draw them or find appropriate photos or illustrations to print out. Turn over the face cards and arrange them in a grid. Ask each child to turn two cards over to try to get a match. When they find a match, they can say what the feeling is and describe a time when they felt that way. They set the match aside, and children keep going until all matches are found.

***

Try these games and activities with your students (or at home with your own children), and let us know which ones worked best for you! And for more ways to help promote healthy social-emotional development in young children, check out the books we adapted this week’s post from:

Activity 1: Adapted from Merrell’s Strong Start—Grades K–2, by Sara A. Whitcomb, Ph.D., & Danielle M. Parisi Damico, Ph.D.

Activities 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10: Adapted from Unpacking the Pyramid Model, edited by Mary Louise Hemmeter, Ph.D., Michaelene M. Ostrosky, Ph.D., & Lise Fox, Ph.D.

Activity 8: Adapted from Pathways to Competence, Second Edition, by Sarah Landy, Ph.D.

Activities 4, 6, and 9: Adapted from Merrell’s Strong Start—Pre-K, by Sara A. Whitcomb, Ph.D., & Danielle M. Parisi Damico, Ph.D.

Feelings activities for kids: Giving kids tools to express their emotions

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Children’s social and emotional well-being sets the foundation for their ability to successfully navigate life as they grow. Children have a strong need to be heard and have their feelings understood.

As such, helping children to identify their feelings and giving children tools to talk about their emotions is of crucial importance.

In this post I am sharing several feelings activities you can do with your children to help them learn more about feelings.

These activities coincided with work my husband and I have done over the years to get our children to use “I statements” when they are feeling sad/upset/angry with each other. (For example, “I felt sad when you stepped on my doll” or “I felt angry when you didn’t include me in the game.”)

As a parent, it is tiresome to hear your children screaming at each other when one annoys the other. So my husband and I have worked hard over the years to give our children practical tools and words to use when they are feeling big emotions.

I hope these ideas below will be a positive springboard to more productive conversations about feelings in your home or classroom as well.

Reading about feelings

As part of our learning we read books about feelings. I’ve got a post sharing 45+ books about all sorts of different feelings where you will be sure to find a few books you can use.

Feelings Sort

For our feelings sort activity, I decided to focus on five primary feelings: happy, sad, angry, surprised, and scared.

Toward that end, I found and printed pictures from the internet representing each of those emotions.

I started the activity by presenting an exemplar of each emotion to the kids so we could talk about what people’s faces look like when they feel a particular emotion. We noticed, for example, that scared and surprised faces both have similar wide eyes but their mouths make different shapes.

Then the kids took all the pictures and sorted them into separate piles for each emotion.

The kids did a great job of sorting the feelings into piles, only getting confused by a few of the pictures.

At the end, we had five piles representing each of the feelings.

Update: I have now created an Emotions Printables Pack that is a fabulous tool to continue working on emotions and feelings with your young children. This pack includes plenty of activities to identify and match emotions.

Feelings charades

After sorting the feelings pictures, we then played feelings charades. The kids took turns drawing a feeling card and then acting out that feeling. They especially enjoyed acting out surprised and shy. My daughter, in particular, thought that surprised was a very fun emotion to act out. For weeks after, every time she heard anyone say the word “surprised,” she would make a very dramatic surprised face. 🙂

We did not use these, but I imagine the Todd Parr Feelings Flash Cards would have been a nice addition to our feelings charade and feelings sort activities.

And of course, there are resources in my Emotions Printables Pack that could be used for this as well.

Feelings stress balls

We also decided to make feelings stress balls. I started with four balloons and some homemade play dough.

The kids helped roll the play dough into thin snakes to make it easier to get the play dough into the balloons. (Although later we found it was easier to get small balls rather than thin snakes into the balloons.)

Once our play dough was rolled in to thin snakes, I held open the balloons while the kids inserted the play dough inside.

It was hard work to keep the balloons stretched open while my kids shoved the play dough in! After making two, my arms were shaking and I decided we would take a different approach to making the rest. (I also rationalized this by deciding that comparing the sensation of a feelings stress ball made from play dough with one made from rice would be a worthwhile endeavor as well. :-))

So I gathered two more balloons, some uncooked rice, and a funnel.

We inserted the funnel into the top of the balloon.

As I held the funnel, the kids poured rice in to their balloons. I found it worked best for the kids to pour and then for me to take out the funnel and blow a bit of air in to the balloon to get the rice to move down, then re-insert the funnel to pour more in.

When the balloons were full, we drew faces on them using a Sharpie marker to represent the emotions of happy, angry, surprised, and sad.

The kids had so much fun playing with their feelings stress balls.

Emotions Printables

I have created an Emotions Printables Pack with more than 120 activities related to children’s emotions.

This pack is designed for children in preschool and kindergarten, and it features an inclusive cast of racially and ethnically diverse children.

The pack includes:

Activities to Identify Emotions
Activities to Match Emotions
Emotion Sorting Activities
“I Feel” Creativity Mats
Emotion Puzzles
Emotion I Spy
Emotion Cutting Practice
Emotion Graphing
“I Feel” Sentences

Want a copy of my Emotions Printables Pack?

Get this product by clicking the button below.

More Social Emotional Resources

More social and emotional posts from Gift of Curiosity:

45 books about feelings for kids
Glittery calm down bottles
Conflict resolution trick for kids

30 EMOTION WORKING ACTIVITIES WITH CHILDREN

You probably already know the importance of nurturing and working on emotions from early childhood, but you may not know very well where to start or how to actually help children understand and learn. better manage your feelings and your inner world. I understood you! We have a lot of information at our fingertips, but we've lost more than ever 🙁 That's why I've put together 30 super-ideas (very easy to do, but very effective) for working on emotions with children (at home or in the classroom). ) so that they learn to recognize and differentiate them and acquire the emotional language necessary to understand what is happening to them in each case and thus be able to express what they feel to others.

With these 30 exercises and games we can help them develop all the basic emotional skills.

Best of all: we'll make it simple, fun and motivating! Because these activities and resources are based on two main pillars in childhood:

Play, which is a mechanism designed by nature itself to push the child to learn, as well as an excellent means for practicing skills and abilities (and thus for effective studying them).

And stories whose stories offer children an unparalleled emotional training, as the reader can experience a wide variety of emotional experiences, but from a safe distance that allows him to feel, but without risk. As I said in the section "Stories of Emotion vs. Stories that Move": books allow you to engage in introspection, self-awareness and self-knowledge. Besides, it is always easier to talk about what is happening to others than about what is happening to oneself.

Of course, to this we must add our respectful and loving fellowship. We are their example, a mirror in which they look at themselves. That's why it's important to start with yourself and work on your emotions and skills (social, personal, and emotional) so you can help kids work on theirs.

Without further delay…

I will show you the exercises, dynamics, games and books that I have carefully selected and which you can put into practice right now (at home or in the classroom) and thus begin to nurture the emotions of children children.

No more excuses, go ahead! and start today to give more emotional intelligence to your children or students 😉

ACTIVITIES TO LEARN TO RECOGNIZE AND NAME EMOTIONS:

1.

Create your own EMOTION DICTIONARY:

, as you can adapt it for both infants and preschoolers, elementary schoolers, or even teenagers.

It consists of several pictures of people, children or characters expressing an emotion, and the children have to identify the emotion and classify the pictures.

Photos can be found online and printed in advance. But I recommend that you look for some of them together in magazines or newspapers.

For the youngest, you can start with a pair or three of the
basic emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear, love, or disgust) and gradually expand them into more complex emotions.

You can paste photos on a notepad page and write the name of the emotion they represent very large. Take the opportunity to talk about this particular emotion: how it physically manifests in our body, what things trigger this emotion in us, what thoughts it makes us think, what we can do when we feel it…

Depending on our age, you can write this down in your notebook and in this way you will create your own vocabulary of emotions. In the classroom, you can do the same or create murals to hang in the classroom.

What are we doing with this activity?
Emotion recognition, emotional vocabulary, emotional awareness, physical and non-verbal expression of emotions.

2. Read EMOTION STORIES:

As I mentioned earlier, books can be our great allies in the emotional education of children.

For example: they help us to have a larger emotional vocabulary, recognize and identify emotions, understand our life experiences (past or future), empathize with others, put consciousness and words into what happens to us (this helps us cope better), they show us models and strategies for resolving conflicts, console us, encourage us to dialogue ... And an infinite number of other things!

Most importantly:

Choose your story well so that it helps us to work with emotions correctly, but do not lose sight of the main function of literature in childhood: to entertain, amuse and engage the reader.

Just reading it is enough, but you can maximize the educational potential of the story by asking curious questions about the emotional aspects of the book, such as: “how do you think the character is feeling?”, “why, what is he saying” . you?”, “And if he were happy, how would you know?”, “What do you think he would do?”, “What would you do in his place?”, “What else could he do ?”, “How could he calm their rage or anger?” ,…
Use the reading to reflect with the children about times they experienced these emotions during the day and, if applicable, what they did or could do to feel differently.

SCAM :

When you have a new story, you can make a very fun and fantastic little game to develop empathy and learn about non-verbal expression of emotion. It consists of carefully observing the images in the book (without reading the text) and trying together to figure out what is going on and the emotions the characters are experiencing and why.

3. Play with "THE EMOTION THEATER":

This activity consists of creating a small puppet or theater where we will present stories made up by the children themselves and where different emotions will be shown.

For this we need:

Some characters: these can be toys or figurines (that we have at home or in the classroom), puppets, soft toys or stick puppets that we can make at home, for example, with characters from our favorite stories.
Two dice: one for basic emotions and one for items or locations.

How to play :

The child chooses his characters and rolls the die twice. Now you must come up with (and present) a story in which two emotions arise and two elements of the other die.

OPTION : Superheroes in Distress

If you have superhero action figures such as Spiderman, Superman or similar, we will come up with a story in which these characters experience unpleasant emotions such as sadness, fear, anger… It is important that boys and girls understand that we all experience all emotions and this is not a bad thing.

4. Activity "DRAWING EMOTIONS":

This is a very simple activity.

We put a mirror in front of the child and help him to depict the expression of each emotion, then he can draw them on paper and write when he felt it.

AND THE END……”Emotional Photo Booth”:

Now that we have worked on facial expressions, we can play around taking pictures of each other, expressing different emotions with appropriate gestures and winks. It will be fun!

5. EMOTIONAL MEMORY game:

Using the photos from the previous session, we can collect a home memory of emotions. We need to print out a couple of photos of the child expressing each emotion. Then we stick them on identical cards that can be made from square cardboard. Play!

Remember that the chips are placed face down and each player picks them up two at a time. If they are the same, he keeps them and throws them again. The one with the most pairs wins. We can increase the complexity by adding more emotions, or by placing pictures of two different children for the same emotion.

TRICK : Laminate
photos so they won't wear down from the table when you put them upside down. If you can't laminate them, paint them with clear varnish.

6. Working with MUSIC, PAINTING AND EMOTIONS:

Music evokes memories and experiences, but it also evokes emotions.

In this activity we will combine music, artistic expression and emotional education.

We will play various pieces of music for the children and let them freely draw the emotions they evoke. Then we will talk about what they experienced and drew.

AND WHEN IT WAS OVER. ..
We can turn on the songs again and dance, expressing with the whole body the emotions that the music evokes in us. It is important that we know how emotions affect different parts of our body, as they are not only shown in our facial expressions.

7. The game "DOMINO OF FEELINGS":

This is a special domino, where on each tile we have: on the right side the name of the emotion, and on the left side the situation that can cause another emotion. In this photo you have 2 examples:

It's about connecting situations with certain emotions that they evoke in us so that the game closes on itself and there are no tokens left.

8. DIY EMOTION LABYRINE:

In this game, we will work on different emotions depending on the age of the participants and learn more about them when we experience them, what they cause us ...

We need to build a board where we will write the emotions we want to work on and we will need a regular cube and a cube of options.

When we land on the “?” box, we roll the options die, and depending on what comes up, we will need to guess the emotion on the card, draw it, make a list of situations in which we experienced it, make a small theatrical performance or look for emotions in the book of emotions.

TRICK :
If there are children of different ages, you can prepare two packs of cards, one with simple emotions and one with more complex emotions. In the same way, you can increase the difficulty of the game as children get better at mastering their feelings and emotions.

9. Game "MIMICS OF EMOTIONS":

Several cards are prepared and different emotions are written on them. Then the child takes the card and must imitate the emotion. The rest have to guess. Whoever guesses is next. If there are many of us, we can unite in groups.

We can increase the complexity by placing emotions or feelings less known to children. With this simple activity, children learn emotional vocabulary, put into words what they felt, pay attention to how their feelings manifest in the body, observe others, pay attention to non-verbal emotional communication, gestures and the body. expressions of emotions.

TRICK :
When a child is unable to act out an emotion, we can let him try to explain it, give an example, or talk about a situation where he himself experienced it. We can also use shifts so that everyone remembers some experience related to the feeling mentioned and reflects a little together.

10. Game "BINGO OF EMOTIONS":

A simple but very exciting game!

This isn't much of a mystery: each player has a board, and they take emotion cards and put a mark on the one that matches our board. The winner is the one who first collects a complete line (horizontal or vertical).

ACTIVITIES TO LEARN TO MANAGE EMOTIONS:

11. UNDERSTANDING OUR EMOTIONAL BRAIN:

The first step to becoming good at managing our emotions and ensuring that they do not make us hostages to the impulsiveness of the moment is to know why they arise and what mechanisms are activated in our brain when we experience strong emotions.

It is just as important that children know all these concepts.

To learn how to explain this to children, I recommend this article in English How to teach children about the brain or you can watch this video together, which explains it very well and will help them understand their inner world and learn how to better manage their emotions :

12.

POSITIVE DISCIPLINE "WHEEL OF OPTIONS" resource:

This is a great positive discipline tool that helps children remember options for directing unpleasant emotions such as anger, rage, frustration ... We just need to sit with the child in a moment of relaxation, make him receptive and make a list of things. you can do when you're angry instead of yelling or hitting. It is important that we allow the child to actively participate and try only to accompany without giving him decisions.

We will then print the circle , choose from 4 to 8 options, and divide the circle into as many parts as we have selected ideas. We will then draw and/or write on the parts and assemble the wheel. When a child feels overwhelmed and is about to explode, he can turn to his wheel to choose a way to manage that emotion and put it into practice!

TRICK :
Take the opportunity by making the wheel to remind the child that all emotions are good and should be expressed, but we should strive to find the best way to do it and thus not hurt others or ourselves. Feel free to create your own wheel and lead by example!

13. DRAWING OUR EMOTIONS to regulate them:

A fantastic way to regulate and soothe strong emotions is to draw them while we are experiencing them. It helps reconnect the emotional brain with the rational brain. In addition to stopping, we are changing our activities and unloading emotions in a healthy and safe way for everyone. We just have to put a pot of paints and a notebook or a stack of papers in a place accessible to children. We tell them in advance that they can come to draw their emotions when they need to. They may draw or draw in a more relaxed manner. They may also tear, wrinkle, or tear the finished design. And also make more than one if they need it. Everything goes.

TIP :
It's good if we accompany the children while drawing and reinforce and voice their feelings: “Wow, why are you so angry? “Let's see, show how angry you are!”, “Are you still upset? Let's see, draw some more… well, it seems smaller, right?”.

14. Activity "JOURNAL OF MY EMOTIONS":

For older children (or you), instead of drawing the emotions we experience, this is a very good resource for using expressive writing.

It consists of keeping a kind of diary in which we will try to summarize the day a little, starting with the positive moments and leaving the negative ones to the end. We will emphasize how we feel, what we thought, how we act...

We can start doing this together as an adult and a child (over 7) so that they can do it on their own when they grow up.

Journaling helps us improve our well-being because it allows us to become more aware of the emotions we experience, their causes, their consequences, the thoughts they evoke in us, the way we normally act… We can also discover patterns and help us change behavior or destructive thoughts into more conciliatory and healthy ones.

15. PEACE CORNER AND PEACE TABLE:

The Tranquility Corner is a physical place where a child can go when emotionally overwhelmed. In it you will find some elements that will help you quickly find serenity and tranquility.

The Quiet Corner can also be used as a Montessori Peace Table, i.e. a place where conflicted children can go to solve their problem in a civilized and respectful manner to all parties. You just need to have a peaceful object (plant, rock, scarecrow, etc.) that is used to indicate the speech queue.

It is about respectfully expressing our feelings, needs and/or desires, always remembering the rules at home or in the classroom (no yelling, no insulting...).

HINT :
Explain to the children that they should always try to speak from “I” and not from “you”, i.e. “I was angry when you took my toy away” instead of “You made me angry because …” It is best for adults not to interfere in their conflicts, although our presence can be useful as moderators (never judgmental), especially when children are small or have little practice with this tool.

16.

RELAXATION Dynamics for CHILDREN:

We often tell children to relax or take a breath, but have we taught them how to do it? Did we stop to explain exactly how it's done? Have we given them enough opportunities to practice? If we want them to be able to regulate themselves in moments of high emotional charge, they need to practice when they are calm and in a good disposition so that it comes out more spontaneously and easily later. It is easier for children to concentrate on breathing if the exercise is accompanied by repetitive movements of little difficulty. Here are two good options:

Follow the labyrinths of meditation. We breathe slowly, slowly, while with our finger we trace the labyrinth from the beginning (arrow) to the heart and back.
Inhale three times, while doing the following movement with the stones: slowly inhale, taking the stone with the right hand. We exhale slowly as we pass the stone to the other hand and place it on top of one of the pictograms. Repeat twice more with two other different stones.

It consists in talking to the child and leading him into the following meditation: “You are an ice cube, hard, hard, hard and cold. Shrug your shoulders, bending your legs and clasping your hands tightly. Notice the tension, tense your whole body. Now watch how little by little the sun appears on the horizon. You begin to notice its warmth, how it warms you. Release tension slowly as you melt. you and you become a pool of liquid water. Let go and relax your whole body. Melt, let go, you are no longer solid and tense ice, you are water that flows everywhere.

TRICK :
When a child is angry or stressed, you can remind him that he is like an ice cube and that if he closes his eyes he can watch the sun rise and melt while he relaxes and relieves all stress which he has.

17. Conflict Staging Dynamics:

Role-playing games or small theater performances are great for children to practice conflict resolution and put themselves in the shoes of the various people involved, empathizing more with their siblings, friends or colleagues.

In this way, when they find themselves in the same (or similar) situation, they will have more resources to cope successfully with it, and they will be more aware of the emotions and feelings that everyone is experiencing.

In the same way, if a child has to face a new situation that causes suffering or fear, it is very good to act it out as many times as necessary to gain confidence. You can even help him with small guided meditations where he will see himself in this situation and be able to overcome it.

18. TURTLE TECHNIQUE resource:

We can explain the story of the turtle to a child and draw an analogy with what sometimes happens to him so that when he gets angry or angry and is about to act impulsively (hitting, pushing, insulting, yelling and etc.), he could remember the turtle. and do so. That is, hide in an imaginary shell, relax and stop thinking before acting. This will make it easier for him to find solutions to his problems without hurting others or himself. If we practice this technique with children several times, over time they will be able to use it on their own when they need it, and thus gain the ability to control their emotions, and their impulsiveness will decrease.

ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPING EMPATHY AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS:

19. The I AM YOU game (to empathize with another):

This game is great for empathizing with siblings or classmates. It's as easy as making a series of cards with simple questions like "favorite color", "classmate you'd like to sit with at school", "food you hate".

It's about doing a lot with face-down cards, and we take a card in turn, and we have to answer these questions, but as if we were different, in this way we put ourselves in the place of others, but in At the same time, we encourage you to get to know each other better among us, as well as self-knowledge.

20. I CARE FOR OTHERS:

Neuroscience tells us that the more we give our children or students the opportunity to practice thinking about others, the more they will be able to feel compassion and empathy for others.

These incidents come up very often in our daily lives, we only need to ask them simple questions that can make them think about the feelings of others: "Why do you think Carla got angry in the park?"; “Why do you think this child is crying?”; "How do you think your partner feels?" etc.

Therefore, our job is to help the child to become aware of other people's feelings, non-verbal communication and other people's body language from a very early age, and to help him recognize the actions that people do for him. thank them and text them, for example: “Have you seen the bus driver? He gets up very early every day to take us to school and to work, we thank him "good morning"?

Together with our example, this is the most powerful tool for teaching empathy and its usefulness.

To make this more relevant, we can encourage the child to be concerned about his relatives or classmates, because solidarity starts with small actions that we can then spread to other areas of our lives.

So if we know that a family member or friend of a child is, for example, unwell or sick, we can encourage the child to send him a WhatsApp message of support, write him a letter or card, come to his house with a book or magazine, cook something for him…

IDEA :
And at special times (such as Christmas) we can encourage pro-social relationships, such as giving clothes or toys we no longer use to people who may need them.

21. STORIES TO DEVELOP EMPATH:

Just as we have many opportunities to encourage empathy in children these days, books are also a fantastic tool for this, as they usually encourage the reader to put themselves in the place of the characters and try understand them, as well as observe the emotions they experience and the emotional consequences of their actions, both in themselves and in other characters. We can reinforce it by asking questions such as: “How do you think this character feels?”, “How do you think what the main character does will affect his friend?” etc. Almost any story can help us, but here we are gone

a collection of stories that, thanks to their characteristics, especially help the reader to put themselves in the place of another and empathize: 11 children's stories for the development of empathy

ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION, ASERTIvITY AND ACTIVE LISTENING:

22. BOAT OF COMMUNICATION: 9002 It is a very powerful resource through which anyone can express their emotions, express what they like (and what they don’t like) in front of others, and show empathy for the rest of the family or classmates.

It also helps create strong affective and emotional bonds, encourages communication and respectful dialogue, and enhances the self-esteem of all involved.

It's as easy as having a boat and papers to write down what others have done for us and what made us feel good, using the phrase: "I liked it when...".

Then we meet once a week, open the boat, read the sentences and try to get to know the people involved. We then allow them to comment on what happened and how they felt, allowing them to freely express themselves and feel that we care about what is happening to them and the feelings they experience in everyday life. I will tell you more about the dynamics and benefits of this activity in the post: Communication Boat.

NOTE .
Dare to introduce this resource into your daily life at home or school because it helps children learn that their actions affect others and that it is in their hands to make them feel good with small daily actions.

23. LISTEN TO WHAT'S AROUND:

In this exercise we want the children to practice active listening. In such an important conversation, it is important to speak well, and not to be able to listen correctly.

To communicate well, both the sender and receiver must work hard and do their part.

The problem is that at the current pace of life, we are in a hurry and do not stop to listen to what surrounds us. Therefore, try to stand next to the children more often, encourage them to close their eyes and listen very carefully to the sounds around them. It doesn't matter if you are at home, in the park, in the classroom, on the street, on the beach or in nature. You will see that this is a simple game that does not require material, which calms us down and reconnects with the main one.

24. How was your day? in other words:

How we communicate with children is of key importance, because our words have a deep meaning and determine their present and future life. We must strive every day to establish respectful fellowship on solid foundations.

Children need to know that we value their emotions and feelings, that we care about their opinions, and that their decisions are respected because we love them and they are important to us. The problem is that usually when we ask our kids (or students) how their day went, they usually say "okay" and nothing else. So, I'm sharing with you a series of open-ended questions that usually make all the difference: 25 ways to ask your child how was your day at school?

You will find that they are ideal for improving communication with your children (or students), because with them children see that we appreciate them, they feel better about themselves, they learn to listen, ask questions and be interested in others, they learn that their opinion matters, they feel more respected and take more responsibility for their actions and thoughts.

REMEMBER :
we all want to be respected, and no one learns to be respected if they are not respected. "The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" - Peggy O'Mara.

25. DICTION DRAWING

This activity helps children to empathize with others, but above all, to make them see the importance of making an effort when we want to communicate something to others. They will understand that it is very important to express well what we want to say, as well as to listen carefully to what they tell us. Two people are needed. One will draw as directed by the other and then exchange papers. We need some drawings that the participants will not be able to see in advance. We can pre-print them or use story illustrations.

One of the participants sits at a table where he can draw. Behind him we will hang one of the illustrations. The other participant must describe the illustration in such a way that his partner can reproduce it as best as possible, given that he cannot see it. One should strive to communicate and describe the image in detail, the other should hone his listening. It's so fun and candid!

NOTE .
It is important that the participants then exchange roles to understand each other's difficulties.

SELF-AWARENESS ACTIVITIES TO INCREASE SELF-RESPECT AND I-CONCEPT:

26. The game “MY NAME, MY VALUES”

In this exercise we are going to invite the children to write their name in capital letters and capital letters. Then they must take each of the letters and find the virtue or positive quality they possess that begins with that letter. They will write it on a piece of paper and share it with other children and adults.

This fantastic activity promotes self-knowledge and also helps them to improve their self-esteem (“how I am”, “how I see myself”), from which self-esteem is built, because if my self-esteem is a low concept, I can never have high self-esteem.

TRICK :
If the child's name is very short, you can do the exercise with the first and last name. If you want to continue the game, each child can come up with their own name, and the last name will be filled in by the rest of the participants. It promotes knowledge of the other, kindness and emotional connection between the participants.

27. Activity “MY SILHOUETTE, I AM UNIQUE”

We will need a large roll of paper because we need to trace the silhouette of each child's body on it. If we don't have much space, we can only draw the torso. Then we will write in each silhouette the strengths, inclinations, characteristics, abilities ... of each. Everyone can write on everyone's silhouette. At the end, each child will have their own silhouette with everything that makes them unique and special. To help them find their strengths, we can ask them the following questions: What are you good at? "what are you doing alone?"; "What do you like?"; "What do you like to do?"; "What do you like about such a person?" ;…

TIP :
Cut out the silhouettes and display them prominently. So every child can go back to her if needed to remember how fantastic and unique she is. Plus, it's a living resource because you can keep adding strengths at any time.

28. Create "MY RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS"

In this dynamic, each of us will write our recipe for achieving happiness.

First we need to think about what ingredients are needed for our recipe, and then we will indicate the amount of each of them.

Once our recipes are created, we can share them and discuss them with others.

With this little game, we help you get to know yourself and others better and discover what is important to each of us.

29. Draw "MY TREE"

This activity is usually taught in the classroom, but it can be ideally adapted at home.

It consists in the fact that each child draws a tree.

On the roots you should write the positive qualities you have, on the branches the positive things you do, and on the leaves your progress.

Then, in groups of four, they discuss it with their classmates, and qualities or other things can be added.

Finally, everyone puts his tree to his chest, gets up and walks through the forest, saying good things about everyone.

30. Meditate on the words "MY ERRORS, MY TEACHINGS"

It is important to teach children that mistakes are great learning opportunities. Depending on how we deal with mistakes at home or in the classroom, children will receive very different messages.

This is why we must remember not to save them when they make a mistake, but to let them experience the consequences so that we can learn from the situation. Don't punish, criticize, or lecture them, but help them find a way to solve the problem.

At the same time, it's good that we open up a space for dialogue where we can reflect on the mistakes we all make, ask for forgiveness, and look for what we can learn from each case.

This activity is as simple as having a piece of paper on which we will write down our mistakes, but above all, the knowledge gained. What matters is what they gave us.

TIP :
Make your own list. Share your own mistakes with the children (even if they are not directly related to them). Ask for forgiveness if you make a mistake and think about how you deal with your mistakes because that's how kids learn to deal with theirs.

I HOPE THESE EMOTIONAL EDUCATION ACTIVITIES, GAMES AND RESOURCES HAVE BEEN USEFUL TO HELP CHILDREN BETTER UNDERSTAND THEIR EMOTIONS AND DEVELOP THEIR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE .

Exercises and games on the topic: "Working with feelings"

Exercises. Games.

Aggressive behavior in children. Working with feelings.

Feeling Experts - Game

Ask the child if he knows feelings. If it seems to him that a lot, invite him to play such a game. It will be a contest of connoisseurs of feelings. Take the ball and start passing it around circle (you can play together with the child or invite others to participate family members, which will be not only interesting, but also significant in terms of their knowledge and interest in the inner world).

The one with the ball must name one emotion (positive or negative) and pass the ball next. You cannot repeat what has been said before. The one who cannot answer leaves the game. The rest is the biggest connoisseur of feelings in your family! Can set some prize for him, for example, the most delicious piece of pie for dinner (or some other family treat).

To make the game useful more, and the loss of the child was not offensive, warn that this is the first round, and after some time, the game can be repeated, and the prize will be even better. By this you create a mindset for the child to memorize the called words, which will help him win further.

Note. Good with this game start a cycle of your family activities aimed at enriching the emotional spheres of the child, the development of interest and the ability to understand one's inner the world and emotions of other people. Since, in order to talk about a new area for him, new words will be needed, which he may have heard, but not used before so far. In this game, he will have the experience of using them.

Guess what I am felt”

If you have already played (and not time) to the game "Experts on the senses", then surely your child already knows the names, although would be the main emotions. But this does not mean that he correctly understands their essence. Check this (and, if necessary, correct it) will help you this the game. It has two main roles: the driver and the player (players can be several).

The driver must guess some feeling, remember the story when this feeling arose in him, or make up a story about someone else going through a similar condition. At the same time, he must tell his story in such a way as not to accidentally name the feeling itself. You need to end the story with a sentence: “Then I felt ...” - and make pause. Then the player tries to guess what the person who got into such a situation.

Stories are better to do small ones, for example: “I came from the store once, laid out the products and realized that among them there is no oil. I probably forgot it on the counter when put everything in a bag. She looked at her watch and the store was closing. And so I wanted to fry potatoes! Then I felt ... ”(The most accurate answer in in this example - "annoyance", but other emotions can take place - sadness or anger at yourself.)

Note. Better to an adult began to drive, showing the children, by example, what stories could be (not too long and not very complicated). If the child guessed the feeling the character in question, then you can invite him to become a leader and come up with your own story. Listen carefully to these stories - perhaps in the usual conversation, the child would not tell about his hidden experiences!

Photo Stories - game

This game is the next step in emotional development of the child, a bridge from his interest and attention to own inner world to understanding other people's emotions and empathy.

To start playing, you will need any photographs of people that reflect their mood. They are not difficult pick up by flipping through some magazines or looking at reproductions of paintings. Show your child one of these pictures and ask them to identify what feelings experiencing the person in the photo. Then ask why he thinks so - let the child will try to express in words what external signs of emotions he drew Attention. You can also invite him to dream up, coming up with what events in the life of the photographed man or woman preceded this moment.

Note. This game had it would be good to use photos from your family album, because after fictitious story of a child, could you tell him exactly what happened until the moment of filming, and thereby acquaint him with elements of family history, giving the opportunity to feel "involved" in family events and experiences relatives. However, the use of your personal photos for this game will be interesting and useful only if they really reflect different mood, not the standard smiles for the camera.

"Scream bag" game

Correction of aggressive behavior in children. Working with anger

As you know, children are very It's not easy to deal with your negative feelings, because they tend to break out in the form of screams and squeals. Of course, this does not cause adult approval. However, if emotions are very strong, then it is wrong right away. require children to calmly analyze and search for constructive solutions. First you need to give them the opportunity to calm down a little, throw out the negative acceptable way.

Thus, if a child is indignant, excited, angry, in a word, just not able to talk to you calmly, offer him to use the "pouch of screams". Agree with the child that while he has this bag in his hands, he can scream and squeal into it as much as how much he needs. But when he lowers the magic bag, there will be talk to others in a calm voice, discussing what happened.

Note. So-called You can make a "bag of screams" from any fabric bag, preferably sew strings to it in order to be able to “close” all the “chants” on normal conversation time. The resulting bag should be stored in certain place and not be used for other purposes. If not at hand turned out to be a bag, then you can convert it into a “jar of screams” or even "scream pot", preferably with a lid.

Leaf of Wrath - game

You must have already met printed versions of such a sheet, which depicts some kind of monster in a fit of anger, or a generally good creature, such as a duck that tries to Anger with a hammer to break the computer. The visual image of anger is accompanied by such instructions for use: “In case of a fit of rage, crumple and throw into corner!"

However, this is a way of behaving rather than adults, children just throw crumpled paper into a corner once usually not enough. Therefore, they should be offered different ways of expressing their negative emotions: you can crumple, tear, bite, trample, kick a leaf of anger until the child feels that this feeling has diminished and now he can handle it easily. Then ask the boy or girl finally deal with your anger by collecting all the pieces of the "angry leaf" and throwing them in the trash. As a rule, in the process of work, children stop getting angry and this game starts to amuse them, so they usually finish it in a good way mood.

Note. "Leaf of Wrath" can be made by yourself. If the child himself does this, it will even turn out double study of his emotional state. So offer your child imagine what his anger looks like: what shape, size, what or whom similar. Now let the child draw the resulting image on paper (with young children need to immediately move on to drawing, as it is still difficult for them depict the image in words, which can cause additional irritation).

"Glossary of kind words" - game

Aggressive children often suffer from a poor vocabulary, as a result of which, even when communicating with like people they often use the usual rude expressions. Language not only reflects our inner world, but can also influence it: together with the appearance of good words, our attention is focused on those pleasant qualities and the phenomena they represent.

Get your child a special dictionary. In it, alphabetically, you will write down various adjectives, participles and nouns that can describe character or appearance a person, that is, to answer the question of what a person can be. At the same time, it is necessary observe an important restriction - all words must be kind, polite, suitable for describing pleasant (or neutral) qualities in people. Yes, on the letter "B" you can write as words describing appearance: “blonde”, “brunette”, “white-skinned”, “blonde”, etc., as well as words related to character description: “disinterested”, “thrifty”, “noble”, “defenseless”, “failsafe”, etc. or describing human activity in some area: “flawless”, “impeccable”, “brilliant”, etc. If your head child comes words like "stupid" or "talker", then discuss with him what such words are also in the Russian language and we use them, but are they pleasant, he would like to hear them in his address! If not, then in the dictionary they have no place for kind words.

Note. As you probably you understand, it is not enough to compile such a dictionary together with the child and, putting it on shelf, wait for him to speak using such a rich vocabulary. To all these words really began to be used by children in ordinary speech, it is necessary carry out systematic work. To this end, first, it is good to "refresh" words in memory. To do this, you can either use the version of the game "Word - step" (when a player can take a step forward by naming a person's quality for a certain letter), or from time to time ask the child questions containing definitions some property, but not naming it (for example: “How can you call a person who cannot stand up for himself and does not feel in security?" Answer: Defenseless. Secondly, you need to take care of the practice using new words in your son's or daughter's everyday speech. For this try to discuss with him the heroes of films and books more often, analyze them actions, motives, deciding what character traits they indicate. Of course, here you will have to use not only positive characteristics, but try to show the child that even in the most negative hero (as well as real person) you can find some good traits that deserve respect.

Literature

1. Derekleeva N.I. Parent meetings. Primary School. 1-4 classes. M.: "VAKO", 2004, 252 With. – (Pedagogy. Psychology. Management).

2. Levitov N.D. Frustration as one of the types mental states // Questions of psychology, No. 6, 1997.- P.111-112.

3. Elementary teacher's handbook classes./ Authors-compilers L.S. Beskorovaynya, O.V. Perekatiev – Rostov n/a: Publishing house "Phoenix", 2011. - 352 p. (Series "School of Joy")

4. "Primary School" No. 9 2011 A.R. Akhmedbekova "The essence of aggression and the reasons for its appearance in primary school students."

5. Rumyantseva, T.G. The concept of aggressiveness in modern foreign psychology /T. G. Rumyantseva // Questions of psychology.