Feelings identification activities

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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Emotion Regulation: Feelings Identification Activities

Emotion regulation refers to our ability to control our feelings and not let them get the best of us. Kids who are able to use effective emotion regulation skills tend to have less meltdowns and tantrums. At the end of the day, fewer meltdowns is a win for both kids and caregivers. Therefore, it makes sense that we teach kids how to identify their feelings at an early age.

So how do we teach kids emotion regulation skills you ask?

Well, it starts by teaching them how to identify and express their feelings. I’ve included some fun feelings identification activities below that are perfect for most preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten-aged kids. These feelings identification activities give kids a chance to practice feelings identification by using emoji feeling faces.

Feelings Charades

People’s body language tells a lot about how they are feeling. For instance, when some people are mad, they cross their arms and squint their eyes. Teaching kids how to ‘read’ body language will help them tune in to how other people are feeling.  It will also help them tune in to their own body language which can give them a sense of self control .  This will go a long way in helping them to practice emotion regulation when faced with big emotions.

In this feelings charades game, have kids pick a card from the deck of feeling faces and act out the feeling written on the card.   Others must try and guess what emotion they are acting out.  This is recommended for two or more players.

Feelings Matching Game

The feelings matching game is played like the classic Memory game.  You’ll need to print out two sets of feeling faces cards so that you have pairs of all the feeling faces.

Shuffle the feeling cards and then lay them face down.  Players will take turns flipping over two cards per turn until they find a match. In order to keep the match, players must share what makes them feel the emotion written on the card. Players get to go again when they find a match. The player with the most matches win. This is recommended for one or more players.

Feelings Go Fish

Print out two sets of feelings cards. Like the classic Go Fish game, kids get 5 cards and fish for pairs by asking other players if they have the match they need to make a pair.  If the other player doesn’t have the card asked for, they say “Go Fish. ” If the player gets a match, they lay the pair down and take another turn.  The first player to get rid of all the cards in their hand wins.  This is perfect for two or more players

Feelings Slap Game

Lay all the feeling faces cards face up.  As you call out a feeling, the player must slap the card that has the feeling face you called.  You can use a fly swatter for this game, but kids will have just as much fun using their hands or a pointer. Kids can play this alone oe with one other player.  When playing with two players, the player who slaps the feeling card first gets to keep it.

Feelings Hop

Tape the Feeling Faces Mats to the floor with painters tape or duct tape.  For kids who are just learning about feelings, it helps to only tape a few feelings on the ground so as not to overwhelm them. The fun starts when you call out a feeling and kids must hop or jump to the feeling you called out. They must then say how their bodies feel when they experience the emotion they hopped to.

Feelings Bean Bag Toss

Set up the Feelings Mats on the floor using painters tape or duct tape to keep the mats in place.  Call out a feeling.  The child then tosses the bean bag to the feeling you called out.  Another option is to have the child toss the bean bag on a random feeling and then have them tell about a time they experienced that emotion or give examples of things or situations that makes them feel the emotion the bean bag lands on.

You can find all the materials needed to complete this activity in my Feelings Identification Activities resource pack.

If you like this post, you may also like these resources:

Thanks for stopping by! Please come back often for new ideas!

§ 7. Surveillance - Operational-search activity of the internal affairs bodies (general part)

Observation is an operational-search activity, which consists in visual and other perception and fixation of significant for solving problems of operational-search activity of phenomena, acts, events and processes.

As defined of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated October 21, 2008 No. 862-О-О this operational-search activity represents visual, electronic or complex tracking and control of behavior (actions) of a person, is aimed at obtaining information about the signs of his criminal activities and other information necessary to solve problems ORD. nine0005

Observation is possible conditionally classified into simple - carried out independently by an employee operational unit and complex - with the involvement of special divisions.

Observation can be physical, when information is perceived by the human senses, electronic, when information is obtained and recorded using technical means and complex - the simultaneous use of the senses and technical funds. nine0005

Through observation the following tasks are solved:

— identification, prevention and suppression of criminal actions of objects observations;

- establishing places finding persons hiding from the investigation and court, as well as convicts who evade from serving a sentence; study of lifestyle, behavior, habits and inclinations persons to be checked, movement routes, identification of their connections, places of storage stolen property, possible use of caches, sending postal and telegraphic correspondence, parcels, parcels; nine0005

- documentation individual actions of objects of observation and their connections with the help of video filming, sound recording, photography;

- security in further effective conduct of certain operational-search activities and investigative actions.

In progress Crime prevention surveillance can allow the collection of information about presence or formation of criminal groups, their composition, intentions, distribution roles, as well as inconsistencies and contradictions between members of groups, which can be used in measures to separate them, incline to refusal to commit crimes or for other operational purposes, about prepared crimes and intended objects of criminal encroachment. nine0005

At the stage of suppression crimes surveillance helps to prevent the realization of criminal intentions and actions into a completed crime, ensures the detention of criminals with red-handed when committing preparatory acts or attempted crime.

Disclosure in progress crimes and the search for criminals, the use of surveillance allows detect criminals and obtain data relevant to them revelations; to study the way of life and behavior of the observed, their habits and inclinations to use these data in operational work; reveal accomplices with whom the observed come into contact, victims, eyewitnesses crime and other persons who have information representing the operational interest, as well as dens, places of concentration of offenders and sales stolen; detect objects and documents that can be real evidence; provide compensation for the harm caused by criminals material damage by identifying caches, other places of storage and sale of things and valuables acquired by criminal means, obtaining data on intent or actions to conceal property subject to inventory and confiscation; set the location of the wanted criminals, to facilitate their detention; record individual episodes of criminal activity of observed persons and their connections through covert photography, filming, video recording, as well as other technical means that do not harm the life and health of the individual and environment. nine0005

The objects of observation may be:

— persons which there is information about the preparation or commission by them crimes;

- persons who have information about preparing, committed, committed crimes or having connection with criminals;

relatives or acquaintances of the wanted criminal, if there is reason to believe that monitoring them will allow you to detect the wanted person or obtain information about him location; nine0005

- places concentration of persons who are suspected of criminal activities;

- gun storage areas crimes and stolen property;

- places of the possible appearance of wanted persons;

- places of the possible committing crimes.

Making a simple observation does not require the drawing up of a decision to conduct an ORM and its approval by the head of the body carrying out operational-search activities, but is carried out by decision of an officer of the operational divisions. Carrying out surveillance that restricts the constitutional right to inviolability of the dwelling (surveillance in residential premises), is allowed only on the basis of a judgment. nine0005

Registration of observation results. Results of observation carried out personally by the operative by an employee or, on his behalf, by other employees of the internal affairs bodies, made out in a report. These documents can be used both in operational purposes, and in the process of proving in accordance with the criminal procedure by law. Supervision carried out by employees of special units completed in the prescribed manner. We can attach to the documents we are compiling carriers of recorded information. which may also be subsequently used in the process of proving in criminal case. nine0005

In case of attraction to observation of citizens when they agree to become participants in the criminal process, the result is formalized by explanations from these persons, which can be attached to materials of the criminal case. The person conducting the observation may be interrogated criminal case as a witness. In accordance with Art. 56 Code of Criminal Procedure, as a witness for giving testimony may be called by any person who may be aware of any circumstances relevant to the investigation and resolution of the criminal case. At the same time, according to part 2 of Art. 12 of the Federal Law on Investigative Activities, disclosure of information about persons embedded in organized criminal groups, about full-time covert employees carrying out operational-search activity, as well as about confidants is allowed only with their consent in writing and in cases provided for by federal laws. nine0005

Stress Psychology: Theory and Practice

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