Helping children to identify and express their feelings is so important. Toward that end, I am sharing four feelings activities for kids that I recently did to help my kids learn more about feelings.
These activities coincided with work my husband and I have been doing at home to get the kids to use “I statements” when they are feeling sad/upset/angry with each other. We have grown tired of the kids screaming when one annoys the other, and we have been trying very hard to give them practical tools and words to use instead of needing to resort to screaming.
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.
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. XGirl, in particular, thought that surprised was a very fun emotion to act out and to this day, when she hears anyone say the word “surprised,” she will make a very dramatic surprised face. 🙂
We did not use these, but I imagine the Todd Parr Feelings Flash Cards
Feelings stress balls
Inspired by a post at Pre-School Play, 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.
Jodi says
February 19, 2013 at 9:03 pmThis is so great. I have been reading a book that really emphasizes the importance of teaching kids to identify their emotions. These are great tools to help do that! Jodi @ http://www.meaningfulmama.com
Katie says
February 19, 2013 at 9:16 pmI agree that helping kids identify and name their emotions is so important. I was so proud when XGirl was trying to take off her shirt the other day and was having difficulty, then turned to me and said “I’m frustrated!” 🙂
Tracey@We-Made-That says
February 20, 2013 at 11:18 amThis is such a great idea! My 2yr old has been having such a hard time expressing her self lately and gets so upset this is a great activity to help her learn about emotions and feelings. Thanks so much for sharing on We Made That.
Tulip says
February 20, 2013 at 2:26 pmThat is such a cool activity about emotions. I have never seen a stress ball made with play dough, but the texture would be really fun for my kids to compare. Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
Mary Catherine says
February 20, 2013 at 6:00 pmI really like the ways you connected the kiddos to their feelings using books, pictures, their own bodies, and a sensory activity. I’m going to Pin this (if that’s ok). Thanks so much for sharing this! 🙂
Katie says
February 20, 2013 at 7:19 pmI’m so glad you liked what we did, and yes, it is more than okay to pin it. 🙂
Sugar Aunts says
February 23, 2013 at 6:20 pmI love your idea for the balloon faces! Fabulous! Thank you for sharing with us at Share It Saturday.
Carolyn says
February 24, 2013 at 4:31 pmFantastic ideas here. I think it is so important that we help children understand feelings and emotions and how to deal with them in healthy ways. It’s not the feelings/emotions that are negative, just sometimes the way we deal with them. Well done with your article.
Manal says
February 27, 2013 at 5:12 amjust fantastic. this week i am supposed to do feeling with my kids in school. this is something great and i love it. thanks a ton!
Julie says
February 27, 2013 at 11:58 amI bet they came up with a lot of things to do with the stress balls. They look like lots of fun.
chelle says
February 28, 2013 at 2:15 pmGreat ideas! We’ve been working on identifying emotions around here as well…my little guy knows “hapeeeeee hapeeeee” but I’m trying to get him to say “I’m mad!” instead of throwing (or hitting ;-()…so far when I ask him if he is mad he always responds “NO!!” and I respond along the lines of “you look mad to me, you’re yelling or throwing…it’s ok to be mad but it’s not ok to throw things”….I think we need some more books on the subject….
Thanks for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Katie says
February 28, 2013 at 9:53 pmAh yes, it is a work in progress to get kids to identify their emotions, isn’t it? 🙂
Samantha says
November 10, 2013 at 7:31 pmThe stress balls are a really great idea. I have used them before with my pre-k and kindergarten children. I found a really easy way to make the playdough balloons was to just make the homemade playdough in the balloons. Put water in the balloon, then add some flour and salt. It worked well and the kids loved it. we also made them with rice and with beans. all three were a lot of fun to play with!
Katie says
November 10, 2013 at 7:51 pmGreat tip about making the playdough IN the balloons. That would have made this activity a lot easier!
Janice says
January 15, 2014 at 10:41 amFlour works really well to when added to the balloon.
Katie says
January 15, 2014 at 7:38 pmOoh, never thought to try flour! Thanks for the tip!
Daniela says
May 27, 2014 at 9:12 pmAwesome idea! Is important to give direction on how to deal with emotions. I love the feelings book!!
Thank you for sharing!
Sarah says
June 25, 2014 at 6:28 amThanks so much for these activities, we are working on feelings with my ds1 who is four so these will be perfect 🙂
Teresa Hockaday says
July 14, 2014 at 12:51 pmI used sand. Then I used flour. I then mixed cornmeal with flour. This made a very nice consistency in the balloon.
Katie SG says
July 14, 2014 at 8:41 pmThose fillers sound lovely!