how to teach kids about feelings

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.

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