Monday 8 March 2010

Helping Children to Recognise Their Emotions


 

No, they weren't completely bored by the childminding group..... they were making 'emotions faces' as part of our ideas sharing about activities to help young children recognise their own and other's emotions.  It was really funny and made me realise how hard it is to pull a face when you are thinking about it!!  Everyone at the group 'made a face' and we are going to have copies of the photos each to use with our mindees!

 
other ideas we talked about were:

  • A decorated box with a mirror inside stuck to the bottom, tell the children that the box has something special and important inside and invite them to open it and look!
  • Hold a teddy and say that teddy is excited because he is going swimming later, encourage the other children to say why teddy isnt excited as they pass him round, this helps children to recognise feelings and teddy can experience any feeling you want him to!
  • Print this template of a face out on skin tone paper or on white and colour it in with skin tones, then laminate it and use it as a playdough mat, helping the children to model sad and happy faces on it.
  • This sheet can be used to draw faces that have been talked about or experienced in stories etc.
  • I found some simple faces to make puppets with - you could call out emotions and the children can pop them up, or they could have one or two each and if you call out that emotion they have to hop on one leg, or run to the corner etc, or you could read a book that involves emotions and the children can identify them as they come up.
  • Here are some stories that you can print out or read online, some are to do with emotions, others carry a moral story.
  • These pictures can be used to make bingo cards, but I think they are quite complex for young children so I would either use them with older children, or pick some contrasting ones for the littler children.
  • A feelings and emotions colouring and puzzle book that supports diversity too (4 years plus).
  • Dice to use for 'pull a face' games (perrhaps we should have used these at the group today!!).
  • Photographic posters of adult emotion faces.
  • Flashcards of clipart type emotions faces.
  • This article talks about strategies to help child control their emotions.
  • Emotions Bingo
  • Lots of lovely ideas here to explore different aspects of emotions

1 comment:

  1. Another idea I have successfully used in infant school(which I learned on a high power PSHCE course)is to cut out pictures of faces showing emotions from a newspaper or magazine and laminate them (for longevity). Children can discuss how the person is feeling, why they are feeling like this and sometimes how to make them feel better or less angry.it works well also with pictures of groups of people. Older children can generate lots or words for the same emotion giving them a powerful emotional vocabulary.

    PSHCE personal,social,health, citizenship education

    We used the same techniques with different angles for nursery to secondary.

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