Teaching Children a Vocabulary for Emotions

Lise Fox and Rochelle Harper Lentini
Teaching Children a Vocabulary for Emotions
Did you know that children who have a large vocabulary of “feeling words” can better
express their emotions using language rather than through problem behavior? The
feelings activities that follow are fun ways to teach children a vocabulary for emotions.
Many of the activities use “feeling faces”—faces expressing a variety of emotions.
Drawings of children’s faces representing 10 feelings are available online at
www.csefel.uiuc.edu—under Resources, click on Practical Strategies, and go to
Feeling Chart in the section Teaching Social-Emotional Skills.
Dice—Print drawings of children’s faces representing different emotions. Glue
the faces and feeling words you want to teach on the six sides of a small box
(a collapsible gift box works well). Have children toss the box (as if tossing
a die), and when it settles, read the feeling word for the face on top or
have the children identify the feeling. Ask the children to remember a time
they felt that way, or ask them to imitate the expression in the drawing.
Spinner—Print the pictures representing feeling words and paste them on a
game spinner board. (A Feeling Wheel is available online in the Feeling
Chart pages—see Web address above.) Have a child spin the spinner,
identify the feeling it points to, and talk about a time he or she experi-
enced the feeling. Children can
also use the spinner to point to
an emotion that a character in a
story may feel.
Classroom book—Create a class-
room book of feeling words using
photographs you’ve taken of the
children demonstrating feelings.
The book can be about one feel-
ing or many. For individual child-
Lise Fox, PhD, is a professor in
the Department of Child and
Family Studies of the Louis de la
Parte Florida Mental Health
Institute of the University of South
ren you can make books about one
Florida in Tampa. She conducts
feeling—having the child provide the
research and training and develops
text by talking about what triggers
support programs focused on
young children with challenging
the emotion—or many feelings.
behavior.
Rochelle Harper Lentini, MEd, is
Check-in board—Create a check-in
a faculty member in the Department
board where children place their
of Child and Family Studies of the
name tag or photo next to a feeling
Louis de la Parte Florida Mental
Health Institute. She provides
picture. Follow up with children,
training and technical assistance to
talking with them about the emo-
early educators and families on
tion they chose and the circum-
supporting young children with
stances related to their feelings.
challenging behavior and promoting
social and emotional competence.
As the day progresses and feel-
Photos courtesy of the authors.
ings change, you can facilitate
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children’s chang-
ing the placement
of their name tag
to indicate their
new feelings.
Puppets—Children
can create pup-
pets that discuss
feelings and role-
play classroom
situations. Print
pictures of a
variety of feeling faces and give children each a
set of faces with Velcro tabs to attach inter-
changeably on their puppet’s face. Children can
complete the puppet by adding hair and clothing.
Bingo—Children can play bingo using feeling pic-
tures in place of the traditional numbers. When
you pull a card with a feeling picture out of a bag,
ask the children to identify the feeling, make the
expression on their faces, and then place a marker
on the appropriate face on their bingo card.
Thinking about
emotions during
story time—While
reading children’s
books, stop
periodically and
ask the children
what a character
is feeling. You may
wish to have a
chart of feeling
pictures for the
children to scan or
point to when
responding.
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Child-Friendly Ideas for Teaching Problem Solving
Problem solving is a complex skill for young children to master. Yet, children’s
inability to problem solve can often lead to challenging behavior. Here are some child-
friendly ideas for teaching problem solving.
Find graphics for the four Problem-Solving Steps (in the puppet activity) and for the
Solution Kit activity online at www.csefel.uiuc.edu—under Resources, click on Practical
Strategies, and go to the section Teaching Social-Emotional Skills.
Problem-solver puppet—Have a class puppet
help you teach children how to problem solve.
The puppet can show the children picture cards
to teach them the steps to problem solving. The
puppet can also provide feedback and encour-
agement to children when they use their problem-
solving skills and review at the end of the day
who was a problem solver and why.
Solution Kit—The Solution Kit can be used to
teach children possible solutions to a variety of
problems (the kit is available at http://csefel.
uiuc.edu/modules-archive/module2/handouts/
9.pdf). You can use the pictures from the kit to
teach, cue, and
assist with
problem solving
during classroom
situations.
Role play—You
can use role-
playing to show
children ex-
amples of both
effective and
inappropriate
ways to problem
Copyright © 2006 by the National Association for the
solve. You can
Education of Young Children. See Permissions and
share situations with the children to act out or read scenarios from a
Reprints online at
www.journal.naeyc.org/about/permissions.asp.
storybook.
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