Let's Talk Feelings

Things you'll need for this activity

• Paper
• A cup or glass to trace around
• A marker pen
• Pencils/crayons for colouring
• Scissors

What you'll learn in this activity 

Ages Appropriate for ages 3+

Purpose A game that creates opportunity for children to recognise and talk about emotions and their expression. 

This is called emotional literacy and supports children to develop empathy and to regulate their emotional states. 

Let's play!

Follow these quick and easy steps to create your expressions.

1. Use the glass to trace out circles and draw a range of expressions—one onto each face. Children can help with the drawing, cutting out and colouring faces.
2. Write out the corresponding word for each emotion or feeling on a paper. Cut these out too.
3. Lay the face cards face-down and play a sorting game - aiming to match the faces with the words. Have your child describe what they can see and what they think the emotion is. Then find the matching word.
4. Talk about each feeling, relating your own examples and experiences and asking the child about times they’ve felt this way.

Talking together

Questions 

• Ask children how they might tell how others are feeling.
• Talk about the signs and visual cues - how might they respond if someone else was feeling sad, lonely or angry.

Extension

Provide children with other words to describe their feelings and extend their emotional vocabulary. For example:

• Angry: mad, grumpy, furious
• Excited: thrilled, eager, enthusiastic

We'd love to see your creations and home based play! Share with us on Facebook at @yrfamilies #YarraRangesPlay

You can contact the YRC Family & Children’s Services team on 1300 368 333 or by email at earlyyears@yarraranges.vic.gov.au