Feelings and Emotions

This is one of my favorite preschool themes. I ended up with it one year, and loved it so much, that I always assign it to myself now. I've taught this theme three different years now, I think. 

I found this idea at Perpetual Preschool- Feelings Art. Basically, take photos of each child giving their best happy, angry, silly, sad, scared, etc photos. I take photos on the first day of preschool and then have them printed before our second day. Then I made book pages for each photo, and a line on it that says, "I feel scared when ________________" and as we glue in the photos, I ask them when they feel scared, happy, sad, etc. The answers are adorable, (or heartbreaking, when your child says they feel sad because of something you did), Such a fun keepsake.  I LOVE our emotions books, and the kids have too. 

Mr. T. had the day off school when we did this, so I took updated emotions pics of him too. 

Mr. A was grumpy about something, so many of his photos look similar, but still cute!

We played a Share A Smile Game (found at LDS.org (Children's Manual-I have feelings). 

Share a Smile   Have the children stand in a circle. Ask them to make their lips straight and not smile. Then start a smile around the circle by smiling and saying the following words: “I will give a smile to (child’s name).” The child you named should now smile and repeat the phrase, inserting the name of the next child. Continue until all the children in the circle are smiling. Remind the children that when we smile at other people, they will often smile back. It is hard to be sad, angry, or frightened when we are smiling

We also painted our feelings (also found at Perpetual Preschool). 

Painting Feelings    Give the kids paint, paper and a paintbrush. Have a tape recorder with different types of music (classical, rap, rock, instrumental etc) Tell them that when the music is on they paint on the paper to the speed and the mood they feel. The kids and I had fun, painting slow and relaxed to classical and going very fast for the fast songs. (We talked about feelings after: sad, happy, surprised etc.) It is very interesting to see the differences between the two. I posted both types of paintings on bulletin boards so the parents could see what a difference music makes!

I liked this cute song that I found at Hummingbird Ed. 

Feelings   I Have Feelings  "Frere Jacques" 

I have feelings; I have feelings. 

Look at me, and you'll see. 

Sometimes I feel [mad]; 

Really, really [mad]. 

Look at me, and you'll see.

and of course we sang, "If You're Happy and You Know It". :)

The kids loved this little game that I also found at Perpetual Preschool. I drew simple line drawings on metal concentrate orange juice lids. Well, actually, I had Miss B. do it. Then I spread them out on the floor so the children could see all of them, and then I read or told them scenarios, and asked them to find how they would feel in a situation. Some situations that they gave were:  Situations: you lost your mittens, a goat is eating your shoes,  you can fly,  you see a beautiful butterfly, you have to do chores before playing with friends,  you found a bird feather,  you have a new puppy,  you fell & skinned your knee, you lost your favorite toy,  you can't find your shoes, etc. They just wanted to keep playing and playing. 

I found some children's shows that cover different emotions. I have not prewatched all of these, they are just to give you some ideas, and keep your children learning on this theme. 

Blue's Clues:

Season 2 Episode 14: Blue's Sad Day

Season 3 Episode 16: What's So Funny

Season 2 Episode 20: Shy

Season 4 Episode 28: I'm so Happy

Season 5 Episode 20: Body Language