Emotions & Feelings Activities for Children
Emotions are everywhere! We communicate through them, make decisions based on them and they even influence how we remember things.
Sometimes, children can find it really tricky to identify, express or describe their emotions and feelings to others.
Teaching kids about emotions is one of the most valuable skills we can offer.
By building their emotional intelligence early on, we help them understand and regulate their feelings. Activities that explore emotions can make this learning process fun and meaningful.
What Emotions Tell Us
Children often have big emotions and big feelings. Emotional development requires a vocabulary of emotion words.
When young children can name how they feel, they can start to make sense of the feelings and learn what to do with them.
It also makes it easier for others to respond appropriately and meet their needs. The best way to teaching children about feelings is through play and interaction!
I like to think of emotions as a large umbrella of different coloured segments which categorise the 5 main groups. Within those groups we can experience a wide range of emotions in response to stimuli and different scenarios.
Emotions Categories
1) Joy (Yellow) – Positive emotions such as excitement, anticipation, pride, and happiness.
2) Sadness (Blue) – These emotions might include grief, worry, loneliness, self-loathing.
3) Fear (Black) – These include survival emotions such as anxiety, worry or alarm.
4) Anger (Red) – These encompass strong and defensive emotions such as frustration, annoyance and resentment.
5) Surprise (Purple)– Reactionary emotions can include shock, curiosity and awe.
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Feelings Activities for Children
Helping children explore their emotions not only supports their social and emotional learning but also builds crucial life skills. Understanding feelings enhances self-awareness, empathy, and communication. These are essential for building healthy relationships, solving problems, and managing stress effectively.
Engaging in play is a wonderfully effective way to develop these skills! There’s a wide array of enjoyable activities and games designed to teach children about feelings, tailored to suit different age groups. These activities make learning about emotions both fun and deeply impactful.
Young Children (8 and Under)
Paper Plate Faces: Let’s have some fun with paint! Decorate paper plates with different facial expressions, mix them up, and take turns guessing the emotions. Chat about when you might feel these emotions in real life, making it a wonderful bridge between play and genuine feelings.
Feelings Jar: Assign colours to emotions. Red for anger, yellow for joy, and so on. Your child can choose a colour that mirrors how they’re feeling and pop it into the jar. This is a simple yet effective way to open up conversations about emotions whenever they’re ready.
Storytime Book Feelings: Grab some children’s books that tackle emotional themes, perhaps one about losing a pet or the thrill of a holiday. It’s a great chance to dive into the characters’ feelings and discuss why they might react in certain ways, enhancing your child’s empathy and understanding.
Feeling Faces Chart: Together, draw a variety of faces expressing different emotions on a large piece of paper. It’s a fun way to help your child express how they’re feeling and understand others’ emotions, linking feelings with familiar expressions.
Play Dough Emotions: Shape some play dough into faces showing different emotions. This hands-on activity is perfect for exploring feelings and helps children learn to recognise and name emotions through creative play.
Older Children (9+)
Photographs: Look through some family photos and chat about the different expressions you find. It’s a great way to discuss personal emotions and consider what might have triggered these feelings, deepening emotional insights.
Mood Collage: Create a mood collage using magazine cutouts of different facial expressions, or family photos. This visual activity is particularly appealing for children who learn best through seeing and doing, helping them link expressions to emotions and enhancing their emotional literacy.
Printable Emotions Cards: Why not check out our printable emotions cards? They’re a fantastic visual tool for helping your child with recognising, expressing, and understanding different emotions. Plus, they make learning about feelings fun!
Charades: Act out different moods and emotions in a game of charades. It’s a lively way to explore and understand feelings, encouraging everyone to express themselves in an engaging and playful manner.
Feeling Mirrors: Play a game where you and your child mimic each other’s expressions. It’s a playful approach to understanding emotions, encouraging both observation and empathy in a fun and interactive setting.
Stranger Stories: Next time you’re out, like at an airport, have fun making up stories about the people you see. It’s a fantastic way to guess at emotions and develop empathy, turning simple observation into creative storytelling.
Each of these simple games is designed not just to teach about emotions but to make the process engaging and deeply meaningful, helping your children navigate their feelings and those of others in a fun and supportive way.
So, there are just a few healthy ways to incorporate emotions activities into everyday learning through great games, remembering that it’s not just our faces that tell someone how we are feeling, our body language plays a big part too.
How to Manage Difficult Emotions & Disruptive Behaviour Through Feelings Activities
Does your child find emotions difficult to manage and understand?
Is your child’s behaviour challenging in the context of difficult emotions?
Feelings activities can help them in a number of ways.
• To build emotional awareness
• To develop emotional regulation and self-soothing techniques
• To problem solve
• To develop good social communication skills.
Neurodivergence in children which includes conditions like ADHD and autism can sometimes make regulating, managing and reading emotions a real struggle.
I would recommend trying these activities to help reduce stress and anxiety whilst strengthening your child’s skills base and toolbox for coping.
Calm Down Yoga
Yoga is a fantastic tool for teaching kids about emotional regulation and calming their nerves. Through deep breathing, gentle poses, mindfulness, and meditation, yoga fosters a serene state of balance. Plus, there are loads of free yoga resources online that you can use to get started.
Calm Down Glitter Jar
Here’s a simple and fun art project that doubles as a soothing activity.
Fill a jar with glitter, and when your child feels a storm of emotions brewing, have them shake the jar.
As they watch the glitter swirl and then slowly settle, encourage them to breathe deeply. This visual metaphor helps kids see that just like the glitter, their feelings can settle too, with a bit of time and focus.
Teaching Feelings and Emotions Through School
Social and emotional learning is structured into the classroom and lesson plans. Your child will be learning skills right from their preschool years upwards. It’s going to be brilliant for their development if you can support this by practising at home!
Teaching Children to Describe and Express Emotions
By modelling your own emotional awareness and naming your feelings your children can learn to link events or actions to emotions.
Here are some sentence starters you could use to encourage your child to express emotions.
• “How are you feeling? Happy, sad, or something else?”
• “Can you show me with your face how you feel?”
• “What made you smile today?”
• “You look like you might be feeling [emotion]. Is that right, or is it something else?”
• “What colour describes how you’re feeling?”
• “How do you think that situation made your friend feel?”
• “If your feelings could talk, what would they say right now?”
• “If you could draw or write your feelings, what would it look like?”
I recommend a great resource for parents called Hand2Mind.
Hayley Vaughan-Smith is a Person-Centred Counsellor accredited by the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society. She is the founder and counsellor at The Ridge Practice in Buckinghamshire, and counsellor at Everlief Child Psychology.
Hayley has a special interest in bereavement counselling and worked as a bereavement volunteer with Cruse Bereavement Care for four years.
Hayley is mum to 3 grown up girls, and gardening and walking in nature is her own personal therapy. Hayley believes being in nature, whatever the weather, is incredibly beneficial for mental health well-being.
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