EMOTIONS

How many times do you wonder how are you throughout the day? When faced with this
question, most people answer with a simple good or bad. Many times they just give these
answers because they do not know how they really are, in other cases, although they
understand how they feel, they do not have enough resources to explain it to others so
that they understand them. But despite the fact that in many cases people do not know
how to express themselves easily, all people have different emotions during their lives,
and different feelings can be inhibited by lack of knowledge on how to express them.

For this reason, it is necessary to learn to identify feelings and know that there are no
negative or positive emotions, simply emotions move differently depending on how they
are managed and transmitted abroad.

 WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

It's important to begin teaching kids about their emotions as early as possible since
their feelings affect every choice they make. Kids who understand their emotions
are less likely to act out by using  temper tantrums, aggression, and defiance to
express themselves.

Teaching children about their emotions will help them to become mentally strong.
Kids who understand their emotions and have the coping skills to deal with them
will be confident that they can handle whatever life throws their way.

 THINGS TO BARE IN MIND IF YOU DEAL WITH CHILDREN

*Create Opportunities to Talk About Feelings.*

Show kids how to use feeling words in their daily vocabulary. Model how to
express feelings by taking opportunities to share your feelings. Say, “I feel sad that
you don’t want to share your toys with your friend today. I bet she feels sad too.”

*Teach Children How to Deal With Feelings.*

Kids need to learn that just because they feel angry doesn’t mean they can hit
someone. Instead, they need to learn anger management skills so they can solve
conflict peacefully.

*Proactively teach your child how to deal with uncomfortable emotions.*

Preschoolers need guidance to help them interpret their own feelings and emotions
and to interact appropriately with others. When you help children learn how to
communicate their feelings and emotions effectively, you give them the social and
emotional tools they need to deflate tense situations and to understand
themselves better.

*Give preschoolers words for their feelings and emotions.*

Start with simple language, such as angry, sad, happy or frightened, but move
beyond these initial "feeling" words to more descriptive ones, such as lonely,
excited, hungry, frustrated and thankful.

*Give your preschooler permission to express emotions and feelings without

inducing shame or guilt.*

Encourage children to express feelings appropriately rather than to repress them or

express them without regard for others. If your preschooler wants to hit when she's
angry, for example, find an appropriate way for her to express her anger.

*Give your preschooler the space she needs to explore her feelings.*

If a child needs time to calm down, give her/him a book or a soothing toy and help
her/him find a quiet place to be by her/himself. Refrain from associating quiet time
with punishment or time out. A child needs to know that needing space to
experience and work through feelings is natural and not a consequence of wrong
behavior.
SOME IDEAS FOR STUDENTS:

 Make up silly songs about different emotions, using any tune. For example (to row
row your boat) — I feel happy when I play outside. Let me show you my happy face
(everyone makes a happy face together). I feel angry when someone takes my toy.
Let me show you my angry face (everyone make an angry face together).I feel
scared when I hear a loud noise. Let me show my scared face (everyone make a
scared face together).
 Use puppets to act out different situations (e.g., one puppet takes a toy from
another puppet); ask the children what emotion(s) the puppets might be feeling
(have them choose from pictures of children making different emotions). After
labeling the emotions, have children practice making the emotion with their own
faces. Then ask what the puppet should do next to help when feeling the emotion.
Have the puppet model coping with the emotion.
 While reading books have the children raise their hands when they can tell how
the characters are feeling. Then have them act out those feelings or make faces
that correspond with the feelings as you read the book. For example, maybe the
mom in the story is feeling frustrated, all the kids can make frustrated faces until
she lightens her mood and is happy and then they will change their faces as well. 
 Sing when you're happy and you know it with verses using happy, mad, sad,
excited, scared etc. Include the actions you might do when you are feeling each
emotion. For example, “If you're mad and you know it, scrunch your face, give a
growl, cross your arms, etc.” Have children generate different ideas. Have each
child look in the mirror when they arrive.
 Mirror Faces: Have children line up in pairs that face each other. One child
pretends he is looking in the mirror and makes an emotion face. The other child
acts like the reflection and copies the emotion with his/her own face.
 Include emotion words in your discussion of letters and letter sounds. For example:
What emotion words start with /s/? Sad, Sulky, Surprised, Silly, etc.
 Listen to some different types of music such as rock music, classic etc., let the
children dance to the music, ask children how the song made the children feel.
 Let children cut out people from magazine showing different emotions, let children
sort them based on the emotions
 Emotion Password: Hang an emotion face card on the door jam. In order to pass
through, children have to make that face.
 Draw or take pictures of happy and sad faces; let the children match or sort the
faces
 During art, make paper plate feeling faces. Use skin tone paint and lots of collage
materials so children can create different feeling faces. Hang all of the emotion
 faces the children make on the wall and pair with real photographs of the children
in your class expressing the same emotions.

Be glad you can have so many different emotions because without them every day would
feel the same!