Guess the Feeling
This game is an easy way to help children increase emotional awareness and empathy. Simply hold up a card and ask a child to guess what the feeling is. You can do this in a classroom, at home or in a counseling session. When a child guesses correctly, you can move on to the next card. By being able to identify what feelings look like, children will develop an ability to recognize emotions in others as well as themselves.
switch the strategy
This activity helps children see that there are a variety of strategies to help manage a given emotion. Children are asked to pick a feeling and then look at the strategies on the back of other cards and choose a strategy that would help with their feeling. This exercise helps children see the overall advantage of strategies and will enable them to choose a strategy that feels right for them.
more than one
Ask a child to choose more than one feeling they have about a given situation. For example, a child may feel excited and scared about their birthday party. They may be both happy and sad on the last day of school. The ability to recognize more than one feeling can exist in a given situation helps children increase flexible thinking and gain emotional awareness.
rate the feeling
This strategy helps children learn how to measure the intensity of their emotions. Ask a child to choose a feeling and then rate how intense their feeling is from 1-10. Talk about how the feeling feels in their body and when they have felt the same feeling more or less intensely.
