Kindergarten Lesson On Feelings

We started a new lesson in kindergarten today! In our previous lesson we focused on what to do when we feel mad. In this current lesson, we're learning to identify and understand a wide range of feelings. Developing an emotional vocabulary is important because figuring out what they're feeling is the first step in children helping themselves feel better with healthy, positive coping skills. This is generally preferable to expressing their feelings in hurtful, harmful ways that may get them in trouble and make their situations worse.

For our lesson, we first read the book The Way I Feel. It has colorful, descriptive pictures and does a nice job of pairing emotions with situations to help children understand feeling words they've never heard before. Then, children chose plastic "eggs" shaped like SpongeBob, baseballs, and footballs from my basket. (I find that if you put anything into plastic Easter-style eggs it is immediately more engaging for kids. Maybe you can apply this to homework... or vegetables! :)) In each egg was a different feeling word, like nervous, hurt, excited, or proud. Children stood behind a TV cut-out so it looked like they were on TV (see below), and told the class "I feel _____ when _____." For example, "I felt nervous when I went to my first baseball practice." It seems simple, but this is an important building block of understanding the wide variety of human emotions and identifying these feelings in ourselves so we can learn how to handle them effectively and appropriately.

I did this lesson with Mrs. Pate and Mrs. Hester's classes today. I'll also visit Curry, Sullivan, Watkins, and Mitchell this week. All other K classes will do the lesson next week. 

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