Pinning down the word that perfectly describes a feeling can be difficult, even for adults. Developing emotional intelligence requires experience and introspection, but a basic vocabulary comes first.
We created the Emotion Faces printout to help children match a word (and a face) with their feelings. Each of the colorfully illustrated faces depicts an emotion, with a simple emotion word to describe it.
How to implement the Emotion Faces printout is up to you, but here are a few suggestions:
- As a check-in ritual, encourage children to select an emotion from the sheet to describe how they're currently feeling.
- Periodically ask your client to check in with the emotion faces during stories. Let them select the emotion that best represents how they were feeling.
- Cut out each of the emotion faces, and put them in a bowl for activities. For example, as an icebreaker, ask members of a group to select an emotion, and share a story about that emotion.
- Create a small poster for the wall or bulletin board in your office to make things a bit more colorful.
We've also created an interactive version of our emotion faces, which you can find below!
