30 Activities to Understand and Manage Emotions

• The article provides 30 activities to help children understand and manage their emotions, suitable for home or classroom use. These activities aim to teach children to recognize, differentiate, and express their feelings effectively.
• The author Judith aims to share creativity and love for reading with the readers and their children.

Importance of Emotional Education

• Educating children about emotions from an early age is crucial.
• It can be challenging to know how to help children understand their feelings.
• It helps children understand their internal world and manage feelings.

Core Principles

• Activities should be based on these two basic foundations for children:
  • Play, which is a natural mechanism for learning and practicing skills.
  • Stories, give a safe and unparalleled emotional training environment.

Naming Emotions

• Creating an emotion dictionary involves using photos of people expressing emotions and having children identify and classify them.
• Adaptable for various ages, it enhances emotion recognition, vocabulary, awareness, and physical expression.

Emotion-Focused Story Time

• Reading stories focused on emotions helps kids expand their emotional vocabulary, identify feelings, understand experiences, empathize, and problem-solve.
• Focus on selecting the right stories to promote emotional exploration.
• To maximize learning ask about feelings in the story.
• Relate scenarios from the book to the child's own experiences.
• Anna Llenas book "The Color Monster" is recommended for younger children.

"The Theater of Emotions" Game

• Create a puppet theater to act out stories showcasing different emotions, promoting creativity and emotional expression.

"Drawing Emotions" Activity

• Have the child use a mirror while expressing different emotion to understand the different expressions.
• The child will then draw each expression and describe how it felt.

"Memory of Emotions" Game

• Create a memory game using photos of a child expressing various emotions, enhancing recognition and memory skills.
• To increase challenge, include more emotions or photos of multiple kids showing same feelings.

Integrating Music and Painting for Emotional Expression

• Use music to evoke emotions with children.
• Then ask them to paint freely, helping them to articulate their feelings and understand bodily sensations.

"Dominoes of Feelings" Game

• Match situations to corresponding emotions, reinforcing cause and effect understanding in emotional responses.
• This dominos game can be downloaded from the web.

DIY "Emotions Labyrinth"

• By preparing card with emotions on them, child and recognize each card then match it to an activity to display that emotions.

Emotion Charades

• Use emotion cards or have the child invent different emotions and have the other participants guess.

Bingo of Emotions

• Each player possesses a card with emotions on it.
• The cards come out and the player is required to mark the player with the same picture wins.

Understanding the Emotional Brain

• Understanding the emotional brain is key to managing emotions and impulsivity, emphasizing the importance of knowing the mechanisms activated during strong emotions.
• Recommended resource "The Whole-Brain Child" by Daniel J. Siegel explains emotion and brain connection.
• Also you can recommend the video "How to teach your kids about the brain"

Discipline with Positive Options Wheel

• As part of positive discipline, this tool helps children pick a safe outlet for negative emotions by listing appropriate responses.

Regulating Emotions

• You can use the following regulation to try and regulate emotions:
  • Drawing.
  • Activity "Diary of My Emotions".

Calm Space

• A designated area available for emotional regulation.
• Elements to include are listed in "Calm corner + 5 relaxing stories + 2 mindfulness books for children."

Relaxation exercises

• Breathing routines and/or light mobility work.
• "Ice Cube" meditation will assist with kids in emotion regulation.

Dealing with Conflict Scenarios

• You can use the following when using dealing with conflict scenarios:
  • Use role play.

The Turtle Technique

• When feeling overwhelmed, retreat into one's "shell" as a method of calming down before choosing to express emotions.

Empathy

• The post provides activites to stimulate:
  • "I AM YOU".
  • "ME, I AM CONCERNED FOR OTHERS".

Communication, Assertiveness and Active Listening Skills

• It is essential to have communication, Assertiveness and Active Listening Skills to grow and learn.

Communication in the Can

• To create stronger social links, encourage conversation.
• You can also encourage activities for better expression when in class or at home.

Active Listening

• It is important to have good active listening to communicate with people.

Vary the Question

• This will open opportunity for better comms.

Drawing Dictation

• One person must create the drawing and one person must re-create it.

The activity can show key components

• Empathy.
• Communication effort.

Self Knowledge Activities

• 15 activites are recommended to gain and discover self confidence.

My Name

• My Virtues game is great to boost self confidence.

My silhouette

• I'M UNIQUE activity helps them discover important things about themselves.

My happiness recipe

• Is a great dynamic to creating well being in children.

My tree

• The My tree is important when helping to connect with others.

Talking about mistakes

• It allows for positive discussion with your children.