I teach twice a week, and my students range in age from two and a half years old at the start of the year to pushing four years old by the end. That is a lot of development in one year, which is why I find this age so much fun to teach. My school follows monthly themes, but one theme that we teach and talk about all the time is emotions. I devote at least one circle time lesson a month to emotions. Here are some ways to explore emotions at preschool. I hope you find a great lesson plan on feelings and emotions for preschool on my list.
My circle time routine starts with a good morning song, followed by our chant, a story, and then a short group activity. If the children are extra wiggly, tired, or the book is extra long, I skip the activity. At three sitting for a long period isn’t just hard; it’s not natural. I want to set my students up for success, and making group time fit their abilities is key to that success. Then we get down to business, in this case with a feelings circle activity.
This post contains affiliate links.
What makes a good lesson plan on feelings and emotions for preschoolers?
Book: The Grumpy Morning
This is one of my favorite books about emotions for kids because this book doesn’t talk so much about being grumpy, it deals mostly with being impatient. Â The animals on the farm can’t wait for the farmer to wake up and feed them and are getting grumpy waiting. If your classroom has a farm theme during the year, this is a great book to hit that theme while discussing emotions too.
Activity: Play Red Light Green Light
You may not immediately think of this game being about emotions, but it forces little ones to wait when all they want to do it run to the end. If you have never played before here are the rules:
One person (the teacher or parent) stands on one side of a field, room, gym.
The children are at the other end. Preschoolers do best if one teacher is with them and the other calling out the colors.
The teacher explains that green means go, yellow means slow, and red means stop. I usually wait a good bit after calling our red light; I want to build their anticipation and give them a chance to work on that self-control. It’s tough!
Now with older kids, I eliminate kids who don’t slow on yellow or stop on red but with preschoolers, I just praise rule following.
With preschoolers, they are just excited to get to you and give you hugs or high fives.
Book: I Was So Mad
Mercer Mayer and his Little Critters were favorites of mine as a preschooler, and they are still relevant thirty-five years later. Kids love these characters, and the magic is in how the emotions really jump off the page with simple text perfect for young preschoolers.
Activity: Â Mad and Sad Sorting.
Prep: Print out these printable faces  (click here to print pdf) or take photos of your students making different mad and sad faces. Cut out and laminate.
This is a great game to play when you don’t have the time, or your students don’t have the bandwidth for a long activity. Explain to them that all the photos are of people who are mad or sad, and they need to shout out that answers. I don’t know about your class, but mine love it when I encourage them to shout it out!
Shuffle the card and start slow giving the children a chance to look and shout out their answer. Then start speeding up. Feel free to go through the faces a few times as you get faster and faster. This is supposed to be silly and fun, but the lesson won’t be lost because of it.
Book:Â The Pigeon Has Feelings Too
The Pigeon is well known for his temper tantrums that preschoolers think are hilarious, but this book includes more emotions. Familiar book characters can be a great way of getting kids engaged in talking about emotions.
Activity: How do they feel?
Prep: Print out these printable faces (click here to print) Â or take photos of your students making different mad and sad faces. Cut out and laminate. Pop the photos in a basket or bag and pull one out at a time. Ask the children how the child feels. They can yell it out or mimic the feeling as their answer. This is a GREAT activity with very young groups, and you can keep it going for a long time if they are into it and cut it short if they are wiggly. Also, it makes a great activity put out at free choice for the children to explore on their own.
Pop the photos in a basket or bag and pull one out at a time. Ask the children how the child feels. They can yell it out or mimic the feeling as their answer. This is a GREAT activity with very young groups, and you can keep it going for a long time if they are into it and cut it short if they are wiggly. Also, it makes a great activity put out at free choice for the children to explore on their own.
Book: The Feelings Book
Todd Parr is one of my favorite authors for a good reason, his simple books cut to the heart of whatever topic he is tackling. What I love about this book is that it talks about how we all feel different emotions sometimes. But, sometimes we are mad or sad or silly! The bright colors capture your audience as well.
Activity: How Would YOU feel?
Prep: Print out these printable pictures (click to print), cut out and laminate.
Show the photos one at a time to the children and ask them how they would feel. For example:
How would you feel if you had to hug your mom goodbye?
How would you feel if you got to open a birthday gift?
Ask the children to make the face to tell you how they would feel if this happened to them. This is a tough exercise for some kids, and that’s OK, some other children will latch on to it easily, and between their example and your lead, you will provide the kids that don’t a great scaffold.
I will usually mention one or two children with each picture. “Wow, Sally, I see your sad face! If you had to hug your mom goodbye, you would feel very sad.”
Make sure you use the cards or something else concrete for this activity because young children still develop their ability to think hypothetically. They need that real object to put themselves into the situation.
I am not sure if I need to mention this, but please remember only to use photos that will prompt discussion and not elicit a huge emotional response. If you have students with separation anxiety, skip the photo with a child saying goodbye until they are done with that stage.
Book: The Way I Feel
I read this book most often when talking about emotions with students. It is so comprehensive, and the rhyming text makes it a fun read aloud too. It is a longer book so I will pick 4-5 emotions to read one time and then switch it up for another reason with very young preschoolers. While I read this book, I try to match my body to the emotions as well as my face.
Activity: Emotion Action Song.
The song is a variation on the classic “If You Are Happy, And You Know It.”
When I sing this, I over exaggerate my faces. And I encourage the children to make the faces along with the body language. So often we focus emotion lessons only on faces, but children’s bodies tell us how they are feeling too.
If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands
If you are happy, and you know it clap your hands
If you are happy, and you know it, then your face will surely show it
If you are happy, and you know it, clap your hands.
Now replace happy with different emotions:
Mad – cross your arms.
Frustrated – stomp your feet.
Excited – jump up and down.
Sad – make a frown
Scared – hide your face.
Do you have any other suggestions on books about feelings that would go well with this circle time lesson? Â Stop over on Facebook and let me know!
Looking for more great preschool activities?
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO FIND INSIDE EVERYDAY PRESCHOOL:
- Over 170 simple preschool activities that use everyday materials. You don’t need to invest a lot of money to teach your child at home.
- Activities are short, with minimal prep, so you can fit some learning into your busy day.
- The book is organized into nine categories of learning; literacy, math, science, sensory, art, fine motor, gross motor, social-emotional, and bedtime reading tips.
- Everyday Preschool activity book was created using various state standards for PreK and has tips for making activities easier or harder to fit your child.
- An Appendix filled with an extensive book list links to free printables, song lyrics, nursery rhymes, my favorite playdough recipe, and more.
HERE IS A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE EVERYDAY PRESCHOOL
Sarah Poole says
This is a brilliant resource for NURTURE group as all have a non understanding of their own emotions. Use it & thank you so much. I cannot emphasise how much NURTURE GROUPS need this pre school approach.
Diolch
Jeanine says
Allison, these are perfect books!!!! We LOved Meyers book suggested so much we bought the App too! It helped a lot to for my daughter to name feelings. I will have to get the farm animal one and the way I feel to give them a try. Thanks for the Printables 😉 Amaze!
Allison McDonald says
Oh Jeanine – I am so glad you like these!
Natasha says
These are great ideas for teaching emotions! Thank you for listing the books as well, I am always looking for good books to go with our themes.
Rebekah Gienapp says
These printables are great (and I love that they are multicultural, which can be hard to find). With my four year old I find that sometimes when it’s hard for him to identify an emotion I have to start by asking him things like “do you think she feels happy?” etc.
Allison McDonald says
Thank you so much for noticing my efforts to make the printables multicultural. That was very much intentional. I did the mad and sad sorting with my 2.5 – 4 year olds yesterday and it was a huge hit!
Rachel Stephenson says
I am new to the world of preschool. After I show the angry and sad faces and let them shout out what they see, what do I say to the kids besides “These are emotions you might sometimes feel and it’s okay” what else do they need to know? How to handle their emotions? What they should do when they feel angry? I don’t know?? Thank you so much!
Allison McDonald says
Rachel,
Depending on how engaged they are how well they are paying attention, I would perhaps take a minute to say something like ” I feel so angry when someone takes my toy, or I felt angry when I wanted to go to the park but it was raining… the goal of these lessons isn’t to handle emotions as much as simply to recognize them which is the first step. My preferred way to talk about handling them in one on one in free choice time. Does that help?
Flo says
I think is really important for them to understand that ALL the emotions are good. it’s how we express them that makes all the difference(that applies to the adults as well)
If I’m angry and I hit everyone and break things – that is not very good for me or for the others – so, you have to teach them ways how to express emotions that are appropriate, like you can use your words to tell me that you are very angry, you can jump 5 times, you can stomp your feet or whatever is appropriate for you and your culture.
I recommend the book The whole brain child by Dr Daniel Siegel and Dr Tina Payne Bryson. Here you have a summary of it (but you should read the entire book)
http://www.themontessorinotebook.com/summary-of-the-whole-brain-child/
Danel says
Hi Alison,
I love the Bunny – “When I’m feeling…..” Series books and the children adore them too.
Thank you for the ideas!