Emotions for Kids: Lessons & Activities for the Classroom

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Teaching basic emotions to kids is easy with these social-emotional learning lessons and activities for the classroom, designed to help young students understand and express their feelings in a safe, supportive environment and support their mental health.

Teaching Emotions to Kids to Develop Emotional Regulation

Ever wonder how to help young children recognize, manage, and express their feelings? Social-emotional learning will be a major focus in your classroom, but don’t worry—we’ve got you covered with fun, engaging ideas to teach emotions and support your students’ emotional growth.

Why do students need help learning how to express healthy emotions and feelings?

Students learn healthy emotional habits and ways of expressing their feelings at home and in interactions with family and friends. Children tend to pick these things up naturally.

They learn by watching how others respond and mimicking their behavior. Many kids participate in their churches, community centers, sports, and hobbies, where they also learn how to interact with friends and neighbors.

But what about the students who don’t have such opportunities?

As teachers, we are responsible for modeling, teaching, and encouraging children to practice healthy emotional responses to everyday situations and events. Our ultimate goal is to help children learn emotional language, express their feelings, and calmly handle difficult situations.

Teaching Emotions to Kids to Develop Emotional Regulation
Emotions for Kids: Lessons and Activities for the Classroom
Teaching Emotions in the Classroom
More Activities and Lessons for Teaching Emotions

Emotions for Kids: Lessons and Activities for the Classroom

Teaching kids about emotions is more than just a lesson about emotions and feelings—it’s a way to help them navigate the ups and downs of life. In the classroom, assisting students in understanding and expressing their feelings can significantly affect their behavior, relationships, and overall well-being.

Here are some fun, practical lessons and activities to incorporate emotional awareness into your daily routine. These will help kids connect with their feelings and those of others.

1. Helping Kids Identify Different Emotions

Children should be taught the language necessary to label and identify the different emotions they may experience. We need to let them know that feeling different emotions is normal.

Teaching children the vocabulary needed and appropriate ways to describe their feelings encourages them to express themselves productively and develop emotional intelligence.

Recognizing Facial Expressions and Body Language: Teach kids to identify and name emotions by noticing body signals, like a frown when nervous, elevated eyebrows when surprised, or tight shoulders when angry. Once they recognize their feelings, they can better understand others’ facial expressions and body language. Consider using five minutes in your morning meetings to model the primary emotions.
Feelings Chart: Use a visual reference like an emotion chart to help students recognize and identify their feelings and learn the names of different emotions. Kids can place a clip on the chart to show their feelings.

Play Games: One fun way to introduce, teach, and practice the names of emotions is to play an engaging game with students, such as emoji card games, matching games, and board games.

2. Teaching Kids Healthy Expression of Emotions

We all feel the full range of emotions. Whether they are happy or sad, engaged or bored, proud or embarrassed, we can help them express those emotions in a safe and healthy way. The classroom is a great place to learn and practice!

“I Feel…” Statements: Teach students to express emotions with “I feel…” statements. Instead of yelling, Johnny can say, “I feel sad that you broke my crayon,” encouraging healthy communication and conflict resolution.
Coping with Extreme Emotions: Kids sometimes need help managing big emotions. Guiding them back to calmness means addressing their whole brain and understanding what they need to feel balanced.
Teaching Emotional Rights: Help children understand their emotional rights, set healthy boundaries with peers, and show respect to teachers and adults.

3. Connecting Kids to Experiences with Emotions

Children learn to embrace their emotional state by realizing that it is normal and ok to feel the way they do. It’s our job to give them opportunities to label their feelings correctly. Emotional memory is strong!

We can harness that power by helping students connect their classroom experiences with their emotions. Recognizing and acknowledging their feelings during a learning activity or classroom event can increase the chances of it sticking in our students’ long-term memory. You see, that’s why emotions for kids are so important!

Feelings Journal: Encouraging students to journal about their feelings is helpful. Students express their feelings by writing about learning tasks, field trips, or school events. We often use this learning method in our classrooms to improve handwriting, spelling, vocabulary, and writing skills.

Emotion Sort: Have students sort pictures of children experiencing different emotions. By doing so, they will gain practice recognizing facial expressions and body language and feel more confident understanding their and others’ feelings.

4. Teaching Kids about Brain Biology and Emotions

The human brain is a fascinating subject, even for the youngest learners. Teach them what the parts of the brain are called, and talk about how different parts of the brain control their emotions and feelings.

Brain Craftivity: Try this fun craft activity that teaches children about the parts of the brain that control emotions.

emotions brain activity with a binder behind it

Upstairs and Downstairs: To explain how the parts of our brain work together and how emotions can sometimes take over, try explaining it in terms they can understand, such as “upstairs and downstairs.”

5. Encouraging Kids to Have a Positive Mindset

Additionally, self-talk and self-motivation skills should be added. Positive and encouraging self-talk will help your students succeed and create a more positive classroom environment. For example, you can teach them ways to feel good and focus on positivity. Here are ways to influence them to have a good attitude at school and teach emotions to kids.

Create a Vision Board: Vision boards help kids visualize what makes them happy and what they want to achieve, encouraging them to set goals and succeed in the classroom.

My Heart Map: This creative activity encourages children to thoughtfully consider what makes them happy and depict it on paper. It’s a great way to help them recognize their emotions and focus on a positive outlook.

Teach Growth Mindset: Any lesson about emotions and feelings can easily be integrated into a growth mindset curriculum plan. The two go together like peas and carrots!

Teaching Emotions in the Classroom

Emotions Self-Awareness Unit

The Emotions: Social Emotional Learning Unit by Proud to Be Primary includes five detailed, research-based lessons on emotions for kids. It is filled with hands-on and mindful activities to help a child’s emotional development.

The curriculum teaches children how their brain controls their emotions, how to identify and express their feelings, and ways to encourage a positive mindset.

Emotions Book Companions

The Emotions Book Companions by Proud to Be Primary includes five book companions on popular children’s books about feelings and emotions. Children will participate in classroom discussions and book chats, share their feelings in written form, and participate in fun, engaging activities that build emotional awareness and social skills.

Looking for a specific book companion?

FREE Emotions Lesson & Feelings Journal

Help students learn to identify and process their feelings in an emotion journal. Click the image below for a FREE lesson and activities on identifying and labeling emotions.