Learn to show and identify different emotions using facial and body expressions to act out and guess different feelings.
What you’ll need: Paper, markers or pens, scissors and at least one person to play with
What’s it for?
This activity will allow you to explore and recognise a wide range of emotions that can help you understand how you and others may feel in different situations. Being able to name and recognise feelings in yourself and others will strengthen your ability to respond with kindness and care to other people’s experiences. This is also called EMPATHY.
Check In:
Notice how you’re feeling right now. Close your eyes and notice what’s going on inside your mind and body.
How are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
How does your body feel?
Method:
DISCUSSION
Take a moment to think and discuss the following questions:
o How can you tell when someone is happy?
o How about sad, angry, or scared?
o Can you think of some signs that help you recognise how another person may be feeling?
Before we even hear someone talk, their facial expressions and body language can tell us a lot about how they may be feeling.
PREPARATION & TEAMWORK
Prepare your materials and find a comfortable place to work, such as a desk or a table.
Think about all the different emotions you can name, both positive and the more challenging ones and nominate one person to write them down on a piece of paper. Think of as many feelings as you can name - you can ask an adult in your household to help you. This could be happy, sad, shy, angry, frustrated, scared, loved, proud, confident, nervous, upset, tired, jealous, joyful, confused, excited, etc.
Now, count the feelings on your list and cut out equally sized cards to represent each feeling. Working as a team, share the cards equally and write down one feeling from the list on each card. You can draw a picture of each emotion and get creative with decorating your cards.
THE GAME
The first nominated person draws a feeling card without showing it to others and acts out the emotion word for the rest of the group to guess.
The actor can use facial expressions and body language without using words!
The person who correctly guesses the feeling will get to draw the card and show the feeling next.
Continue playing until all the emotion words have been acted out or as many fit in your time frame.
Extra Activity: Use the cards to think about your own experiences related to the feeling on the card and share with the group. For example, if your card represents ‘sad’, share a time when you felt this way. What did your body feel like? What helped you feel better?
When you’ve finished, spend a moment reflecting on the activity and ask yourself the following questions:
What cues helped you guess the feeling acted out during the game?
Was it easy or hard to guess?
What made it easy or challenging?
Recognising and understanding how other people may be feeling is called empathy. What would be an empathetic response to someone who is feeling sad? What about scared?
Did you discover anything surprising while you did this activity?
Conclusion:
This activity helps you to recognise and understand how another person may be feeling. Sometimes it can be difficult to guess what another person is feeling and the best way to know that is to ask them. If you think your friend may be feeling sad, you could ask them the following question: ‘It looks like you may be feeling sad, would you like to talk about it?’ When we show empathy towards others, we show that we care about them. Even if they do not want to talk about their emotions at the time, they will most likely appreciate your care and support.
Take a moment to notice how you are feeling at the end of this activity. Did you discover anything surprising? What can you take away to make you feel better about yourself from this activity?
If you would like to, share something about your experience with this activity with someone you live with! Ask the person who looks after you to send us an email if you have any questions or comments about the activity or would like to send us any pictures (info@catcorner.co.uk). Don't forget to subscribe for more fun CAT activities!
Created by Karolina Koman © December 2020
Creative Arts Used: Art, Creative Writing, Drama
Psychological Areas Explored: Emotional Literacy, Relationships, Resilience, Self-Exploration
If you enjoyed this activity, you might also like: Feelings Hide-and-Seek: Let’s find our hidden feelings!
These activities could be done by children of all ages, but some may need the support of their parent or carer to read the instructions or complete the activity safely.
This website was made by CAT Corner to help you explore your feelings through fun creative arts activities. The people using the website and the people responsible for them need to make sure they stay safe (full disclaimer on About page).
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