SAMPLE LESSON

Lesson 2: Feelings (4-5 year olds)

Outcome

Children will increase their awareness of feelings: sad, happy, mad, scared and mixed-up (confused).

Required Material

  • Teatree’s Feelings poster
  • Teatree’s Feelings Worksheet
  • Modelling clay
  • Paper and finger paint
  • (Optional) Music that expresses happy, sad, mad, scared, and mixed-up feelings

Background

Introducing lessons on feelings promotes increased self-awareness. Understanding how we feel in situations, how to express our feelings, and how to recognize feelings in others are all important components in preventing child abuse.

Presentation

Show the Teatree’s Feelings poster and review each feeling. Discuss how the children can tell that Teatree is happy (she has a smile on her face), mad (she is scowling), sad (she is crying), scared (her eyes are wide), and mixed-up (she looks confused). Ask them what they think “mixed-up” means.

Guided Practice

  1. Imitate

    Show an emotion on your face and ask children to copy it. Next ask the children to name it. Repeat for all emotions.
  2. Create a face

    Give the children modelling clay and ask them to make a face that is sad. Repeat for all emotions.
  3. Game: Body Feelings

    Ask the children to walk in a circle. With their bodies, ask them to physically portray each feeling. Next have the children sit in a circle and ask for volunteers. Whisper a feeling in the child’s ear and have her/him walk around the circle showing the feeling with her/his body (facial expression, body movements and pace of his/her walk). Have the other children guess the feeling. Ask them how they could tell (e.g. How was the child walking? What did her/his face look like?).

    (Optional) Play music that expresses each feeling.

    As the music plays, have the children walk around in a circle showing the feeling with their bodies, as outlined above.

Closure

  1. Teatree’s Feelings

    Photocopy and hand out the Teatree’s Feelings Worksheet and ask children to:
    • Put a circle around the face that is sad.
    • Put a square around the face that is happy.
    • Put a heart around the face that is mad.
    • Put an ‘X’ through the face that is scared.
    • Colour the face that is mixed-up.
  2. Finger Painting

    Give the children paper and finger paint and ask them to paint a picture of a happy face.

    Put the poster up in the classroom and ask children how they feel each day so they begin to monitor their emotions.