09/14/2026
September is the perfect time to teach feelings identification - the foundational skill to self-regulation! 🩷🤗
✨ Here are 5 of my best tips for teaching elementary learners to name their emotions:
▫️ Start with rich visuals to make abstract concepts like feelings more concrete for little learners. Feelings charts and posters make emotions come to life! Choose clipart images or photographs - both have their own pros and cons!
▫️Teach feelings words beyond, "happy, sad, and mad." Introduce words like worried, frustrated, embarrassed, disappointed, excited, lonely, jealous, proud, and overwhelmed.
▫️Connect feelings to body clues. Explain: “Our bodies give us clues about how we’re feeling, kind of like secret messages. When you know how to read those clues, you can understand your feelings better and make good choices.”
▫️Teach the sentence stem: "I feel ________." It sounds so simple, but being able to properly name our feelings goes a LONG way!
▫️Use plenty of real-life examples and scenarios. Try role plays and scenario cards. This also lets students see that people can have different feelings about the same situation.
🔗 Want more tips for teaching kiddos to name their feelings? Please comment EMOTIONS below and I'll message you the link to my blog post!
