Naming emotions

One of the first steps in emotional education is acknowledging the name of the emotions. The activity I'm going to present should be preceded by a similar one carried on in mother tongue, especially when we are dealing with very young students. Recognising the name of emotions give us the chance of taking control of them and process them in a healthy way.

Objective: Acknowledging the name of emotions.

Development:

1ST STEP:  I use a set of flashcards to elicit the name of emotions with students. We can play some oral games to practice them, such as memory, or cover a card with a piece of paper and uncover it little by little, until some student say the name of the emotion.

At the same time, I introduce the questions "How are you today?" and ask the students to say the emotion he or she is feeling at the present time.

It's important to clarify that several emotions can be felt at the same time: for example, we can be tired and happy, or tired and sad. We can deal with primary emotions with younger children (rage, sadness, fear...) and steep forward to secondary emotions with older ones (boredom, anxiety, shyness, etc...)

2nd STEP: The teacher hands out different sets of Emotion Cards. We can build the set using the previous set of flashcards, making them smaller. Students can play in groups. We can use Emotion cards for different purposes. In 3rd level class we used them to play a simple memory and students enjoy them a lot.