Exploring Emotions with Young Children
Feelings are a natural part of life, and even young children and babies experience a wide range of emotions. For children under 5 helping to recognize and express their feelings can set them on a path toward emotional well-being. While they may not have the words to describe their feelings, they can still experience them deeply. Learning to identify and understand their emotions helps children manage big feelings and build positive relationships.
Following on from our Happiness Day post, here is a similar fun activity exploring emotions together as a family 😀
What You’ll Need:
- Small clear jar or container (like a mason jar or a plastic jar)
- Small pieces of paper or post it notes
- Markers or crayons
- Scissors
- Optional: Stickers or decorations to personalize the jar
Instructions:
- Prepare the Emotions Jars:
- Start by decorating your jars or containers together with your child. You can use stickers, markers, paint or other materials to personalize it. You can label them different emotions like Happy, Sad, Angry, Excited, Scared or Proud 🙂😞😡😴
- Create Emotion Cards:
- Write down different words that relate to each feeling or emotion on small pieces of paper or post it notes. You can also draw simple pictures to represent the emotion or adults can cut out images from magazines.
- Explore Feeling together
- Together add the completed cards or post it notes into the correct Emotion Jars.
Talk through the emotion cards in the jars. You could ask questions like: “Which emotion have you felt this week? What makes you feel happy?”
We hope you enjoy this Emotions Jar activity and have fun exploring feelings and emotions together 🥰
