Understanding Feelings (Gr K-5)
In this module, students will learn and practice skills for understanding the way they feel. They will practice naming feelings, identifying their own emotional experiences, linking emotions with physiological sensations, and identifying feelings in others. They will come away with a firmer grasp on understanding their emotions and how to communicate their feelings, both of which are important components of emotion regulation.
How Was your Experience Using This Resource?
Alina Enoiu - 3rd Grade Teacher
Video explained each of the 5 feelings for students and kids were able to share that these were the same feelings from the Inside Out movie
Loved how the video posed a question for students—have you been on a roller coaster? How did you feel? By sharing this experience, students were able to better explain how their environment impacted their feelings.
My advice is to let students share their personal experiences often—if you seem engaged and ask them questions, they will naturally start to think about how those situations made them feel. Kids need practice thinking about their feelings and you can help them develop the confidence to share them.
Izamary Rios - 2nd Grade Teacher
Expanding students' vocabulary on how to express different feelings was so important and they have been so good at expressing how they feel now. I am so proud of them.
The understanding of how our bodies feel in different situations was eye opening to my students and some students even started coming up with ideas on how to calm our bodies down when we feel big feelings. It was great for them to understand that other people feel emotions in different parts of their bodies.
It is important to normalize talking about feelings and start slowly. Don't expect students to vocalize everything from one day to another. Be authentic with them.
Lynh Nguyen - Kindergarten Teacher
Read Alouds were a really great introduction to teaching the little ones what feelings and emotions are. It also helped to expand students' understanding and vocabulary that there are more emotions than just happy, sad, angry.
The Feelings Body activity in the video really helped my students process and recognize what they were feeling in the moment. I felt that this was an important tie to other SEL skills, especially self-management skills
Providing real-life role-play situations enabled my students to show authentic feelings, helping them pay attention to their feelings and emotions
Aasha Trosper - 2nd Grade Teacher
It was important to have students understand that emotions start from the basic 5 feelings, and it was impactful to have them expand their feelings vocabulary to encompass different scenarios.
The feeling thermometer allowed students the chance to understand feelings as not only in their mind but as bodily sensations that can/could validate their experiences.
My students loved playing feeling charades, it is a fun and engaging way to talk about SEL and it helps build understanding that their peers also experience the same feelings and sensations.