Preschool Lesson Plans

Emotion Lesson Plans

Emotion Poems, Songs & Rhymes

Playfully Practice Identifying Feelings

​Activity:  ​

Playfully Practice Identifying Feelings

Age Group:

Toddler

Preschool

School-Age

Objective:

To help children identify and understand their own emotions and the emotions of others through a fun and interactive game.

​CDA Competency Standard:

​III.8.2b

​

• Candidate's interactions help children develop positive self-concepts..

b) Shows sensitivity to and acceptance of each child's feelings and needs.
example: Helps children understand and appropriately express their own feelings.

Materials:

• A variety of books or scripts with expressive dialogue

Procedure:

1. Introduction: Begin the lesson by explaining the importance of understanding and expressing our emotions. Introduce the concept of identifying feelings through vocal tones, facial expressions, and body language.
2. Activity: Start by saying sentences with different emotional emphases. For example, you could say, “It’s cold outside” in an animated, angry voice. Then, children would try to guess your emotion. Repeat the words, but this time change the emotion—be delighted, or nervous, or bored. Encourage the children to say something in an emotional voice and let you guess the emotion.
3. Reading Session: Choose a book or script with expressive dialogue. When you read a voice with an expression (“Give me my shoe!” in a loud, angry tone, for instance), ask the children if you had the best voice for the feeling, and then let them try saying what the character said.
4. Reflection: Discuss how this activity helped the children understand their emotions better. Encourage them to share their experiences.

Closure: Conclude the lesson by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and expressing our emotions. Let the children know that they can use these exercises whenever they want to talk about their feelings but are finding it hard to express them.

Follow-Up: Continue to incorporate this activity into your regular reading sessions. Use it as a conversation starter to discuss emotions and feelings in the future.
By the end of this lesson, children will have a better understanding of their emotions and will be equipped with a creative tool to express and communicate their feelings effectively.

Assessment:

• For younger children were they able to discern which emotion was portrayed?
• How well did the children express different emotions, were they able to use appropriate emotions for the situations?

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Emotion Matching Games to Support Self-Awareness

​Basic Emotion Matching Game

• Materials Needed: Cards with various facial expressions and corresponding emotion words.
• How to Play: Lay out the cards face up. Children take turns picking a facial expression card and finding the matching emotion word card. This simple activity helps children connect visual cues with emotional vocabulary.
• Learning Outcome: Helps children identify and name different emotions.

​Emotion Memory Game

• Materials Needed: Pairs of cards with facial expressions and emotion words.
• How to Play: Place all cards face down in a grid. Children take turns flipping over two cards at a time, trying to find matching pairs (e.g., a facial expression with its corresponding emotion word). If they find a match, they keep the pair and take another turn. If not, they flip the cards back over, and the next child takes a turn. This game continues until all pairs are found.
• Learning Outcome: Enhances memory skills while reinforcing the connection between facial expressions and emotion words.

Emotion Charades

• Materials Needed: Cards with emotion words.
• How to Play: Children draw a card and act out the emotion without using words while the other children guess which emotion is being portrayed. This game encourages children to think about how emotions are expressed through body language and facial expressions.
• Learning Outcome: Builds empathy and understanding of non-verbal emotional cues.

Emotion Sorting Game

• Materials Needed: Cards with various facial expressions and emotion words.
• How to Play: Create categories for different emotions (e.g., happy, sad, angry, surprised). Spread out the cards, and have children sort them into the appropriate categories. To add a challenge, include mixed-emotion cards (e.g., a card showing a face that could be both surprised and happy) and discuss why it might fit into multiple categories.
• Learning Outcome: Encourages children to recognize subtle differences between emotions and promotes discussion about mixed feelings.

Feelings Bingo

• Materials Needed: Bingo cards with different facial expressions or emotion words, and markers (e.g., chips or buttons).
• How to Play: Each child gets a Bingo card. The teacher calls out an emotion word, and children place a marker on the corresponding facial expression or word on their Bingo card. The first child to complete a row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) shouts "Bingo!" and wins the game.
• Learning Outcome: Reinforces emotion recognition and word association in a fun, competitive format.

Interactive Storytime​

• Materials Needed: A storybook with rich emotional content and emotion cards.
• How to Play: Read a story that includes various emotional experiences. Pause at key moments and ask children to hold up the emotion card that matches how they think the characters are feeling. Discuss why they chose that emotion and how they would feel in a similar situation.
• Learning Outcome: Enhances comprehension and empathy through story-based emotional exploration.