Color Your Feelings

In kindergarten and first grade this week, we explored our feelings by associating colors with each feeling.  By helping students identify different feelings they can experience, it helps lower anxiety when strong feelings start to take over.  We also learned that it's possible to feel more than one feeling at a time.

We started by reading Glad Monster Sad Monster by Ed Emerley & Anne Miranda.  On each page there is a different colored monster sharing activities he does that cause him to feel a certain way (happy, silly, sad, etc.).  There is also a fold out page that becomes a mask for the reader to wear, unmasking their emotion!  Students enjoy seeing me put on the funny monster masks that describe his current feeling and can relate to his experiences.



Next, I explained that we can think about feelings through different colors just like the monsters.  We filled in a large chart together that described each color in terms of an emotion.  Most of the students connected to the monsters and could remember every color/emotion combo from the story.

 

I had students think really hard in their minds which feelings they are currently feeling, then I brought out the The Magic Coloring Book of Feelings by Robert Bowman, Ph.D.  This is a great magic trick to bolster the presentation of feelings and how colorful they can be in each of us.  By holding your thumb at different positions on the book's outside edge, the pages change from uncolored to colored, then to completely blank, then back to uncolored.  I had students "throw" the colors they're feeling into the book, then I shook their feelings back out to them to feel, and needed their help getting my book back to normal. 



Finally, I gave instructions to students that they will get to color in their own body outline, just like the coloring book, with their emotions.  If they were feeling really happy, they would color a lot of yellow.  If they were feeling a little mad, they would color a little mad.  As students were coloring, I circulated around the room to validate and process their feelings that they've colored.  Most of them were feeling VERY happy and VERY silly, and we also had some that were experiencing a little bit of every feeling!