Our curriculums have never been so crowded and our classrooms have never been busier. And so, in an increasingly data-driven teaching world, it's become so easy for the social/emotional curriculum to get forgotten. If lessons don't appear (at least obviously) to cover syllabus outcomes, they can so often get pushed to the side because we feel such pressure to prioritise lessons that will give us tangible evidence of learning outcomes and student academic growth.
But in an age where mental health is on the rise and anxiety amongst children is at an all-time high, in an age where our kids are more stimulated but less resilient than ever, I want to argue that those 'life lessons' are the MOST important lessons that we can teach our kids. We simply MUST prioritise the less tangible but far more important social/emotional life skills that our students so desperately need. And this includes teaching kids about our primary emotions (and so-called 'negative emotions'), and building emotional regulation skills, so that they can learn appropriate ways to handle big emotions in everyday life - otherwise known as emotional intelligence.
As educators, we have the incredible privilege to equip the next generation- but it is also an enormous responsibility. We teach kids how to read and write and work with numbers. We teach them to create and innovate and dream! But are we also equipping this next generation to cope with the many curve balls that life will throw at them? We need to break down barriers and create classrooms where our kids learn to be vulnerable. We need to de-stigmatise mental health and demystify different emotions (particularly unpleasant emotions) so that our kids are resilient, strong and ready to take on life!
Using the "Inside Out" movie
Inside Out is a great tool to add to your repertoire when teaching young children about emotions, and helping to support their emotional development. Leading scholars on emotions have suggested that humans experience 7 main set of emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, contempt and surprise. Inside Out deals with the first five of these different feelings by personifying each emotion and showing how these basic emotions interact with one another.
The movie focuses on the following emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust. It is a wonderful way to demonstrate how all emotions have a time and a place within our lives, and how our emotions influence our actions and decisions. Learning to express emotions, build communication skills and how to be mindful of the emotions of others is an important step in developing emotional awareness in a young learner. And Inside Out helps to provide both younger children AND older children with the emotional vocabulary required to do exactly that!
After watching Inside Out, we complete loads of different activities to unpack each emotion. We use Y-charts and brainstorms to discuss what each emotion looks like/feels like/sounds like. You can books related to each emotion to help guide those discussions- I particularly recommend the 'When I Am Feeling…' series by Trace Moroney for helping to build emotional literacy.
You progressively add to an interactive display which includes your class definitions for each emotion (you'll find that students will contribute all sorts of different things to these definitions), and strategies that the kids suggest to manage each emotion. It becomes such a great addition to your classroom learning walls, which you can refer to for the remainder of the year.
These Inside Out emotions flash cards, picture cards and free printable feelings worksheets can all be found in the Freebee Library.
One of my favourite things to do is to also get kids drawing all the various emotions characters using Art for Kids Hub's amazing directed drawing tutorials on YouTube. It's another fun way to think about big feelings and their own emotions in a non-threatening way.
Joy
I always begin with JOY. The ability to find joy in every day is one of the greatest skills we can nurture in our kids. The first thing that we do is come up with a class definition of joy. We usually find that joy is linked to positive experiences, and is usually linked to a happy face!
Off the back of this, we do some problem solving by brainstorming some ways to help ourselves feel joyful when other less positive emotions threaten to overtake our brains. We talk about putting on rose-coloured glasses and how to turn negative thoughts into positive ones. Joy looks different for everyone, but no matter what it looks like, it's super important!
Anger
Next up is a firey emotion who can get in the way of finding joy sometimes. I absolutely love one kid's description of ANGER: 'it's like a fierce tiger roaring in your belly, who is really hard to control sometimes'.
The kids think about what makes them angry, what their initial reactions and emotional responses can be when they feel angry, what their body language might look like, and what helps them to calm down.
They add to their 'book of emotions' which is where the kids draw specific strategies that they can use when they feel each emotion. This will look different for every child - it's important that they identify the best ways to help THEM.
As you can see, these emotions lessons can also link in with your english lessons - encouraging children to write simple sentences or use descriptive language.
Sadness
Our next emotion that we tackle is SADNESS, which can often be one of the more painful emotions to experience. We talk about how it's normal and okay to feel sad, but how sadness can sometimes trick us into thinking that we are all alone (adults can experience this type of emotional vulnerability and emotional suffering too, so it's super helpful for us to re-visit this concept as teachers and parents as well).
We brainstorm strategies to help ourselves when we feel sad- this might be sharing how we feel with someone, doing something that we enjoy, or just spending time with family and friends, even if we don't want to talk.
Fear
We then move onto FEAR and look at how fear can look different for everyone- it could include sweaty palms, crying, feeling sick, or shortness of breath just to name a few examples. Everyone has a different window of tolerance when it comes to fear, so it's important to recognise what can trigger us to feel fearful and scared. We discuss how fear can sometimes paralyse us, and we brainstorm strategies to help calm our hearts and our minds when we feel scared, worried or anxious.
Disgust
Our final emotion is DISGUST. We find this emotion the trickiest to define and to brainstorm strategies for. But we have some great discussions about how disgust includes thinking others aren't good enough or putting others down… and as one kid once put it: 'I reckon disgust is probably the meanest emotion'. Kids just get it, don't they!
The Power of Inside Out
No matter how busy our classrooms schedules are, we all became teachers for a reason and we know that our job extends well beyond the curriculum that we report on. We know that our kids need to practise kindness and empathy, to learn to disagree with respect and grace, to own their mistakes, to make good choices and self-regulate. But where to start when teaching all of those important skills?! It can be very overwhelming, and so hard to know where to begin!
So, let me encourage you to start with Inside Out! It is an amazing resource for helping kids to begin to understand the beautiful intricacies of their brains and how they work, to be able to identify what their triggers are, and to develop the tools that they need to manage those emotions more effectively for the rest of their lives.
If you would like the emotional regulation worksheets and emotions displays which are mentioned in throughout this blog post, you can download them for FREE in the Mrs Learning Bee Freebee Library.
Click the image below to access your free printables today.
I also highly recommend the Trace Maroney series on feelings and emotions - each short story is a great way to hone in on specific emotions with small groups of students who might need to focus on a particular emotional regulation skill. Trace includes discussion prompts which could also be photocopied and provided to parents as a helpful handout to continue the discussions at home.
Finally, if you're looking for more powerful tools to build emotional literacy, check out The Hive's emotion flashcards and emotions tools.
One of our Hive Slide templates is an emotions check in, where student/s can select children with different facial expressions (linked with different emotion words) to identify how they are feeling. There are lots of different ways that you could use these slides. For example: as a morning or afternoon check in, to generate class discussions, or to play different emotion games.
Our thought-provoking discussion prompts, as well as our kindness prompts and gratitude prompts, can also be used to support positive social interactions and social skills. There is a matching set of cards which can be downloaded and used in the classroom as well.
