Learn About Emotions

Children experience big emotions long before they have the words to explain what is happening inside them.

Being able to recognize “I feel angry”, “I feel scared” or “I feel sad” is an important step towards helping a child communicate those feelings and learn what to do with them.

Learn About Emotions is a 17-page printable PDF activity book for children aged 5 years and older. Through matching, drawing, colouring, flashcards, discussion and practical activities, children explore different emotions while developing the vocabulary they need to recognize and talk about their feelings.

What’s Inside?

This resource introduces children to a variety of emotions and feeling words, including happy, angry, scared, shocked, sad, confused, shy, excited, crying, laughing, tired, amazed, furious and glad.

The activities go beyond simply showing a child a picture and asking them to name the emotion.

Children get opportunities to look, match, draw, colour, identify, count and talk about emotions.

The booklet includes printable emotion flashcards that can be laminated and cut out for repeated use. Children can then match emotion labels to expressive animal characters, helping them connect facial expressions and body language with emotion words.

There is also an activity where children draw facial expressions for different emotions such as angry, happy, crying, sad, shy, shocked, laughing, confused and scared. This encourages children to think about what a face might look like when somebody experiences a particular feeling.

More Than Just Naming Feelings

One of the strengths of this booklet is that it moves from recognizing emotions to thinking about personal feelings.

Children are asked to draw something that makes them happy and explore how different emotions might be represented through colour. They also match pictures to emotions and choose the emotion word that best describes different facial expressions.

The resource then takes an important next step by exploring anger.

Children are encouraged to think about how different parts of their bodies feel when they are very angry and what they can do to help themselves feel better. A practical activity introduces strategies such as stopping, taking a deep breath, counting to 10, doing a relaxing activity and telling somebody.

This creates an opportunity for a teacher or parent to have meaningful conversations with a child about emotions instead of waiting until those emotions become overwhelming.

Why Teachers and Parents Will Love It

Children do not automatically know how to explain what they are feeling.

Sometimes “bad behavior” may be the only way a young child knows how to communicate frustration, anger, fear or sadness. Giving children words for emotions can make it easier to start conversations about what they are experiencing.

Learn About Emotions gives teachers and parents a child-friendly starting point for those conversations.

Instead of asking a broad question such as, “What is wrong?”, you can use the pictures and activities to discuss what different feelings look like, what might cause them and what a child could do when experiencing a difficult emotion.

The booklet also combines emotional learning with enjoyable educational activities, including colouring, drawing, matching, counting and a symmetry drawing exercise.

Advantages of This Resource

• Introduces children to a wide range of emotion words
• Helps children recognize different facial expressions
• Encourages children to name and discuss feelings
• Includes printable emotion flashcards
• Includes matching and identification activities
• Encourages personal reflection through drawing activities
• Explores how anger can feel in different parts of the body
• Introduces practical strategies children can practice when feeling very angry
• Encourages children to seek help from an adult when needed
• Combines emotional learning with colouring and creative activities
• Includes counting and visual discrimination activities
• Includes a symmetry drawing activity
• Can encourage valuable parent-child or teacher-learner conversations
• Suitable for individual work or guided activities
• Useful for classroom learning, homeschooling and additional learning at home

Age: 5+ years
Pages: 17
Topic: Emotions and feelings
Skills: Emotion recognition, emotional vocabulary, matching, observation, drawing, colouring, counting, discussion and self-awareness
Format: Digital PDF

This resource also contains a Christian reference on page 13, where the rainbow and its colours are connected with God, new beginnings, making better choices and speaking to an adult instead of responding physically when angry. This is worth noting for parents and teachers when choosing a resource that suits their home or learning environment.

This is a digital, printable product. No physical book will be shipped. After purchase, download the PDF and print the pages you would like to use. Flashcards can be laminated and cut out for longer-term use. Printing, laminating and other physical materials are not included.

Helping children understand emotions doesn’t mean teaching them never to feel angry, sad or scared. It means helping them recognize those feelings, give them a name and begin learning what they can do next.

With Learn About Emotions, those important conversations can begin in a way that feels visual, practical and approachable for young children.