Lesson 6: Emotions
Essential Question: How do I talk to someone who may feel happy, sad, mad, etc.?
Lesson Overview
1. Brain Warmup
2. Read Aloud
3. Modeling Activity
4. Group Activity
6. Brain Cooldown
Purpose:
- By learning about emotions and how to identify emotions, this will help students have conversations with others who may be having strong feelings.
Vocabulary:
- common emotions (happy, sad, mad, worried, etc.)
- body language
- eye contact
- personal space
Additional Book
The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
- This story focuses on a variety of social skills such as voice level and kindness. However the story emphasizes the emotion of loneliness or feeling left out.
Click on book for video of read aloud
Additional Lesson
Activities
Emotion Puppets:
- To discuss and practices strategies to use when speaking with someone with a strong emotion, considering use a puppet to model and practice. Being modeling a conversation between the teacher and puppet. Next, have students participate in having conversations with the puppet. The puppet with take on various roles of feeling strong emotions like anger, happy, sad, etc.
Brain Warmup: Charades
Purpose: This activity will help students build their confidence when standing and speaking in front of others. Charades encourages students to act out a word or simple phrase in front of classmates.
Materials: Charade Cards
Time: 5 minutes
Procedure:
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Students will sit on carpet or open floor space. Students will face the front of the classroom.
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One student will go at a time. This student will stand in front of the classroom facing the rest of the students who are sitting on the floor facing the student standing.
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Student standing will select a charade card from the pile. Charade cards can be folded and placed in a contain to make it easier to mix up the charade cards. Student will read the card and act out the word or phrase for the students to guess.
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Teacher can aide student acting out the word or phrase. Teacher can read the word or phrase and provide ideas on how to act out word or phrase if necessary.
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Student will continue acting out the word or phrase until the rest of the class guesses the word or phrase.
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Once the word or phrase is guess, a new student will be the actor. This process will continue until all students have had a turn to act out a word or phrase.
Note: Custom charade cards can be used for this activity. Charade cards can be geared toward social skills, academic skill, or any desired category.
Read Aloud: Crabby Pants by Julie Gassman
This read aloud focuses on a specific emotion, anger. Before reading the story, ask the students “who has ever felt angry before?” Ask for students to raise their hand if they have felt angry before, and then ask for volunteers to share when they felt angry.
After reading the story, use the following discussion questions to talk about anger, emotions, and how to talk to someone who may be having strong feelings.
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What does it mean to be crabby?
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How did you know Roger was crabby?
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What do you think Roger’s mom was telling him when he was in the naughty chair?
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Refer to the story for this question. Show students the page and reread that part of the story, and then ask for volunteers to share what his mom may have told him.
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Additional Resources
- The resource from Edutopia offers advice and tips on how to teach communication in a classroom setting.
'What Comes Next' Cards and Resource:
- This website provides more information on the Brain Cooldown Activity called 'What Comes Next'.
Modeling Activity: Conversation Brainstorm
Purpose: This activity is a discussion base activity to explore students’ options and tools to use when talking with someone who may be feelings a strong emotion. Allow for wait time and utilize conversation strategies like ‘Turn Pair Share’ to get students talking about conversations with others.
Materials: technology board,
Time: 10 minutes
Procedure:
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Students will sit on a carpet or open floor space facing the front board.
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On the SMART board, technology board, or large white piece of paper write an emotion at the top.
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Begin with Happy. Ask students to brainstorm what you would do or say if you were talking to someone who was happy.
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As students are brainstorming, provide students with an example of an action that you can do when talking to someone who is happy. An example is ‘smile to the person I am talking to’.
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Allow for students to contribute to the brainstorm. Write the students’ ideas and tips on the board or piece of paper for all students to see.
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Aid students in brainstorming ideas. Ask prompting questions like ‘should you talk to someone using a loud voice? Or should I use an angry voice when talking?’
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Other ideas of actions to do or say when talking with someone who is happy: wave, eye contact, ask ‘how are you’, ask conversation questions, and respond to questions in conversation. All these actions show that you are being friendly with person who is happy.
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Next emotion, Sad. Ask students to brainstorm what you would do or say if you were talking to someone who was sad.
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As students are brainstorming, provide students with an example of an action. An example is ‘listen to the person talking’. This action is important to show the other person that you care about what they are saying.
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Allow for students to contribute to the brainstorm. Write the students’ ideas and tips on the board or piece of paper for all students to see.
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Aid students in brainstorming ideas. Ask prompting questions like ‘should I use a happy voice if someone is sad? Or should I use a loud voice is someone is using a soft voice?’
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Other ideas for actions: use the SLANT model, eye contact, personal space, and respond to questions in conversation. Demonstrate actions to show you are listening and care about the other person.
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Complete brainstorm process for the emotion, Mad.
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Examples of Actions: listen, use the SLANT model, personal space, ask simple questions like ‘is there anything I can do to help’, and respond to questions during conversation.
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Complete brainstorm process for the emotion, Tired.
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Examples of Actions: listen, use the SLANT model, personal space, eye contact, ask ‘how are you’, and respond to questions in conversation.
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Wrap up the discussion by stressing the most important actions to do when talking with someone. The important actions are listen, eye contact, look at body language to identify emotion, personal space, greeting, starting a conversation, responding, and farewell. Considering discussing the importance of voice level when talking with someone.
Note: There is no one way to teach actions that can be done what speaking with someone who is feeling a strong emotion.
Group Activity: M & M Emotion Sort
Purpose: Students will refer to the conversation brainstorm to determine what they would do when talking to someone with a strong emotion. By knowing the emotion or having to identify the emotion, students will be able to practice how they would respond to strong emotions.
Materials: M&Ms (or other colored candies), small cups (Dixie cups) M&M emotion poster, emotion short stories
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Colored pieces of paper can be used to replace colored candies.
Time: 10 to 15 minutes
Procedure:
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Students can sit on the floor or remain at their seats. Give each student a small cup with a handful of M&Ms.
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Students will sort their M&Ms by color. Each color correlates with an emotion.
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Begin with blue, ask for all the students who have blue M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is sad. Ask for students to share what they would do.
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Second color is orange, ask for all students who have orange M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is excited. Ask for students to share.
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Third color is red, ask for all students who have red M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is angry. Ask for students to share what they would do.
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Fourth color is green, ask for all students who have green M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is worried. Ask for students to share what they would do.
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Fifth color is brown, ask for all students who have brown M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is frustrated. Ask for students to share.
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Last color is yellow, ask for all students who have yellow M&Ms to stand up. The students standing will think of what they would say or do if they were talking to someone who is happy. Ask for students to share.
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Once all students have shared, the students can eat the M&Ms or other candies.
Note: Utilize the ‘Turn Pair Share’ conversation strategy if there are lots of students in the class. Emotion short stories can be read to the students according to their M&M color to add a challenge to the activity. Students will listen to the story, identify the emotion, and then share what they would do or say to the person. The emotion short stories can be found under ‘resources’.
Brain Cooldown: What Comes Next?
Purpose: This activity requires students to reference the conversation map and respond to a sentence or question in a conversation. Students can refer to the ‘Conversation Map’ poster to aid them in deciding how to respond.
Materials: ‘What Comes Next?’ cards
Time: 5 minutes
Procedure:
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Students will sit on the carpet or open floor space. Students will sit to form a circle and all students will sit so that they are facing all the other students.
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One student will select a ‘What Comes Next’ card from a container. Student with the card will read the sentence or question said by a ‘friend’. Student will respond to the question asked or sentence said by the ‘friend’.
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Student who just responded to the conversation will pass the container to the student sitting to their right. The process of selecting a card, reading the sentence or question, and responding to conversation will continue until all students have picked a card.
