Children Naming Feelings

Children return to school this week, many of them having spent two weeks off for the Easter break.

To gauge how the break had been for some of the children I work with, we spent time on different activities involving 'f' words, enabling them to talk if they wished about how they felt in the holidays and how they felt returning to school.

For the youngest children, I read "Sometimes I feel Sunny" with them. After a few pages, they realised that the child in the book was describing a different feeling on each page, so I began to leave the 'f' word off the end of the sentence - "Sometimes I feel...." and let the children excitedly suggest words based on the illustration. Even though they can read a little, they are still mostly relating to illustrations first for information in picture books, and were 'guessing' at the character's feeling. It seemed a fab, spontaneous way to extend their growing vocabulary of feeling words based on their own ideas.

A little later, I was working with some children who are 7-8 yrs. We were choosing The Bear Cards and using them to talk about issues/events/the holidays in a one step removed way. One little boy who often feels both excitable and anxious at times chose a bear which looked like it might be either cold or afraid with its fur standing on end. Giggling, he asked "What's he feeling?" I replied "I don't know? What do you think?....." I felt amazed as he giggled some more looking at the card and said "Electricky! I feel like this when I jump up and down!" Electricky - awesome; a new 'f' word I'll look forward to trying out soon

Love it! What a great feeling word

Thanks for this Judith. You are an inspiration that's for sure
Cheers from Di