HOW CAN WE WORK FEELINGS WITH

CHILDREN?

(guide book)

Table of contents

Introduction .............................................. page 1

Calming down corner ................................. pages 2-3

Coloured feelings........................................ page 4

Feeling faces ................................................ page 5

Message targets........................................... page 6

Enumerating feelings ................................... page 7

Some more material........................................page 8

Interesting books............................... pages 9 to 11

Some sheets ........................................ pages 12-13

Some games ..........................................pages 14-15

Some poems................................................page 16

The following methods are thought to work in long term periods because

constancy is part of the progress. The depicted techniques have to be use

often (daily/weekly). So that children get used to them and start applying

them naturally.

CALMING DOWN CORNER This is a technique used with children from 3 to 5 and it`s very simple. It consists in letting the children go to this corner when they have something to express. Once there, children have two options; to choose one of the three faces that are glued in the corner and select the bottle they need. One of the faces represents an anger feeling. The second one means "I am sad" and the third means "I am good but I need to be by myself".

The same happens with the bottles; there are three: the anger bottle (water, colorant and soup for dishes), the angry feeling person can shake it to release the anger. Dreams bottle: (shiny powder ‘purpurina’, colorant and water), turn the bottle top down and dream. Relaxing bottle: (Fill 2/3 of the bottle, add colorant and put oil until the top), move the bottle softly until you calm down.

Children identify easily what they have to do and they begin using the calming down corner in everyday situations. When we see that children have the possibility to learn more feelings, we can insert the faces we feel necessary.

COULORED FEELINGS

This activity is designed to do as a ritual exercise every day. In infant

school, normally, all children who come to class have to take her/his name

card and move it to an especial place.

Taking advantage of this, we can do this exorcise without any problem and

without losing any time.

What children have to do is: select a colour when they arrive to school and

put the face they selected near their card. For that, all we need are three

different colours to express the basics feelings; happy, sad and angry.

It would be interesting at the beginning for the colour stickers to have

expression faces drown, so that children would identify them more easily.

This way, we can apply this exercise also with two year old children.

The teacher has to observe the faces they put and he/she have to act if

something goes wrong. This method is adapted for infant students and

although in the beginning they need help, during the course they will get

to do it automatically.

HAPPY SAD ANGRY

FEELING FACES This is an exercise to work feeling expressions in Primary school. For that, we are going to use expression faces and it is necessary each child to have the three faces in his/her desk. When I say expression faces I’m referring to something like this. They will have to value their feeling three times per day (during the morning, after the break and after lunch). The aim of this technique is to understand what everyone is feeling. The point of doing it three times per day is that if bad feelings appear they can notice what the reason was or what made them feel angry or sad... Thanks to this, teachers can help working on those feelings. The same happens when good feelings show up; they can get to know what makes them happy.

MESSAGE TARGETS

This practice is designed to be used from third of primary on. The goal of

this exercise is to write our feelings and to get confidence to speak with

other people about them.

For that, each student and the teacher also, will have two types of cards.

Some will be red and the others any colour we prefer.

Red cards will be used to express our bad feelings or things that we didn’t

like and the others can be used to express whatever we want. So, when

we write a card we have to deliver it to the person we want to know how

we feel (for instance, to the responsible of our feelings). In the case that

the reason to feel bad, happy, angry... is none in the class, we have to give

the card to the teacher and he/she will be responsible to manage the

situation.

When a student receives a card, he/she has to view who sent it to him/her

and if it happens to be a red card, they’ll have a conversation about the

problem.

In this activity the teacher’s roll is very important. We know that in these

ages these types of activities have the risk to become in a game; so, is

essential that the teacher should be the first giving importance.

RECEIVER:……………………………..

MESSAGE:…………………………………

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RECEIVER:………………………………….

MESSAGE:……………………………………

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ENUMERATING FEELINGS This is a method created by Steve Reifmand. He is a teacher and he depicts a numbering game in which children express how they feel using

numbers from one to ten (one being not good and ten being great). For this exercise, it is interesting all the children to be sitting in a circle.

A positive result of this method is that since children can see who is not feeling good, they try to cheer that child up during the day. I think that it’s an interesting method that helps visualize how everyone feels in a simple way. Thanks to this practice, all the children are involved in helping the rest. I think that is an interesting technique because it doesn´t take much time and you can apply it with all children that know numbers.

SOME MORE MATERIAL

In this part I just want to mention some other interesting materials that I

found during my investigation. I’m giving reference of the original version

since I believe that working with different languages is enriching for the

class. If the challenge of a new language is too much we always have the

option to adapt the material to the student’s mother tongue.

I would recommend to the teachers to analyze the provided material

carefully because in some cases the activities will need to be adapted to

the characteristics of the class.

INTERESTING BOOKS...

TO WORK ON DEATH

Sometimes we try to hide the issue of the death to children. It’s a difficult

topic for all of us and we sometimes forget that sooner we’ll need to

confront it.

For that, I propose some different books about death that can be useful to

help our children understand what it is.

They have to realise that it isn’t only a thing that happens in their house

and they have to know that the void they notice when something like this

happens is something natural.

So, it will be easier for children to express what they feel if they know

where their feelings come from.

Here are some interesting books to work on this.

SOME TITLES:

- REGALIZ, Silvia Van Ommen

- Adio, adio!, Pello Añorga eta Jokin Mitxelena

- Aitonaren txalupa, Mariasun Landa eta Eli Landa

- ¡ Nó es fácil, pequeña ardilla!, Elisa Ramón y Rosa Osuna

- El árbol de los recuerdos, Britta Teckentrup

- Una casa para el abuelo. Grasa Toro e Isidro Ferrer

- ¿ Què viene después de mil?. Anette Bley

- .....

TO WORK ON DIVORCE

Other topic that is interesting to work with our children is the divorce. All

children have a friend whose parents are divorced and commonly more

cases will happen during the course.

It’s a difficult moment and it brings many uncomfortable emotions; so, it’s

interesting to work on this.

SOME TITLES:

- El mar de rayas. Susana Barragues y Carlos J.Cecilia il

- Vivo en dos casas. Marian de Smet

- The Queen of Fire and the King of Ice

TO WORK ON POVERTY

Is a topic that nowadays affects lots of people. Many families have

difficulties to get money and many children have to coexist with it.

So, is important to speak about it and also to try to put across the

importance of charity.

SOME TITLES

- Un alto en el camino

- Carlos y el caballo

- Finales felices

- ....

- http://cuentosparadormir.com/infantiles/cuentos-de-pobres

TO WORK OTHER FEELINGS AND DIFFERENT VALUES

More short stories can be found in the following

link www.elarenmunduak.com or in the collection “

sentipuinak “. Apart from those “ Paula y su

cabello multicolour “ is an especial fairy tail about

a girl whose hair changes colour depended on her

mood. This last one is very useful relates everyday

happens with feelings that children recognize easily

thanks to the visuality.

SOME SHEETS....

ANGER MAP

This sheet is useful to work on anger with our

students. It consists on writing and thinking about

anger and realising what it creates within us. Also, it

can be interesting to help us being aware of how we

are and how we can avoid these situations.

I DON’T LIKE.... I FEEL LIKE CRIYING WHEN...

This activity is good for 6 to 8. They can express a lot without

writing when they feel bad and they can get to understand

which situations they don`t like. I think that the best way to

work with it is sharing what they’ve written to their

classmates, so that all of them listen what is annoying for their

friend and it can be an option to ward of future possible

troubles.

GOOD DAY...BAD DAY...

This exercise is designed for infant school or

the first curses of primary. There, they have

to express by painting what is for them a

good or bad day and what can be done to

improve it. Is an easy an interesting activity

and it can be useful to know better each

other.

LETTING Go OF WORRIES

Imagine that there is a tree called the Hug me tree. It is so big and has so

many branches that it can take away all your worries for you. Draw or

write about any worries you might have and hang them on the branches.

You can use the Hug Me tree at night to hang up your worries before you

go to sleep....just picture it in your mind!

SOME GAMES...

FEELING CARD GAME

For this card game we only need cards with some pictures which express

feelings. We can do different types of games

but I propose the “looking for the couple ”.

For that, they have to put all the cards

looking down and respecting the turn they

have to try to look for a couple.

When they find it, they have to say the name

of the expression or feeling they find and

save their couples.

VOICE EXPRESSION

This game consists in interpreting the picture we see with our voice. For

that, children and the teacher will be sitting in circle. The teacher will

show a picture with an expression face and children have to say the name

of the feeling adapting their voice.

“I HAVE A LOT OF POSITIVE CUALITIES!”

Each child has to do three pellets with green clay and one with yellow clay.

They will be sitting in a circle and they will stand up one by one. For each

one of the green pellets they have to say a positive thing they have and

with the yellow pellets they have to say something they have to improve.

After that, they will put the pellets in each box.

When finished, we are going to take the green pellets box and we are

going to highlight all the positive things we have in our class.

COLLAGE

We are going to collect all newspapers and magazines we can and we are

going to cut all the faces we think are expressing something. With them,

we are going to create a collage. We can do this in small groups or in a big

one.

After finished, we can use them to decorate the class.

SOME POEMS...

Poems are an interesting way to work feelings and also the language in

class. Here are some useful poems and we can find more in:

ILUNORDUAK ETA ARGILAURDENAK, Joxantonio Ormazabal

Ordu gozoak

ordu garratzak

denetik du bizitzak. Ez duzu behar ezpatarik

Baina gaur tori loreak zeure burua defendatzeko

eta utzi arantzak. Irribarre bat aski baituzu

armagabetzeko.

Urduri

alai

edo goibel. Bizitza,diote,

ikusi al duzu lau egun besterik ez direla.

zuhaitzik urduritxoririk barrez Eta nik diot

Edo harririk negarrez? Lautik hirutan euria izaten dela.

Ez zaitzala aterkirik gabe

Izan zaitezke zu ere harrapatu bizitzak.

behar denean Bestela….

zuhaitz

txori

edo harri.

Utzi pasatzen haizeari

gogor jotzen duenean.