Becoming a "Feelings Detective"

One of my favorite parts about my job is the opportunities I have to get into classrooms and teach lessons on various topics such as emotional health, feelings, how to be a good friend, bullying, safety, and a million other different topics. Currently, I am spending the week with my first graders, and we are talking about feelings.

Most first grade students know what feelings are. If you ask them what feelings are, they can rattle off happy, sad, and mad pretty quickly. Obviously, there are lots of other feelings for children to learn about a long the way, as well as how to recognize when someone is feeling a certain way. In order to accomplish that, both the group of students that I am working with and myself turn into "FEELINGS DETECTIVES"!

As soon as the kids hear that we are going to be detectives, they are already excited. First, we talk about what detectives do (they solve mysteries) and what they need to look for to help them (they need to look for clues). Then we talk about what a "feelings detective" does (a feelings detective uses clues, like someone's face, to figure out how they are feeling). After we talk about all of those things, I invite a student up in front of the group to role play what a feelings detective might do. I pretend to be sad and crying. The student typically always says "what's wrong?". I tell them that no one will play with me at recess. Every time I have done this activity, the student says "I will play with you!". Then the whole class talks about what clues the student used to figure out how I was feeling (my face, I was crying, etc.), and why it was important (so that he/she could make me feel better).

Next, I tell the students that I brought along pictures of some of my friends, and that we are going to use our imaginary magnifying glasses to look for clues in the pictures about how my friends might be feeling. We look at a series of pictures covering the feelings happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprised, and disgusted. Each time I show the students a new picture, they put up their imaginary magnifying glasses to look for clues. For each picture we discuss several clues that tell us how the person in the picture is feeling. For example, in the picture of the happy child, students point out that she is smiling, her cheeks are puffed up, her eyes are scrunched in the corners, etc. For angry, students point out that the child's arms are crossed, she is glaring, she is frowning, etc.

After we discuss each picture, depending on time, I would read them a story about all the different feelings, such as "The Way I Feel" by Janan Cain (get it here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Feel-Janan-Cain/dp/1884734715/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383765495&sr=8-1&keywords=%22the+way+I+feel%22), and talk about all of the different feelings covered in the story.

At the end of the lesson, tell the students that they have officially graduated to be being "feelings detectives"! And what graduation is complete without a certificate? I created a template for a "feelings detective" diploma and wrote each child's name on it. I call each student up individually and shake their hand and give them their certificate. This obviously takes some time, but it's worth it, because the kids are over the moon to be getting something that they can take home.

Here is a photo of all of the materials for the lesson:

 

 

I had lent my copy of "The Way I Feel" to someone in the building, so for this particular lesson I used the book "Beginning to Learn About Feelings" by Dr. Richard Allington and Katheen Cowles. (Currently unavailable on amazon.com).

The photos that I use are from out developmental curriculum called "Second Step", and they have several discussion questions and prompts, as well as explanations on the back of the cards. There is also a picture of the certificate, and an up close photo here: