May 25, 2017 – Hope 4 Hurting Kids

Understanding Emotions

Teaching Kids Using Emotions Jenga

Emotions Jenga is a fun game you can play with kids to teach them about emotions. When children have a better emotional vocabulary, they are better equipped to deal with difficult emotions when life throws things at them.

Here’s how Emotions Jenga works:

Find a colored Jenga game. We found this one from Lewo on Amazon. If you can’t find a colored version, or just want to use the traditional version, you can use colored dots or write the names of the emotions directly on the blocks.
For each color make a stack of notes cards with a variety of emotion names on them. You can see the ones we used below. We found colored note cards at Hobby Lobby (on sale), but you could use white cards and just mark a color on them.
The child can pick any block to remove from the Jenga game. They then pick a card from the pile associated with that color. For whatever emotion they get, have them do one of the following. You can choose one activity, let the kids pick which one they one to do, or even use a die to determine which activity the child has to do:
- Act out the emotion on the card.
- Show what their face looks like when they feel that emotion.
- Share a time they felt that emotion
- Share a coping technique/something they like to do when they feel that emotion.
- Show what the emotion looks like in clay.
- Describe what their body feels like when they feel the emotion.