Fishing for Feelings is a fun game to play with kids to help them learn about emotions. With our template and a few magnets, you can create a game that will help preschool through elementary aged kids to Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up! Fishing for feelings is a great game to help kids start to master the skills included in the Super Simple Feelings Management Technique

Here’s how Fishing for Feelings works.

First download our easy to use template by clicking here or on the picture of the template to the right. Follow the instructions in the template for creating the emotion circles and playing the game.

We bought pre-made reinforced circles at Hobby Lobby and colorful magnets for minimal cost to make the game more aesthetically pleasing, but you can certainly cut your own reinforcing circles and use other magnets if you prefer. (NOTE: the link included for magnets are white as we found the color ones in our local store, but they are not available online)

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If you’ve lived with, or been around, any elementary aged children at any point in the last year or so, you are likely familiar with the concept of the bottle flip. The bottle flip is where you take a bottle about a 1/4 full with water and try to flip it and have it land right side up. My own nine-year-old is a self-taught expert and can land a water bottle right side up on an exit sign from across the room.

We’ve taken the concept of the bottle flip and developed a game that helps kids to recognize and talk about emotions. Here’s how Bottle Flip Emotions work:

1. First, print out the pdf template of the game. You can find it by clicking here. It’s designed to be printed on 11 X 17 paper (or similar size). You can print it on smaller paper if you need to, but it will work better on larger sized papers.
2. Feel free to come up with your own method of playing. We play that if you don’t land the flip you have act out the emotion the bottle is pointing to (alternatives include having the child share a time they felt that emotion or a coping skill they can use to deal with the emotion). If the child lands the bottle, they do not have to act out or talk about the emotion.
3. Mix up how you play
   • Make the children stand across the room, or
   • Don’t let the remainder of the group (assuming you’re working with a group of kids) see the results. Have the child act out the emotion and have the other kids guess it.
   • Have two children flip the bottles. The first one to land a bottle wins and the other child has to act out the emotion that the bottle lands on.

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The Feelings Beach Ball is an easy, fun and effective way to help kids identify different emotions and talk about when they have experienced those emotions in their life. They’re simple to make too, you only need a simple Beach Ball (you can usually get one for around $1.00 after the summer is over) and a black permanent marker.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select an emotion for each color on the ball.
2. With a permanent marker, draw a face which represents each emotion.
3. With a group of kids, or between you and the child you are working with if one-on-one, pass the beach ball around.
4. When the child catches the ball, have them identify the emotion on the color under their right hand (or left if you’d prefer). The child can answer whatever emotion is elicited by the face you’ve drawn on the ball. It might not always match what you had envisioned, but if they’re way off base you might want to gently assist in identifying the emotion.
5. For an added twist, have the child share a time in their life they felt that emotion, or might feel that emotion.
6. You can also discuss ways of dealing with any negative emotions.
7. When the child is done, have him/her pass it to another child or back to you and play again.

Here are some pictures of our Feelings Beach Ball from different angles:

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Sometimes it’s hard to get kids to open up about their feelings. Soccer Ball Questions if a great conversation starter and a way to get kids talking. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A soccer ball. You can find cheaper ones at places like Five Below. I would suggest a white and black one and one that isn’t overly decorated as it will leave more space for your questions. A volley ball works fine too and allows you to include some longer questions but has fewer spots for different questions.
• Permanent markers that will show up on your soccer ball. We used a regular black magic marker and a Sharpie white paint marker for the black spaces.
• Write a question on each spot on the ball. The questions we used are listed below, but feel free to pick your favorites and add your own. Based on experience, I suggest writing questions on about a quarter of the ball at a time and letting the marker dry completely before doing the next section (this helps to avoid smudging and gives you a way to hold the ball while you’re working).

Once your ball is done, the exercise itself is pretty simple. Pass the ball around the room or the table. As a child catches the ball, have them answer the question in the section under their right thumb. You’ll be surprised how well this activity brings even shy kids out of their shell.

Here are the questions we put on this ball (you could do a separate ball with questions for an individual emotion like anger, sadness or grief). You will notice that we used a mixture of emotion-specific questions and questions designed to get kids talking about things that might spark conversations about emotions:

• What is the hardest thing about being a kid?
• What emotion is strongest in your life?
• What would you do if you were never afraid?
• When do you get angry?
• How did you overcome your biggest challenge?
• What color describes your mood?
• What would you do if you had a “magic wand?”
• What makes you cry?
• What stresses you out?
• What is your favorite memory?
• Give 3 words to describe how you feel right now.
• Share something you fear.
• Describe a happy family.
• What is the greatest thing about being you?
• What is the best advice you ever received?
• Do you ever feel lonely? When?
• What do you look like when you get angry?
• Tell about a time when you hurt someone’s feelings.
• What is your biggest worry?
• If you could change anything in the world, what would it be?
• If you could have any superpower, what would you pick?
• Share one of the happiest days of your life.
• Talk about a time when you were very irritated.
• How do you feel when someone laughs at you?
• When do you feel sad?
• What is the best advice you ever received?

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This is one of my favorite activities when teaching kids (or adults) about emotions. Emotional Animals Dice is a simple game that requires kids to think about different emotions then act them out for you or the rest of group. The fun part is that they act those emotions out as an animal. We originally found this idea on the Sweeter than Sweets blog. Here’s how it works:

1. Find or make two dice. You can find solid wood dice at places like Hobby Lobby. We used dry erase dice which allows us to change the animals and/or the emotions on the fly. So, for example, if there is a particular circumstance or emotion a child is dealing with you can add it to the dice to make sure it comes up while you’re playing. You can find the ones we used on Amazon.com.
2. Write the names of six animals on one of the dice. Options may include:
   • Sad
   • Happy
   • Angry
   • Afraid
   • Loving
   • Stressed
   • Confused
   • Nervous
   • Lonely
   • Disgusted
3. Write the names of six animals on the other dice. Options may include: Continue reading

You might think that the anger and target practice probably shouldn’t go together. However, when it comes to kids taking some target practice can be an effective way of both venting anger and discussing a child’s anger with them so they can explain it better. Here is how this great idea, which we found originally on Little Birdie Secrets, works:

1. Draw a series of concentric circles on a large sheet of paper or white board to create a target. You can have the child make their own target if you have some time and let them decorate it however they want.
2. Have them write or draw things on the target that make them angry. As they do, talk to them about each item and how they’ve dealt with that anger in the past.
3. Have the child throw something at the target. Anything soft will do – you don’t want to break anything, but the physical activity of throwing something also helps to alleviate anger. Foam balls are a great option. I use the puffer balls shown below. I got a dozen of them on Amazon for around $10 and use them for a variety of activities.

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