The Emotions Chart is designed to help young people to recognize and name their emotions which is an important step in the healing process. These charts can play a key role in helping kids with the See It! Say It! and Feel It! components of the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique. You can download the chart by clicking here or on the image above.

What Are These Emotion Charts?

These charts are based on the characters and emotions included in our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotion Cards and the forthcoming book 150 Emotions Every Child Should Know, By Age. Each page includes 30 different emotions, and are designed to introduce new emotions as the child grows older.

• Chart #1 (pictured above) includes 30 basic emotions every child should know by age 8.
• Chart #2 adds an additional 30 emotions children should know by age 10.
• Chart #3 adds an additional 30 emotions children should know by age 12.
• Chart #4 adds an additional 30 emotions teens should know by age 14.
• Chart #5 adds an additional 30 emotions teens should know by age 18.

How Do You Use These Emotion Charts?

These charts, like all emotion charts, can be used in a variety of ways.

• In a group or school setting, have the kids write their name on a post-it note each time they enter the room and put it on one of the emotions. There is no need to discuss why the child feels that way or why they chose the emotion they did. Remember, the purpose of these charts is not to spark a conversation but to let the child start to recognize how they feel and put a name with the emotion. Children should feel free to move their post it note at any point when their emotions change.
• In a family setting, put the emotion chart(s) on your refrigerator and use the post-it note technique above. Again, resist discussing the choice, but feel free to help the child as they get used to recognizing and naming their emotions. You can also put magnetic strips on the back of the charts and create a magnet for each member of your family that can be easily moved and reused.
• Encourage the child to tell a story using the different emotions on the chart.
• Flip pennies onto the chart and have the child act out the emotion it lands on (or use our Super Simple Feelings Management Technique Activity Cards to determine what the child has to do for the selected emotion.

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The Hopes and Fears Tree is colorful craft to help kids understand that no matter what they’re worried about, they can still achieve their hopes and dreams.

Supplies Needed

• Poster board or large sheet of paper
• Markers, pens or pencils
• Construction Paper (Green, brown and a variety of other colors)
• Scissors
• Glue

Making a Hopes and Fears Tree

• Cut a rough oval to serve as the dirt for your tree.
• Make a tree with branches out of the green construction paper.
• Pick a color, or colors, of construction paper to represent works. Cut out oval “worm shaped” pieces of construction paper. Don’t worry too much about the form of these.
• Have the children write things that the worry about on the worms and glue those on the dirt around the bottom of the tree.
• Cut out leaves from a variety of colors.
• Have the child write a hope or dream that they have and glue those to the branches on the tree.
• As your pasting their hopes and dreams on the tree, remind them that our fears and worries that we overcome can serve as fertilizers out of which our hopes and dreams can grow.
• Share your own personal experiences of where this has been true.
• Encourage the child to hang their Hopes and Fears Tree in their room to remember that our anxieties and fears don’t have to stand in the way of accomplishing our hopes and dreams.

SOURCE OF IDEA: We originally found this idea in the article The New Community College Try from the New York Times and adapted it for working with kids.

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If your kids are like mine, they like to look at themselves in the mirror. They like to make funny faces, and when they were younger it was uncommon to find them in the bathroom making themselves laugh by what they saw in the mirror. Mirror Mirror is a fun game that builds on that to help kids learn and practice what emotions look like. These are the important “See It” and “Mimic It” phases of the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.

Items Need to Play

You don’t need much to play this game. All you need is

• A mirror (one on the wall is fine for one child, but if you’re playing with a group you might want hand mirrors).
• A list of emotion words (our Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotion Cards or the My Feelings Workbook are great if you need help.)

How To Play

1. Name an emotion.
2. Have the child act out what their face would look like if they felt that emotion.
3. Have them say out loud the name of the emotion and what their face looks like in the mirror.

Alternative Way To Play

1. Use the I Feel Scenario Cards.
2. Select a card and read the scenario to the child.
3. Have them act out what their face might look like.
4. Have them name the emotion they see.

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Stress Balloons are a unique homemade alternative to the traditional stress ball that you can make with a child while talking to them about what is causing the stress in their lives. The instructions below use flour to fill the balloons. Use can also use rice, small beans or sand. These stress balloons can be a valuable soothing tool in a child’s Coping Tool Box.

What You Need to Make Stress Balloons

• A package of balloons.
• Flour (2/3 of a cup to a cup for each balloon)
• Funnel (or a water bottle)
• Pen or pencil
• Sharpie Marker
• Scissors

How to Make Stress Balloons

• Stretch out balloon (or inflate it to stretch it out).
• Put funnel in mouth of balloon.
• Fill balloon with flour (2-3 inches deep) using the funnel. Go slow, and push flower through funnel with a pen or pencil if needed.
• Tie balloon shut once filled with flour.
• Clip off any excess balloon material after tying.
• Draw different emotion faces on the balloons.

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The Color Wheel of Emotions provides kids and teens an artistic outlet for exploring their emotions. It also provides a golden opportunity to talk about those emotions with them. Although a simple exercise, the Color Wheel of Emotion hits on most of the aspects of the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique – particularly the “Talk About It!” component. And, the best part is, you don’t even have to be a good artist to do it. The color wheel above was done by my (at the time) 13 year old daughter Lyndsey.

Supplies

• White piece of paper or poster board.
• Colored pencils, crayons or markers.

How to Make a Color Wheel of Emotions

1. Have the child draw a circle on a piece of paper or poster board.
2. Have them divide the circle into eight (roughly) equal slices by drawing a + and an x on the circle.
3. Ask the child what eight emotions they would like to put on their Color Wheel. Feel free to assist the child in coming up with the emotions. However, you should avoid choosing emotions for them.
4. Write the name, or have the child write the name, of each of the emotions outside the circle on each slice.
5. Have the child fill the slice with a color, or color a picture or representation of each emotion in the corresponding slice.
6. Talk to the child about why they chose the emotions they did for the chart.
7. Discuss what they drew and how they chose to represent each emotion in the circle.

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A significant part of helping kids to deal with their emotions (Jump In! Stand Strong! Rise Up!) is helping them to develop a robust feelings vocabulary. That is why we are excited to present our very own set of Hope 4 Hurting Kids Emotion Cards.

What Are Emotion Cards?

Each of these 54 cards includes the name of an emotion, a face demonstrating that emotion, and a brief definition of the feeling. Definition have been taken from, or adapted from entries in the WordNet® lexical database of English. The emotions included in this deck of feelings cards were extracted from our upcoming book 150 Emotions Every Kids Should Know – By Age (coming, hopefully, in late 2018).

How Do I Get These Cards?

You can download a pdf file with the 56 cards by clicking on the image above or by clicking here.

Why Are These Cards Important?

These cards can be a vital tool in the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique. Specifically, they are useful for the the following components of that strategy:

• ”See It” – recognizing different emotions.
• “Say It” – expanding emotional vocabulary.
• ”Feel It” – recognizing how emotions affect their bodies.
• “Mimic It” – showing what emotions look like.

“Talk About It” – talking about their own experiences.

How Do You Use Emotion Cards?

The uses of the cards is only limited by your imagination. There are numerous ways to use these cards. Here are a few ideas:

• Use the cards in conjunction with our Scenario Cards (I Feel) cards and have kids match the emotion to a scenario or vice versa.
• Have kids group similar emotion cards.
• Use the cards with Super Simple Feelings Management Technique Activity Cards. Have the child select an emotion card and an activity card and do what it says.
• Use the cards to play Feelings Pictionary.
• Print out two sets of the cards and play the matching game of go fish with younger kids.
• Have the kids sort the cards in Emotions Sorting.
• Take turns selecting a card and talking about a time in your life, or a hypothetical situation, where you felt that emotion.
• Play the Row Row Row Your Boat Emotion Game.
• Play a game of charades with the Emotion Cards.
• Use the Emotion Cards in conjunction with Emotions Jenga.
• Play Leave the Room.

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With Easter coming up soon, it’s a great time to stock up on empty Easter Eggs. These Emotion Egg Faces are a simple, fun and captivating way to help kids learn about, and express, emotions. They can be utilized for several of the steps in the The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.

How to Make Emotion Egg Faces

• All you need for this craft is empty Easter Eggs, a marker and some clay or play-doh (optional).
• Draw a different emotion face on each Easter Egg. The eyes and the nose should go on the top half of the egg with the mouth on the bottom.
• Put a piece of clay in the bottom of each egg. This helps them to stand up better (you can see we used stands made out of pool noodle for the picture above)

How to Use Emotion Egg Faces

• Discuss the various emotions as the child is drawing them on the eggs. Explore with them what different emotions look like (in terms of your eyes, nose and mouth). Encourage them to show you what the emotion looks like on their face (perhaps showing them in a mirror) so they can draw it on the egg.
• Create Emotion Egg Faces separately from the child for the same emotions. Compare your Emotion Egg Faces with the child’s and explore how they look similar and how they look different.
• Encourage the child to tell a story using the Emotion Egg Faces. Help their story along where needed, but encourage them to tell most of the story.
• Finally, and this may be the most fun, mix up the top halves of the eggs with the bottom halves. Talk about what each new egg looks like and how they would describe it.

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The emotions paper chain is a fun craft you can do with kids and can be a crucial part of the Talk About It! component of The Super Simple Feelings Management Technique.

What You Need to Make An Emotion Paper Chain

1. Various colors of construction paper.
2. Scissors
3. A marker, pen, pencil or crayons.
4. Tape or glue

How To Make an Emotion Paper Chain

• Cut the construction paper into strips of equal width.
• On each strip, have the child write a statement in the following form:

I feel ______ when __________.

• Be prepared to offer suggestion either for the emotion (a deck of emotion cards or an emotion chart can help if you’re drawing a blank) or the scenario (use our Emotion Scenario Cards if you need help).  It’s important to let the child come up with the other part of the equation though as they learn to associate emotions with specific events in their own lives.
• Make as many strips as you want, and talk to the child about any scenarios they come up with where it makes sense to dig deeper.
• Once the child is done making strips, help the child to create the rings of their emotion paper chain (writing side out) and interlocking the rings by gluing or taping the ends together (we’ve had more luck with tape than glue).
• Help the child to hang their emotion chain somewhere as a visual reminder of what they have learned about emotions in their own life.

Variations on the Emotion Paper Chain

Like many of the activities here on Hope 4 Hurting Kids, you can modify the emotion paper chain in a number of ways to fit the personality of circumstances of the child you are working with. Here are some ideas:

• Color code the emotions so that you use red construction paper for anger emotions, blue for sad emotions, purple for fear, yellow for happy, etc.
• Focus on less pleasant emotions (anger, fear, disgust, etc.) and use something more temporary to bind the rings together (glue dots or putty work ok). As the child “conquers” the negative emotion or the situation that gave rise to it, help them to remove that ring from their paper chain.
• Encourage the child to pick a length of time equal to the length of chain they want. Cut enough strips for that period of time and encourage the child to focus on more helpful emotions (joy, gratitude, peace, etc). Have them pick one helpful scenario and emotion each day and add that to the chain. At the end of the period of time, discuss their paper chain and what they learned from the exercise.

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These Super Simple Feelings Management Technique Activity Cards are based on Hope 4 Hurting Kids’ Super Simple Feelings Management Technique to help with emotional understanding and regulation. They are designed to be used with a variety of emotions listings of games (see a partial list above) to help young people master the five skills involved in the  Super Simple Feelings Management Technique:

1. See It!
2. Say It!
3. Feel It!
4. Mimic It!
5. Talk About It!

There are nine cards for each of the five components that will help young people to better recognize, understand and talk about their emotions. The pdf file also includes a set of blank cards if you wish to add your own activities to the pile.

How To Play

• The game is simple. Have the child pick an emotion from any source or even think of their own (a list of potential games and activities for identifying emotions is included below).
• Pick a card and have the child act out or discuss what is indicated on the card for the given emotion.

Activities and Sources of Emotions for Game

• My Feelings Workbook
• Fidget Spinner Emotions
• Bottle Flip Emotions
• Emotions Jenga
• Emotion Color Swatches
• Leave the Room
• Feelings Pong
• Emotional Animals Dice
• The Feelings Beach Ball

Click here or on the picture above to access the complete set of cards as well as a blank set that you can use to create your own activities.

The Emotion Mix Up Game is a fun way to really get kids and young people thinking about emotion by having them imagine what it would look like to have a less obvious emotion in reaction to a particular circumstance. Although it is similar to the Feelings Ball Toss game, it adds a fun twist that will get kids thinking about their emotions and the scenarios that cause them.

Here’s What You Need:

• Last week we looked at the Feelings Ball Toss / Emotions Sorting activity. You’ll use the colored bowls and the balls from that game.
• You will use a set of the Scenario Cards (I Feel) sorted by color. The colors will hopefully match the color of the bowls. If not, you can improvise.

Here’s How To Play:

• Line up the bowls from Feelings Ball Toss / Emotions Sorting against a wall.
• Have the children line up (assuming a group of kids) and take turns trying to throw a ball into any bucket.
• If they miss, move on to the next child. If they make it, have them say the emotion associated with the bowl they landed in.
• Select the top card from the I Feel…Scenario Cards and read it aloud inserting the name of the emotion of the bowl landed in.
• The child has to act out the scenario using the given emotion.

You will get some natural pairings like “My friend tells a lie about me” and “Mad” or “I just got the best present ever” and “Happy.” The real fun happens when you get “unnatural” pairings like “We go on vacation tomorrow to Florida” and “Sad” or “A spider just jumped onto my head” and “Joyful.”

A word of warning: there are some particularly intense scenarios included in the I Feel…Scenario Cards which don’t fit with this more lighthearted game. You will likely want to exclude from the deck before playing this game or “edit as you go.” For example, this game does not lend itself well to scenarios like “My Mom and Dad are getting a divorce” and “My Grandfather just died last week.”

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