An "Emotional" Unit

Soccer, ballet classes, Gymboree, house renovations, party planning, vacation packing, OH MY. The balancing act of 4 continues, but at last I have found some time to check in & write a post.

For this week we started a unit on emotions. For toddlers/preschoolers this is a subject they are literally living, breathing, & working through on a daily basis. They are just beginning to understand the very surface of emotions they can experience & just starting to learn that it is possible to control & express them in productive ways.

I started this unit off by having the ladies take turns calling out as many emotions as they could think of & then we practiced acting out some of the different emotions they had named (They loved this part, prob because they could do some things they typically would not get away with like whining, screaming, etc-lol). After we stretched our acting chops for a lil' bit, we got into a book about feelings. I liked how the book explained how it is okay to feel different emotions, its normal, but it is what we do with what we feel that counts. Example, while it is normal to not always want to share (feel a lil' greedy), we need to learn to overcome that feeling with a more productive emotion like being caring & selfless (because that is how we would want to be treated).

After the story was completed, we proceeded to start talking about our day (the events) & the different feelings they might have felt throughout it. The girls began to see that really do go through a lot of emotions. We then went right into a worksheet I created where the girls were supposed to decorate a blank face to depict the emotion they were currently feeling & then I wrote out what they said as far as "why" they felt that way.

Aidann: EMOTION-Happy WHY-"I feel happy because we had fun at Gymboree and I love Jesus so much and Him blessing us with food and letting us watch t.v. sometimes"

Asher: EMOTION-Happy WHY- "I feel happy because I love Jesus and I have lipstick on. Ballet makes me happy".

Austin: EMOTION-Excited WHY- "I feel excited because of Gymboree & "Hot Dog" (Minnie Mouse".

This "emotional unit" will continue a lil' into next week, so I am super excited to get more into that later. Also, a previous post I wrote about emotions & tots in case you missed it can be found here. Have a great weekend all & a beautiful EASTER!