Feelings Circle: An SEL Kernels Practice for First Grade

Note: Click here to download and print a card version of this practice that can be added to the other SEL Kernels practices to make an easy-to-use hand-held collection. See the Brain Games pack for additional activities.

The Big Idea

• Coming together to talk about our feelings helps us learn about emotions and build our feelings vocabulary. Talking about feelings helps us to better understand ourselves and build stronger relationships.

Instructions

Choose a time to do this 15-minute routine (suggested: morning meeting, pre-academics, after recess).

• Gather students to sit or stand in a circle and greet them as they join. You might begin the circle with a song the class likes to sing together.
• Start by saying The Big Idea and then take a few minutes to discuss the following:
  • What are feelings?
  • How do you know how you’re feeling?
  • What do feelings feel like in your body?
• After some discussion, ask:
  • How are you feeling today? Ask volunteers to share why.

Must do

• Go around the circle and give everyone the opportunity to share.

Can adapt

• Use basic emotion words (e.g., happy, sad, scared, mad) or metaphoric expressions (e.g., weather metaphor: sunny, cloudy, partly cloudy, etc.), or rate your mood on your fingers (5 fingers = excellent mood; 1 finger = terrible mood).

After the activity, debrief

• What was it like to share your feelings?
• Are there times you don’t want to share your feelings?
• Can you tell what another person is feeling? How can you tell?
• Do animals have feelings? How do you know?
• What times at school or home do you need to share how you’re feeling?

Tips for success

• Allow or encourage responses in home languages.
• For those who might need extra time, share the prompt ahead of time so they can think about their answer.
• Allow students to share or pass on their turn depending on their level of comfort.

Over the year

• First grade is a time to continue building awareness of basic emotions and the words we use to describe them. A learning objective for the first grade year is to begin to help kids think about what they feel and why they feel that way (i.e., what causes specific feelings). There are no right or wrong answers; students should explore these ideas in an open-ended way.
• To start, focus on building familiarity with different feelings words. Use the Feelings Face Cards to support learning. Focus on the basic emotions first: happy, sad, mad, and scared. Show the Feelings Face Cards and discuss how each emotion looks, sounds, and feels.
• As students become familiar with feelings words, begin to encourage students to think about and describe why they feel the way they feel (i.e., what happened to make you feel that way?).
• When students are ready for more, begin to explore how we respond to feelings. Add into your circle time a discussion about how we can respond to others’ emotions in familiar classroom situations. Have the group brainstorm different ways to respond when others share their feelings (e.g., offer a hug, offer a listening ear, offer to play together, ask for help, etc.).

Source

This practice is part of the SEL Kernels project developed by the EASEL Lab at Harvard University.

Evidence That It Works

Young children who can accurately read facial expressions and assign an appropriate emotion to a situation perform better academically, have fewer behavior problems, and demonstrate greater prosocial (kind, helpful) behavior.

Why Does It Matter?

Knowledge about emotions is key to student success, and learning about emotions early helps students in the long run. Children must use these skills whenever faced with tasks that require emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal regulation. Emotional skills allow children to recognize how different situations make them feel and to address those feelings in prosocial ways.

Consequently, these skills are often fundamental to positive social interactions and critical to building relationships with peers and adults; without the ability to recognize and regulate one’s emotions or engage in empathy and perspective-taking, it becomes very difficult to interact positively with others.

Indeed, first graders who showed little knowledge of emotions were more likely to report feelings of loneliness, sadness, and anxiety in fifth grade. Teens, too, who score high in emotional intelligence have greater academic success, fewer mental health issues, and better attitudes towards teachers and schools.