Feelings Circle: An SEL Kernels Practice for Third 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 mindfulness or visualization activity.
• 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 does it 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.
• Expand feelings vocabulary by introducing more complex feelings words over the year (e.g., trepidation, shame, uncertainty, glee, enamored, elated).

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?
• What times at school or home do you need to share how you’re feeling? Why is it important that you do this?
• What’s the difference between [feeling 1] and [feeling 2] (e.g., sad and worried)? Do they feel the same in your body? What are some other words that describe [feeling 1]? How about [feeling 2]?

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

• Third grade is a time to explore the causes and consequences of emotions – for example, how feelings impact behavior. A learning objective for the third grade year is to begin to understand how feelings influence our thoughts, words, and actions, as well as those of others.
• To start, focus on building familiarity with different feelings words. Create a feelings word wall and add new words to it throughout the year. Refer to it when you’re reading, writing, or solving a problem. This is a way to connect feelings words to other times of the day and build a rich and sophisticated vocabulary. This works best when you use it often throughout the day.
• Throughout the year, encourage students to think about and describe how feelings impact behavior. Some ideas for discussion topics and activities:
  • Invite students to write about a time that feelings seemed “in control” of their thoughts, words or actions. What happened to cause this situation? How did it feel? How did you respond?
  • Invite students to write or draw a “cause and effect” diagram for different types of feelings. For example, “When I feel proud/shy/silly, it affects me in this way…”
  • Invite students to make a drawing or painting in which they associate specific colors with different feelings. Have each student add multiple describing words to each emotion.

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.